Exposing an Energy Front Group

At the end of twenty twenty, residents in the coastal California town of Santa Barbara were getting a bunch of weird notifications on their phones.

These just spam texts out of nowhere that say, you know, urgent alert, Santa Barbara City is going to ban gas and destroy the grid and drive up energy prices. Contact them immediately.

That's Katie Davis, who runs the local chapter of the Sierra Club, talking to the podcast A Matter of Degrees last year. The show is co hosted by Leah Stokes, an energy policy expert and author of a book about corrupt utilities called short Circuiting Policy, who we heard from last episode. Stokes also happens to be a p professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and lives in town.

One thing Katie and I both noticed is that the first round of text messages were totally anonymous.

There was nothing saying this is from such and such group. It was really sketchy.

They seemed to have hit everyone in Santa Barbara because a lot of people we know got them, even the city council members got them. A lot of people were misinformed by it.

It was really misleading.

The text messages directed recipients to go to the website of something called Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions or C four bees, where they could write to the Santa Barbara City Council to oppose the measure. Mike Campbell wanted to know exactly who was behind this effort.

I'm a program manager at the Public of the KITS Office.

That's an office inside the California Public Utilities Commission, which is the state agency that regulates privately owned public utilities. I know that sounds weird, but yes, it's a thing. Campbell's office keeps an eye out for predatory behavior and makes sure that utilities are treating their customers fairly. At the time, Campbell was already investigating the gas utility in Santa Barbara, so cal Gas.

We have been looking at so Cal Gas's activities as it relates to their efforts to undermine impede thwart. Choose your synonym California's GHG goals, that's the state's greenhouse gas reduction goals, particularly as it relates to their interest in maintaining a high level of gas usage and making sure that the number of gas customers continues to grow.

Campbell discovered how so Cal Gas was going about trying to undermine new policy efforts that would reduce reliance on gas, and he realized that not only had the utility been marketing and lobbying against measures that would reduce the amount of gas they could sell.

They have been trying to have their customers pay for it.

By it there, he means the lobbying and marketing so Cal Gas's customers were footing at least part of the bill for these efforts.

And they have also worked to try to obscure some of the lobbying efforts they have had by creating front groups and not being transparent about entities that they hire to speak on their behalf.

Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions the group that was texting Santa Barbara residents about a proposed gas found there was just such a group, and the chair of the group at the time was a guy you might remember from episode one, Eric Hoffman. He was the one who sent San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon that email threatening a COVID super spreader event if the city council went forward with its vote on a gas band.

So as we started to get momentum in building electrification, this group emerged. It was probably early twenty nineteen, called Californias for Balanced Energy Solutions.

Matt Vespa is an attorney with Earth Justice. This is him talking on the podcast A Matter of Degrees.

It had a glossy website. It was just very professional. It had a number of members, you know, sort of coalition partners. It wasn't really clear who was really behind this. From the website, it was clearly of some kind of front group. It was just like so high budget and so polished. It was just not something that was remote aggress roots obviously, and I think it just kind of came out of nowhere. And also like what does a

Name, and it's illegal activity included way more than just those unwanted text messages in Santa Barbara. That's the story we're going to get into In today episode Welcome Back to Drill, Season six, Part two, The New Climate Villains. I'm Amy Westervelt Today anatomy of a front group that story coming up after this quick break.

There's two time periods.

One is where they're violating the Commission's policies, undermining codes and standards.

This is Mike Campbell again with the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advocates Office. He says to understand the full context around Californians for balanced energy solutions C four bees, you have to see it as part of a pattern of SOCAW gas breaking rules, which according to King, goes back a few years back before the Electrify Everything movement really took hold and gas bands started to sweep the state. That history starts with so called gases participation in a

So you know, to make your hot water heater use less gas, to make your furnace use less gas, and your dishwasher what have you? And we in looking at socol gases and other utility applications where they were seeking the commissions approval for their various energy efficiency activities.

We uncovered evidence that socol.

Gas was taking the customer's money, but then they were spending it to actually not promote stronger cosy standards.

They were doing the opposite.

In other words, so cal Gas was using a program that was supposed to allow utilities to basically charge their customers for various efforts that would improve energy efficiency, and instead used it to fund efforts working against energy efficiency. Campbell's office compiled evidence of this and presented it to the California Public Utilities Commission in a hearing in twenty eighteen. The commission found the evidence compelling and barred SoCal Gas

The utility trying to mislead or fly or hide data or information from the regulator is a violation of the Commission's Rule one point one.

It's rule one for a reason.

It's pretty important and pretty basic for being a regulated utility.

And that behavior rolled right on into the utility's fight against electrification. So Cal Gas was threatened by a wave of gas bands proposed in its territory, and let's be real here, these bands are a threat. While some territories have utilities that combine electricity and gas, making them less likely to protest electrification, that's not the case in southern California. So Cal Gas, as its name suggests, only deals in gas.

Southern California like I do, and you have gas in your home, which I currently do until I get my permits to remove the gas from my home, you are a captured customer of so Cow Gas. You have to pay them money.

They're a monopoly utility. And then in January twenty twenty one, the Santa Barbara City Council was ready to vote on a policy that would shake that monopoly stronghold. The measure we discussed at the beginning of this episode, which would mandate that new buildings had to be connected to electricity, not gas.

MSS Clerk, if you would read into the record.

S Madam Mayor, already there we go, Item eight Energy Code amendments for new buildings. After the presentation of the policy, the City Council opened up the meeting for public comment. And you probably won't be surprised at who spoke up in opposition.

Can you hear me?

Yes?

Thank you, Tim Mahoney. Socow Gas and we are a long term energy provider in Santa Barbara, committed to working with the city and other groups to achieve the goals of reduced emissions and create a more sustainable city.

Yep, so cow Gas with a seemingly green argument.

Let me highlight just a few important points. To successfully achieve carbon neutrality, we need carbon neutral fuels and gas infrastructure to deliver those fuels. So so col Gas is an industry leader in increasing the flow of renewable gases that can be delivered via the existing gas infrastructure.

There's that renewable natural gas plan. Again, we've discussed this in previous episodes, but here's Charlie Spats from the Energy Policy Institute with a quick refresher.

Renewable natural gas. It's a brilliant marketing term that the gas industry has created, and essentially they're referring to biomethane.

The capture of methane from landfills, sewage plants, or agricultural feed lots. Renewable natural gas is not really a viable way to achieve decarbonization because it could only ever supply at most about sixteen percent of the current demand for gas, but Spat says the gas industry is using the idea to try to lock in gas infrastructure.

They are looking to provide their own solutions, which essentially mean continuing to use natural gas indefinitely. That's where we hear the term renewable natural gas come up.

Now back to Santa Barbara City Council, where sokel Gas is. Local pr guide Tim Mahoney was selling renewable gas in an effort to tank the city's proposed gas band.

Now, renewable natural gas is currently the only negative carbon fuel, and experts agree it is needed to decarbonizized buildings.

The council was not swayed by the renewable natural gas pitch and voted unanimously in favor of the gas band that night, but they'd have to vote again in July to make it stick, which was plenty of time for that scrappy fake citizens group Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions, or C four BES to do its thing. Despite the group's efforts, though, on July twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, Santa Barbara officially passed the ban on gas in new buildings.

In the building decarbonization proceeding. There are various parties in the preceding We were a party, so cal Gas was a part, Utilities were party, and then this new organization out of nowhere, the C four BS asked the Commission for the right to become a party, and so Sierra Club alleged that C four BS was not an independent party, they were a front group for so cal Gas.

We thought that was a pretty serious allegation.

According to Campbell. So cal Gas, however, was not forthcoming with data and information, at least initially.

Well, we kept digging and low and bullhold.

Not only was so cal Gas paying for the creation of C four bes and was instrumental in pretty much every aspect of its operation.

Campbell's team also figured out who was really footing the bill for C four bees. It turns out so cal Gas had taken some pretty unusual steps.

They had charged the costs for that to customer funded accoun.

It was so called Gas's customers unwittingly funding a.

Front group, and that is not a small thing.

It's very clear in Commission rules that utilities may not charge their customers for lobbying, and lobbying.

Is different than educating.

SoCal Gas has tried to pretend that this was a gray area and they were just engaged in education.

Campbell's office investigated further to try to figure out exactly what sokel Gas was charging customers for. When I spoke with him back in twenty twenty one, the Commission had just affirmed his office's broad discovery rights, meaning they could request all sorts of documentation from so cal Gas. Though SoCal Gas had tried to argue it didn't have to cooperate with the investigation because of First Amendment rights and

There was you know, a variety of front group activity, likely associated with the Southern California Gas Company, to bring a variety of different spokespeople, paid spokespeople, or essentially people off the street to you know, Parie a message that was oppositional to electrification.

They found the jobs through indeed dot com and they were actually advertised as environmental fellowships.

Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. Our producer is Jules Bradley. Our editor of this season is Jude Joffy Block sound design, mixing, mastering and original music throughout this episode, including our new theme song by Peter Duff, fact checking by weed an Yan. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. Our artwork is by Matt Fleming, and of course the show is reported and