[Plura-list] SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rule

[Cory Doctorow]

Read today's issue online at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

Today's links

* SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules: And then fraudulently billed it all to their customers.

* Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

* This day in history: 2008, 2018, 2022

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

👨🏿‍🌾 SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby *against our own survival*:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a *superb* investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the *Sacramento Bee*, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their *shareholders*, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association  and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million - and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the *Bee* that Hernandez's work for him is *pro bono* and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a *flood* of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the *LA Times*, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.


_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

👨🏿‍🌾 Hey look at this

* Low interest rates and loneliness: the origins of the pandemic crypto boom https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/18/23836104/this-is-not-financial-advice-easy-money-ben-mckenzie-review

* BB 462222312 https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2023/08/bb-462222312.html

* ‘Don’t You Remember Me?’ The Crypto Hell on the Other Side of a Spam Text https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-17/my-crypto-hell-journey-started-with-a-wrong-number-scam-text (h/t Naked Capitalism)

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

👨🏿‍🌾 This day in history

#15yrsago TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/2008/08/grounded_muslim_airline_pilot.html

#15yrsago McCain staffer slams Dungeons and Dragons players https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/08/mccain-blogger-dd-players-pro-obama-not-chaotic-neutral/

#15yrsago Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White — absolutely extraordinary comic fuses manga and French comics in a story of violence and lost boys in a surreal Japanese cityscape https://memex.craphound.com/2008/08/19/tekkonkinkreet-black-white-absolutely-extraordinary-comic-fuses-manga-and-french-comics-in-a-story-of-violence-and-lost-boys-in-a-surreal-japanese-cityscape/

#10yrsago Bullshit jobs: why we’re not all working 4h days https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

#10yrsago The Internet Police: How Crime Went Online, and the Cops Followed https://memex.craphound.com/2013/08/19/the-internet-police-how-crime-went-online-and-the-cops-followed/

#1yrago The Business Roundtable's climate plan was killed by its arch-rival, the Business Roundtable https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/19/handmaidens-to-extinction/#deeds-not-words

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

👨🏿‍🌾 Colophon

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing:

* A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

* Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

* The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024

* Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

* Moral Hazard, a short story for MIT Tech Review's 12 Tomorrows. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (audiobook outtake) https://craphound.com/news/2023/08/01/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-audiobook-outtake/

Upcoming appearances:

* San Diego Union Tribune Festival of Books, Aug 19
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

* Burning Man Center Camp, 1430h, Aug 29
https://playaevents.burningman.org/2023/playa_events/03/

* EFF Awards (San Francisco), Sept 14
https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023

* An Evening with VE Schwab (Des Moines), Oct 2
https://www.thecabinidaho.org/all-events/ve-schwab

* 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing keynote (Minneapolis), Oct 16
https://cscw.acm.org/2023/index.php/keynotes/

Recent appearances:

* New Books Network
https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-internet-con

* Haunted Mansion Ghost Post Panel Live From Midsummer Scream
https://dizneycoasttocoast.libsyn.com/haunted-mansion-ghost-post-panel-live-from-midsummer-scream-disney-podcast-episode-1027

* how big tech makes the internet worse (What's Gonna Happen)
https://www.stitcher.com/show/what-s-gonna-happen/episode/how-big-tech-makes-the-internet-worse-with-cory-doctorow-305645071

Latest books:

* "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

* "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59 (print edition: https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

* The Internet Con: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech, Verso, September 2023

* The Lost Cause: a post-Green New Deal eco-topian novel about truth and reconciliation with white nationalist militias, Tor Books, November 2023

This work - excluding any serialized fiction - is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

(Latest Medium column: "Enshitternet: The old, good internet deserves a new, good internet" https://doctorow.medium.com/enshitternet-c1d4252e5c6b)

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_0xBF3D9110957E5F4C.asc
Type: application/pgp-keys
Size: 4820 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP public key
URL: <http://mail.flarn.com/pipermail/plura-list/attachments/20230819/ebb9ac71/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 840 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.flarn.com/pipermail/plura-list/attachments/20230819/ebb9ac71/attachment.sig>