A state investigation into the country's largest natural gas utility is steadily piecing together details of how the company may have cloaked its advocacy by recruiting local politicians and minority groups to promote fossil fuels at California ports, according to people familiar with the probe and documents obtained by POLITICO.
Southern California Gas was already facing accusations of charging customers for its advocacy at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, which have long worked to reduce their air pollution. But public misrepresentations of campaign efforts may be against the law, and state utility watchdogs are examining whether SoCalGas acted unlawfully in its lobbying efforts as the company fights the state's transition away from oil and gas.
The Public Advocates Office, an independent branch of the California Public Utilities Commission, launched an investigation last year when it found SoCalGas spent ratepayer dollars to start a group opposed to cities phasing out or banning natural gas in new buildings. The company "is working to undermine state policy through lobbying and other efforts to misinform the public and encourage the continued usage of natural gas," the PAO wrote this summer.
The PAO probe has since widened to include other SoCalGas activities, including the company's relationship with Imprenta Communications Group, a public affairs firm focused on issues in minority communities.
Three years ago, SoCalGas and Imprenta recruited Latino and Asian American politicians to support natural gas-fueled "near-zero emission" trucks, rather than electric ones favored by environmentalists.
Newly obtained internal company emails show SoCalGas worked with Imprenta throughout 2017 to enlist politicians of color ahead of a key climate vote by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest in the country, as they sought to reduce emissions from ships, trucks and other infrastructure.
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— Imprenta helped SoCalGas start Californians For Balanced Energy Solutions, or C4BES, the group focused on natural gas bans in new buildings. It also created a campaign called Advanced Clean Trucks Now Los Angeles — or ACT Now L.A. — which said the ports should endorse off-the-lot "near-zero" trucks over zero-emission vehicles.
— SoCalGas and Imprenta wrote a speech for then-Montebello Mayor Vivian Romero to give at an October 2017 press conference on near-zero trucks, according to email correspondence between the company and the PR firm. They also wrote a November 2017 op-ed under the names of Romero and two other elected officials — current South Gate Mayor Maria Davila and current San Gabriel Council Member Jason Pu — that ran in the Orange County Register one day before the ports vote.
— Two high-level SoCalGas employees, George Minter and Ken Chawkins, coordinated much of the utility's alleged ports campaign, emails show, and left the company earlier this year. Minter, Chawkins and former SoCalGas CEO Bret Lane, who retired in June, did not respond to requests for comment.
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