Californians for Energy Independence
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https://stopfoolingca.org/front-groups/
stop fool ca
ab 32 implementation gp, califirnians for energy indep; care, alliance for ca biz, tank the tax, ca drivers alliance; ca mfg and technol assoc; californians against higher taxes; fed up at the pump; califirnians against higher oil taxes; fueling ca
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Info: Oil industry-funded front group [originally named “Californians for a Safe, Secure Energy Future”] focused on support for fracking, against oil severance, and against AB 32.
Members include:California Chamber of Commerce, California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), Independent Oil Producers’ Agency, National Federation of Independent Business/California and WSPA.
Contact: Twitter: @NRGIndependence
HIRED GUN Bicker Castillo & Fairbanks – BCF worked on No on Proposition 23 campaign in 2010.
HIRED GUN Sabrina Lockhart (PR)
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ca ~ higher oil taxes:
Status: Defunct (now redirects to Californians for Energy Independence)
Info: Oil industry-funded front group that opposed the oil severance tax (also known as “Stop the Oil Tax”).
HIRED GUN Redwood Pacific (lead consultant) – Spinoff of Goddard Clausen, which was a lead consultant in the Yes on Prop 23 campaign http://www.redwoodpacific.com/
Phone # on web site is the same phone # as for “Californians for Energy Independence”
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ca ~ higher taxes (ntbcw oil taxes]
Info: WSPA/CMTA/Chevron/CalChamber front group.
Contact: Twitter: @JobsNotTaxes
HIRED GUNS:
Redwood Pacific (lead consultant) – Spinoff of Goddard Clausen, which was a lead consultant in the Yes on Prop 23 campaign http://www.redwoodpacific.com/ (Redwood Pacific registered CAHT’s URL http://morejobsnottaxes.com.ipaddress.com; address on this letter is Redwood Pacific; see this case study on Redwood Pacific’s web site)
HIRED GUN Beth Miller, Miller Public Affairs (PR)
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wealthy Bay Area environmentalist Tom Steyer, who for weeks has been lambasting oil companies about gasoline prices, said Friday he was exploring another potential cudgel against the industry: ballot measures to tax oil extraction and require more public disclosure on pricing and supply.
Laying the groundwork for a possible ballot battle next year, Steyer said he was attending this weekend’s state Democratic convention in Anaheim to “talk to a bunch of people and see where they put this in their priorities.”
Ballot measures would require a “broad coalition” of support to be viable, he said.
Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, declined to say whether he might spend the millions of dollars it would take to get such proposals on the ballot and run a campaign to win voter approval.
California voters and legislators have a history of rejecting bids to tax oil extraction.
Steyer’s record of spending heavily on political campaigns has made him a nemesis of the oil and gas industry. Last year, Steyer gave $74 million to candidates who pledged to fight global warming.
He has also flirted with running for political office himself. He recently weighed, and rejected, making a bid to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Many political observers consider him a potential gubernatorial contender in 2018.
Meanwhile, he is an increasingly visible force in state politics: testifying in the Legislature, contributing to political campaigns and funding his own advocacy organization, NextGen Climate, which aims to fight climate change “and promote prosperity for all Americans” through political activity.
He recently called on the state Senate to subpoena industry executives to explain why prices surged in California this spring.
In Anaheim on Friday, Steyer and Jamie Court, president of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, released a memo on public opinion about two potential ballot measures.
One measure would impose a 10% oil extraction tax and dedicate the revenue “to making higher education affordable for California residents.” The other would strengthen “disclosure requirements for oil companies’ management of gasoline supplies and prices.”
Steyer and Court lamented refinery shutdowns, sometimes for maintenance, that oil companies have cited as a reason for price increases. The pair said there was too little public information about decision-making on the closures.
Some advocates of steps to address climate change have suggested that higher gasoline prices would be a good thing, an incentive to get motorists off the road. Steyer, however, called for lower fuel prices.
“I want to understand why Californians are paying up to $1 billion more to oil companies per month for gasoline prices than anywhere else in the country,” he said.
“To me, that’s a question about fairness to working people who have to use their cars to get to work, who don’t have a choice.”
Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Californians for Energy Independence,an advocacy group for oil and gas companies, said, “It’s ironic that a billionaire who is promoting policies that will cause energy prices to rise suddenly cares about what Californians pay at the pump.”
An oil extraction tax has been on the ballot before. A 2006 initiative would have imposed a sliding scale tax on oil pumped from the ground to fund a $4-billion alternative energy program.
Proponents spent more than $60 million on the measure, with nearly $50 million coming from a single backer, Hollywood producer Steve Bing. The oil industry countered by spending $90 million and warning that any tax increase would lead to higher prices at the pump. The initiative was defeated.
At least half a dozen oil severance tax measures have been introduced in the Legislature since 2008; all failed to reach the governor’s desk.
Gov. Jerry Brown has been cool to the idea in the past. Asked last year about a possible levy on oil extraction, he said it was not the time for new taxes.
And while Brown’s ambitious goals to combat climate change rankle oil companies — particularly his desire to cut motorists’ gasoline use in half within 15 years — his relationship with the industry has not been purely adversarial.
He has heralded the economic possibilities of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an extraction technique that critics have decried for its environmental ramifications. He signed a 2013 bill that would regulate, but not halt, the practice.
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Inconvenient mogul: Big oil's shadow war on billionaire Steyer
By James Nash, Bloomberg News (TNS) Aug 18, 2015 Updated Jul 5, 2020
Inconvenient mogul: Big oil's shadow war on billionaire Steyer
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, right, speaks during a news conference with consumer advocate Jamie Court, left, president of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Calif. on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015. (]
LOS ANGELES — Oil companies that bankrolled a $9.7 million effort in 2014 to block laws against fracking in California now are focusing their sights on Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge- fund founder turned climate-change activist.
The top individual political donor in the U.S. last year, Steyer has put millions of his $2.7 billion personal fortune into the cause, hired California Gov. Jerry Brown’s former top spokesman and challenged Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Watson to a public debate on gas prices.
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In its campaign against him, Californians for Energy Independence — whose contributors include Chevron, Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. — has been probing possible conflicts between Steyer’s business interests and legislative advocacy, attacking him in media statements as a “billionaire super-PAC king” and shadowing his public appearances.
“This is part and parcel of the way politics works right now,” said Bob Biersack, senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, which documents the influence of money in politics. “You have a small number of people who are making their presence felt in a huge way, and they become fair game.”
Steyer is part of this small but growing cadre of mega- donors whose influence has grown since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case lifted limits on independent campaign spending. Now, non-candidates including Steyer, the Koch brothers and George Soros are subjects of attacks, much like politicians.
The conservative David and Charles Koch have been the focus of at least three unflattering films and a KochWatch.org website with the tagline “Billionaires Corrupting Democracy.” The liberal Soros was featured in an hour-long Fox News television program, “The Puppet Master,” with conservative host Glenn Beck.
Steyer — who founded and ran Farallon Capital Management LLC for almost 27 years before leaving at the end of 2012 to focus on climate issues — backs a bill in the California Senate that would cut petroleum use in half, double the energy efficiency of buildings and increase retail sales of renewable electricity to 50 percent by 2030.
He worked on the bill with Kevin de Leon, its author and the Senate president pro tem, and has lobbied for the legislation. He also criticized oil refiners about California gas prices at a news conference with Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog advocacy group.
In July, Steyer hired Gil Duran, a former top spokesman for Brown, as a spokesman on California issues. Duran minimized his role, saying in an interview that Steyer had effective media- outreach aides already.
Last week, in a letter he made public, Steyer challenged Chevron’s Watson to an open debate on why gas prices in California have risen more than in other states. Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall didn’t say how Watson responded to the challenge, but noted in an e-mail that the company already engages in discussions about gas prices with politicians, regulators and the media.
NextGen Climate Action, Steyer’s super political action committee, has spent $729,000 on lobbying the California government so far this year, compared with about $100,000 in the prior legislative session, according to data from the secretary of State’s office. Oil and gas interests, led by the Western States Petroleum Association trade group and Chevron, have spent $6.8 million — including on lobbying against the bill Steyer supports.
Californians for Energy Independence says it has evidence that one of Steyer’s businesses, Kilowatt Financial, could make more money if the bill is passed. Steyer is listed as a manager of the limited-liability company in an April 2014 filing with the secretary of State. Kilowatt makes consumer loans for energy-efficient home renovations and is merging with another lender.
Sabrina Lockhart, spokeswoman for the energy-independence group, said Kilowatt stands to gain from the legislation because the bill mandates the renovations.
“He’s trying to shape policies and he’s trying to benefit financially,” she said.
Steyer’s spokeswoman, Suzanne Henkels, says he stepped down from Kilowatt last year and directed all his green-energy investments into a charitable trust, meaning he won’t profit from the company’s operations.
Steyer also was criticized for his opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline between Alberta, Canada and Nebraska. The national Republican Party denounced him in a Web posting for opposing the pipeline after Farallon profited from oil and gas investments, and invested in a company proposing a rival pipeline. Steyer still has vowed to back Democratic lawmakers who face attacks for voting against it.
Lockhart said Steyer “takes up a good chunk of my time.” She was in the room on June 12 when Steyer called on leaders of the $191.5 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System to consider divesting from fossil-fuel stocks. On Aug. 11, Lockhart sent reporters an e-mail calling Steyer a “billionaire super-PAC king” and asserting his criticism of higher gas prices is out of sync with his goal of weaning drivers off gasoline.
Her e-mail also noted that a July 2014Washington Timesarticle said Steyer used tax havens in the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Mauritius while heading Farallon. Steyer declined to comment to The Washington Times, and Duran and Henkels didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment from Bloomberg News.
“They are going to try to dirty him up,” said Court, a Steyer ally. “He is personally committed on a moral level to preventing a 4-degree temperature change that is irreversible, and he has $3 billion to pursue his passion.”
Last year, Steyer’s NextGen super-PAC tried to influence elections in several states by appealing to voters concerned about climate change. In Florida, it dispatched more than 500 staffers and volunteers to criticize Gov. Rick Scott’s energy policies and used a “Noah’s ark” to show the threat of rising ocean levels. Scott still won re-election.
Steyer gave $75.4 million to federal candidates and causes in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, almost triple the contributions of the next-highest individual donor, Michael R. Bloomberg, majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.
On Aug. 12, Steyer announced he’ll broaden his policy agenda to include “income inequality and middle-class opportunity.” In an interview at the event in Oakland, where he unveiled the “Fair Shake Commission,” he said issues related to inequality are linked to his environmental activism.
Lockhart of Californians for Energy Independence said before the announcement that Steyer “didn’t become a hedge-fund billionaire without getting a significant return on his investment,” and he could “take the same path in politics.”
Steyer has denied his efforts are intended to position himself for political office, even while refusing to rule out a bid. He considered running for the U.S. Senate before bowing out in January.
For now, he says the opposition won’t deter him and he’s focusing on his climate initiatives by giving speeches and meeting with editorial boards and policy makers in Iowa, participating in a panel on clean energy with business leaders and environmentalists in New Hampshire and joining a public clean-energy discussion in Ohio.
“I’m choosing to take it as a compliment that they’re taking us as a threat,” he said. “They’re making too much money if they’re going to waste it on stuff like that.”
(Alison Vekshin in San Francisco and Mark Niquette in Columbus contributed.)
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venture
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/oil-gas-industry-fights-new-regulations-in-southern-california/
asthma and depression]
The legal campaign
A month after the General Plan’s passage, seven different legal complaints were filed against the county seeking to halt implementation of the stricter oil regulations and other new measures.
In one, filed byAera Energy LLC, a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Shell and the largest oil producer in Ventura County, the company said regulations would adversely impact its operations on 4,300 acres in the Ventura Oil Field. The company operates active wells and production facilities within the buffer zone for schools and residential dwellings, and while the regulations only apply to new drilling, they “would prohibit Aera from maintaining or extending the productive life of those wells by re-drilling or deepening them,” according to its complaint.
According to Aera Energy, the county is at risk of losing millions in tax revenue and 2,000 jobs as a result of the new regulations.
The complaint also describes what Aera alleges was a lack of transparency in Ventura County’s process of gathering public comment for the General Plan’s Environmental Impact Review ahead of the Sept. 1 vote.
In an emailed statement, Aera spokesperson Michele Newell said the General Plan adds “unnecessary regulations on top of an already heavily regulated industry” and argued that the county risked losing millions in tax revenue and putting 2,000 people out of work.
Related legal complaints were filed on the same day by California Resources Corporation, Carbon California and Western States Petroleum Association. None were publicly available when Capital & Main asked an employee with the Superior Court of Ventura County for them on Dec. 3, and legal counsel for the parties did not respond to requests for the complaints. But SEC filings for California Resources Corporation and Carbon California indicate significant business interests in the county at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and a global oil price war in early 2020 crashed the price of oil.
...antiquated permits
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Ventura County’s board of supervisors delivered a second blow to local oil and gas operations on Nov. 10, when it voted to require environmental impact reviews for new oil wells drilled under decades-old permits that had previously evaded such assessments.
A 2019 U.S. Geological Survey found that petroleum-related gases had begun to migrate into the Fox Canyonaquifer.
Under the change, the county would conduct environmental reviews for new oil and gas activities on land for which companies have drilling permits dating back to the mid 20th century, but companies would have a vested right to continue existing operations on existing wells without such reviews.
The county began to contemplate the change after the United States Geological Survey in February 2019 found that petroleum-related gases from such operations had begun to migrate into the Fox Canyon aquifer underneath the Oxnard Plain.
There are about 2,800 active and idle oil wells operating in the county under 40 discretionary “special use permits” issued prior to 1966 that have no expiration date. Before the new regulations passed on Nov. 9, any new oil operations taking place under these antiquated permits only needed rubber stamp approval from the county. The permits also do not stipulate a limit on the number of wells that can be drilled per permit.
In contrast, wells operating under permits issued after passage of the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act must undergo a discretionary review by the county that examines environmental impacts. Only a certain number of wells can be drilled per permit, and they have expiration dates subject to review.
The new regulations altered both the county’s coastal and non-coastal ordinances to require discretionary review of all new wells in the county.
But almost immediately after the vote, a political action committee funded by Aera Energy and the California Independent Petroleum Association began paying people to gather signatures for two referenda that could overturn the new regulations. The oil-funded group, Working Families for Jobs and Energy Independence, contracted Griffiths Olson Company, a political consulting firm, to gather signatures for the two petitions.
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no lnx
https://www.bakersfield.com/news/oil-industry-resists-state-regulatory-action-by-making-drilling-personal/article_a4d74fae-2dbc-11ea-871d-eb653527bbda.html
kern County’s oil industry has learned the hard way that it may help to present a human face when debating regulations.
A local coalition funded by industry and followed on social media by nearly 11,000 people is calling on supporters to turn out for a Jan. 14 county Board of Supervisors meeting at which top state oil regulators will testify about the Newsom administration’s recent moves curtailing, and plans to permanently reduce, in-state production.
It will be Kern Citizens for Energy’s biggest public event since late 2015, when it attracted hundreds of mostly local oil field workers wearing stickers saying “I Am the Oil Industry” to a meeting where theboard approved a landmark overhaul of the county’s oil regulations.
Oil leaders have said repeatedly at local conferences that the industry needs to share personal stories conveying the value of oil field work opportunities to families. Their idea is to counter what has been seen as effective messaging from groups pushing for stricter air and groundwater protections and aggressive action on climate change.
Industry groups support a variety of informational campaigns and organizations. But none has mustered bigger crowds in the heart of California oil production than KCE.
The group’s central organizer, Tracy Leach, owner of Bakersfield’s Providence Strategic Consulting, said she anticipates hundreds of KCE supporters attending the 2 p.m. hearing at the Board of Supervisors meeting at its chambers downtown.
“As Kern Citizens for Energy our focus is on engaging Kern County and ... keeping (Sacramento officials) aware of what we believe here and what we know to be true on our security and economy and way of life in California,” she said.
The coalition, started and supported by financial contributions from local oil companies, has grown during the past five years, Leach said, as it tells its members’ stories and offers information about the economic value and safety of petroleum production and how most of California’s oil supply comes from overseas.
The group’s membership, she said, has been energized by the Newsom administration’s stated plan to begin “managing the decline” of in-state oil production.
“We can see a lot of unhappiness with the governor and that’s translated into them getting more involved with us,” she said.
[Antonio Guterres honored at Seton Hall commencement
General news | 1:19]
KCE could fit nicely with a plan the Board of Supervisors approved Dec. 10 to send a message to Sacramento about oil’s local importance to local employment and tax revenues.
The board voted unanimously to invite the oil industry to come make a public presentation about the impacts of new oil regulations. The resolution also called for organizing a coalition to tell Sacramento about the industry’s local importance and consider declaring an “economic crisis” over the state’s anti-oil actions.
Leach said county government has provided no direction to KCE.
County Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop noted state officials have been invited, and unofficially agreed, to speak at the Jan. 14 meeting in Bakersfield. Representatives of the trade groups California Independent Petroleum Association and Western States Petroleum Association have also been invited to speak at the meeting, he said.
Local environmental justice advocates have said they plan to be there calling for greater health and safety protections in California oil production.
WSPA spokeswoman Kara Greene said the trade group will send representatives to the meeting. She added that the proceeding “is a great platform for us to talk about the hardworking men and women of the industry.”
CIPA spokeswoman Sabrina Lockhart noted the group has actively worked, like KCE, to promote the industry at public meetings, including at county-level government proceedings.
One group it supports is Californians for Energy Independence, a statewide coalition that has pushed back on efforts to restrict domestic oil production, Lockhart said. That group, along with California Energy Workers and Careers in Energy, is intended to do similar work as KCE.
“We also want to make sure that our workers have a way to share their concerns about these policies that would put their jobs at risk,” she said.
FOR THE RECORD
This story has been amended to correct the spelling of Rachel Glauser's last name in a photo caption and fix the language printed on stickers worn by KCE supporters.
John Cox can be reached at 661-395-7404. Follow him on Twitter: @TheThirdGraf. Sign up at Bakersfield.com for free newsletters about local business.
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ab 32 implementation gp, califirnians for energy indep; care, alliance for ca biz, tank the tax, ca drivers alliance; ca mfg and tehnol assoc; californians aginst higher taxes; fed up at the pump; califirnians against higher oil taxes; fueling ca
cmta calif mfg technol assoc
Status: Dormant
Spawned: 2006
Info: The ironically named group works to kill AB 32. It’s a c4, meaning they don’t have to reveal their funding, but the principle organizations running AB32IG are the California Chamber of Commerce, CMTA and WSPA.
Contact: @AB32_IG
stop fooling ca
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Info: Oil industry-funded front group [originally named “Californians for a Safe, Secure Energy Future”] focused on support for fracking, against oil severance, and against AB 32.
Members include: California Chamber of Commerce, California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), Independent Oil Producers’ Agency, National Federation of Independent Business/California and WSPA.
Contact: Twitter: @NRGIndependence
HIRED GUN Bicker Castillo & Fairbanks – BCF worked on No on Proposition 23 campaign in 2010.
HIRED GUN Sabrina Lockhart (PR)
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Info: WSPA/CMTA/Chevron/CalChamber front group.
Contact: Twitter: @JobsNotTaxes
HIRED GUNS:
Redwood Pacific (lead consultant) – Spinoff of Goddard Clausen, which was a lead consultant in the Yes on Prop 23 campaign http://www.redwoodpacific.com/ (Redwood Pacific registered CAHT’s URL http://morejobsnottaxes.com.ipaddress.com; address on this letter is Redwood Pacific; see this case study on Redwood Pacific’s web site)
HIRED GUN Beth Miller, Miller Public Affairs (PR)
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oil taxes
Status: Defunct (now redirects to Californians for Energy Independence)
Info: Oil industry-funded front group that opposed the oil severance tax (also known as “Stop the Oil Tax”).
HIRED GUN Redwood Pacific (lead consultant) – Spinoff of Goddard Clausen, which was a lead consultant in the Yes on Prop 23 campaign http://www.redwoodpacific.com/
Phone # on web site is the same phone # as for “Californians for Energy Independence”
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Status: Defunct (now redirects to Californians for Energy Independence)
Info: Oil industry-funded front group that opposed the oil severance tax (also known as “Stop the Oil Tax”).
HIRED GUN Redwood Pacific (lead consultant) – Spinoff of Goddard Clausen, which was a lead consultant in the Yes on Prop 23 campaign http://www.redwoodpacific.com/
Phone # on web site is the same phone # as for “Californians for Energy Independence”
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