[Community Rights Network] FW: [unfrack-california] How Big Oil Bought Sacramento (Counterpunch)

[Shannon Biggs]

HI all, 

I saw some folks had forwarded questions about why we need local legislation
related to fracking.

In response to the question about ³will the state ban fracking?² over the
last 2 years a total of 12 bills have been put forward to address fracking,
including a moratorium.  ALL died in committee but one, SB4, which came out
looking more like a pro-fracking regulatory bill than anything else. So much
so that half a dozen campaigns aimed at the state changed course and began
working at the local level.  The only way we will pressure our state to ban
fracking is by taking it on at the community level ­ asking has not helped.
This is even more true of the work we¹re doing ­ we are not saying ban
fracking ­ we¹re saying local communities have the right to make decisions
about water protection ­ including banning fracking.

The article below shows the power of big oil at the state level, and Chevron
made $1M contribution to Gov Brown also. You may find you want to use some
of this information below in your talking points about WHY we must take on
protecting water locally ­ because big money is seeping into the pockets of
decisionmakers ­ whether its pesticides, GMOs, agribusiness, water bottling,
or drilling.  We counter that by putting decisions in the hands of people
who must live with policies at home, not special interests in Sacramento.

To answer the questions why do we need a fracking ban if the state will do
it (and how to message the quest to return the answers back to RIGHTS).
1. The only thing that will ensure the state will act is when the people
assume the power for themselves. We have to lead at the local elvel, not
just ask.  
2. This isn¹t a fracking ban ­ this is a community rights ordinance that
says the decision about fracking in Mendocino isn¹t the state¹s to make or
not, it is up to us to protect local water, and we won¹t be fracked no
matter what the state says.

Power to the people.

Onward friends, 
Shannon 



------ Forwarded Message
From: Jillian Johnson <cookiesinheaven at gmail.com>
Reply-To: "unfrack-california at googlegroups.com"
<unfrack-california at googlegroups.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:04:45 -0700 (PDT)
To: "unfrack-california at googlegroups.com"
<unfrack-california at googlegroups.com>
Subject: [unfrack-california] How Big Oil Bought Sacramento (Counterpunch)

HOW BIG OIL BOUGHT SACRAMENTO
by DAN BACHER
A ground breaking report released on April 1, 2014 by the ACCE Institute and
Common Cause reveals that Big Oil spent $123.6 million to lobby elected
officials in California over the past 15 years, an increase of over 400
percent since the 1999-2000 legislative session, when the industry spent
$4.8 million.
The report, ³Big Oil Floods the Capitol: How California¹s Oil Companies
Funnel Funds Into the Legislature,² highlights the growing influence of the
Oil and Gas Lobby in Sacramento, including the increasing power of the
Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). The analysis examines the broad
and expanding scope of the oil and gas industry¹s spending in Sacramento as
the industry gears up to expand fracking (hydraulic fracturing) operations
in California facilitated by the passage of Senator Fran Pavley¹s Senate
Bill 4 last September.
The report also examines historical campaign contributions by the largest
firms in the oil and gas industry. Over the last fifteen years, Big Oil has
spent $143.3 million on political candidates and campaigns ­ nearly $10
million per year and more than any other corporate lobby.
The report also exposes how the oil and gas lobby has spent nearly $15
million to influence Sacramento lawmakers halfway through the 2014-15
legislative session. The record is $25.5 million, set in 2011-12.
As one of the few journalists willing to expose the power of the oil
industry in California in recent years, I am very pleased that Common Cause
and ACCE have put together this invaluable report that confirms what I¹ve
been saying all along ­ that the oil industry has overwhelmed and corrupted
the political process, including hijacking what passes for ³marine
protection² and ³environmental protection² in California.
The report was unveiled as the arrests of three State Senators on criminal
charges in recent months have put the spotlight on corruption and influence
peddling at the State Capitol.
On March 29, the State Senate voted to suspend
<http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/03/28/california-senate-votes-to-suspen
d-leland-yee/>  Senators Leland Yee, Ron Calderon and Rod Wright, who are
being prosecuted in separate criminal cases, after Yee refused to resign.
Yee was arrested on federal charges of accepting bribes and coordinating an
international gun-running operation,revealed in an affidavit that read like
a bizarre crime novel.
 <http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/03/28/california-senate-votes-to-suspe
nd-leland-yee/> 
One of the three Senators, Rod Wright, received more oil industry money,
$83,100, than any other legislator during the 15-year period, according to
the report.
³On the heels of 3 California Senators facing separate accusations of
influence peddling and unethical behavior, it has never been more important
to shine a light on the money that industries like Big Oil spend to advance
their agenda,² said Vivian Richardson, community leader and Board Chair of
ACCE, in a news release announcing the publication of the report. ³We¹ve had
enough of this Œpay to play¹ system in which money talks ­ it¹s time for our
elected officials to listen to the people of this state, and make Big Oil
pay their fair share.²
³This report highlights a growing problem in Sacramento ­ the millions of
dollars of campaign contributions and lobby spending by special interests in
Sacramento, and the possible influence that goes along with it,² summed up
Sarah Swanbeck, coauthor of the report and policy advocate for California
Common Cause. ³It is time for lawmakers to consider how these types of legal
spending by special interests drown out the voice of average Californians
and what legislative action can be taken to correct this imbalance.²
Chevron tops campaign contributions with $71.2 million
The report explains how key members of Big Oil. including Chevron, Exxon,
Aera Energy and Occidental Petroleum, are some of the largest corporations
in California. ³And these big corporations spend big time,² Richardson and
Swanbeck note.
The top five oil and gas industry campaign contributors from 1999 to 2013
were Chevron, $71.2 million; Aera Energy, $33.8 million; Occidental, $14.5
million; ConocoPhillips, $6.4 million; and Tesoro $3.4 million. Big Oil
spent a whopping $143.3 million on political candidates and campaigns,
nearly $10 million per year, over the past 15 years.
³Companies like Chevron and Aera have gone to great lengths to influence
candidates and initiative campaigns in California elections,² the report
states.
Environmental justice and indigenous groups accuse the San Ramon
based-Chevron of environmental racism, ranging from the adverse health
impacts of the pollution caused by the operation of its refinery in
Richmond, California to its dumping of toxic waste in indigenous communities
in the the Amazon River Basin in Ecuador.
The report also documents how individual legislators have received tens of
thousands from Big Oil over their careers. Over the last 15 years, the top
five currently serving legislative recipients are: (1) Senator Rod Wright
($83,100), (2) Assemblymember Isadore Hall, III ($80,600), (3) Senator Jean
Fuller ($76,850), (4) Assemblymember Henry Perea ($73,050), and (5) Senator
Bob Huff ($69,400).
This report profiles the top recipients, as well as those legislators who
are facing a vote on the Oil and Gas Extraction Tax (Senate Bill 1017) this
April.
But direct contributions are not the only way Big Oil dominates politics in
Sacramento ­ the industry also spends millions on lobbying those same
politicians every year.
Price tag for lobbying totalled $123.6 million
³In addition to its political contributions,² the report continues, ³Big Oil
exerts considerable influence lobbying in Sacramento. Big Oil employs high
profile, high powered lobbyists to ensure their interests are represented.²
In the past 15 years, the price tag for these lobbyists has totaled $123.6
million. In 2013-2014 alone, the top lobbyist employer, the Western States
Petroleum Association (WSPA), headed by President Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the
former chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create
fake ³marine protected areas² in Southern California, spent $4.7 million.
To make things worse, the oil lobby presence in Sacramento is growing, as
evidenced by the industry¹s successful campaign last year to defeat all
fracking bills except one, Senator Fran Pavley¹s Senate Bill 4, an oil
industry-friendly bill that gives the green light to increased fracking in
California. The legislation was opposed by the vast majority of conservation
and environmental justice groups in California ­ but supported by the
Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and California
League of Conservation Voters until the last minute, when they withdrew
their support after amendments were added.
³So far during the 2013-2014 session, the Oil and Gas lobby has spent nearly
$15 million in Sacramento,² the report revealed. ³Only halfway through the
session, and with expenditure rates typically increasing late in the
legislative season when more bills are up for a final vote, California is on
track to surpass the roughly $25.5 million spent on lobbying in the
2011-2012 legislative session.²
Similarly, the number of oil and gas industry lobbyists in Sacramento has
gone from 22 lobbyist employer organizations registered with the FPPC in
1999-2000 to 32 registered sector for the current legislative session
(2013-2014), according to the report.
Yet for the oil industry this money is mere chump change, the cost of doing
business. Big Oil¹s estimated profits in 2014 to date are $24,978,007,900,
based on information from the Center for American Progress
<http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/02/10/83879/with-onl
y-93-billion-in-profits-the-big-five-oil-companies-demand-to-keep-tax-breaks
/> .
The 2013 profit totals for the big five oil companies combined ­ BP,
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Shell ­ were $93 billion, or
$177,000 per minute.
As Big Oil spending rises, fracking increases
The rise of the oil industry spending documented in the report corresponds
directly with the increase in fracking in Monterey Shale deposits in Kern
County, coastal areas and Southern California ocean waters ­ and the
creation of so-called ³marine protected areas² that fail to protect the
ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution military testing and all human
impacts other than fishing and gathering.
Oil companies have fracked offshore wells at least 203 times over the past
20 years in the ocean near California¹s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa
Barbara Channel, according to a Freedom of Information Act Request and media
investigation by the Associated Press andtruthout.org <http://truthout.org/>
last year. 
(http://bigstory.ap.org/article/calif-finds-more-instances-offshore-fracking
) Much of the fracking took place while WSPA President Reheis-Boyd was
chairing the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force and serving on the
Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast Task Forces.
The Common Cause/ACCE Institute report¹s data and charts also make it
perfectly clear that the oil industry spending on campaigns and lobbying
correlates directly with the rise to power and influence by Reheis-Boyd and
her service as a ³marine guardian²on federal and state marine protected area
panels, as revealed by the chart on page 12 of the document.
Mainstream media outlets have failed to cover one of biggest environmental
scandal 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/28/big-oil-lobbyist-serves-on-federal-m
arine-protected-areas-panel/> s in California history, Reheis-Boyd¹s
chairing of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create alleged
³marine protected areas² in Southern California from 2009 to 2012, as well
as her ³service² on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast
task forces from 2004 to 2012. MLPA Initiative advocates falsely portrayed
the process as ³open and transparent² and based on ³science² when it was
anything but.
The report also counteracts the attempts of state officials and corporate
³environmental² NGOs to portray a false image of a ³Green California² where
no one single interest dominates. David Helvarg, in a recent article on the
National Geographic website praising the so-called ³marine protected areas²
created under the privately-funded MLPA Initiative, claims:
³With its ports, the U.S. Navy, fishermen, surfers and the coastal tourism
industry, marine science centers and more no single special interest can
dominate ocean policy. And it is where you have single interests dictating
policy in places like Louisiana with oil and gas or Florida with real-estate
developers that you see coastal seas in decline,² said Helvarg.
This statement avoids addressing the fact that the oil industry is the
largest corporate lobby in California, one that dominates environmental
politics like no other industry does ­ and that California is much closer to
Louisiana and Florida in its domination by corporate interests than some
California politicians and corporate ³environmentalists² would like to
think.
You can read the full report
<http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/makebankspay/pages/266/attachments/ori
ginal/1396393828/Bil_Oil_Floods_the_Capitol_4.1.14v2.pdf>  here.
Brown¹s tunnels will provide water for fracking
As the oil industry plans the expansion of fracking under Senate Bill 4,
Governor Jerry Brown is fast tracking the widely-contested Bay Delta
Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels.The proposed
tunnels would divert Sacramento River water for use by corporate
agribusiness interests, Southern California water privateers and oil
companies expanding fracking and steam injection operations. The
construction of the twin tunnels would hasten the extinction of Central
Valley salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish
species, as well as imperil salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity
and Klamath rivers.
Restore the Delta and Food and Water Watch revealed on March 4 that much of
the area that the oil industry could frack for oil and natural gas in
California is located in and near toxic, drainage-impaired land
<http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/05/18751984.php>  farmed by
corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
The same Governor promoting the peripheral tunnels and the expansion of
hydraulic fracturing recently declared a drought emergency in California. A
broad coalition of environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal leaders is
demanding immediate halt to water-intensive fracking.
According to Oil Change International, ³This drought is already devastating
farmers livelihoods, causing an increased risk of wildfires, and threatening
our water supplies. So why is the Governor still allowing fracking to take
place? Fracking wells can consume between 2 and 10 MILLION gallons of water
in their lifetime.²
In spite of false claims by the mainstream media and state officials that
California is a ³green state² and an ³environmental leader,² the Golden
State has become an ³oilogarchy.²
If you want to take action and help fight the flood of dirty energy money in
California, go to: http://www.bigoilbrown.org/#take-action
Dan Bacher is an environmental journalist in Sacramento. He can be reached
at: Dan Bacher danielbacher at fishsniffer.com.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/14/how-big-oil-bought-sacramento/



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