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PG&E, Owner of Exploded California Pipeline, Also Runs Major Political Operation
Energy giant PG&E, which owns and manages a natural gas pipeline that Thursday night ignited a massive inferno in San Bruno, Calif., is one of the nation’s most notable political players, routinely spending millions of dollars each year on government lobbying and campaign donations, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis finds.
The pipeline explosion has so far torched a swath of suburban houses and killed at least six people, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cause of the explosion is yet to be determined, and PG&E's immediate response to the disaster has been measured; a spokesperson noted that the company would not claim responsibility until they were certain the company is to blame for the explosion.
But it’s clear that in the wake of the crisis, should any political fallout come its way, PG&E stands well prepared.
Since 2000, PG&E Corp., the parent company of PG&E Co., has spent more than $112 million on federally reportable lobbying efforts, according to the Center’s analysis. Its roster of lobbyists includes an elite force of ex-government officials, and at least one of the lobbyists the company has deployed this year is a former member of Congress, Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Ca.).
And the explosion in San Bruno comes at a time when PG&E Corp. is reaching new heights in lobbying efforts.
During the first six months of the year, PG&E put unprecedented capital into lobbying efforts, reporting to the federal government that it’s so far spent nearly$44 million. Such a figure represents a more than 600 percent increase from the total it spent during all of 2009, and marks an industry-wide record for electric and utilities companies.
Much of the lobbying money it’s spent this year has gone toward efforts to influence a California budget proposal that would make it difficult for counties in the state to start their own electric utility companies. Unlike many companies, PG&E reports its state-level lobbying expenditures to the federal government, in addition to its lobbying of Congress, the White House and federal agencies.
PG&E Co primarily operates out of central and northern California and services more than 15 million customers in the area, according to its website. The company both backed the measure and has been widely reported to have financed state-wide efforts to pass it.
But PG&E also lobbied on major federal legislation during the first half of the year, according to federal lobbying reports. PG&E put its political muscle behind several of the Democratic-led legislative efforts to address global warming through cap-and-trade measures, including the House and Senate versions of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, and the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act.
The west coast utilities giant also operates an active political action committee. During the 2008 election cycle, the company contributed more than $384,000 to federal candidates and members of Congress, setting another company record in the process. The company favored Democrats more than two-to-one during the cycle .
In the House, recipients included 32 members of the California delegation, including Democrat Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who received $3,000, and Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, who received $10,000, the most of any other member to collect from PG&E. The company donated $4,700 each to both of California’s U.S. senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
At least one member of Congress, in 2008, also reported personally investing in PG&E – Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). Sensenbrenner had invested between $1,001 and $15,000 that year, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of the congressman’s personal financial disclosure statement. Members of Congress are only required to report their personal holdings in broad ranges.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllWe read that PG&E is spending millions of dollars to buy elected officials. Is this news to you? Do you trust any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate to listen to what their constituents say? Listen to you, when their dear corporate friends are filling their coffers with big bucks? Fat chance.
Face it, before it is too late (and that may be the case). Our government is corrupt. Both of the major political parties are corrupt. The financial 'industry' is in control and they have one purpose. To return to Feudalism. We are well on our way. You, face it, are a serf. Before you bow and touch your forelock in servitude to the bastards, you need to make one last effort to evade the coming disaster.
Don't vote corporate. Don't vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. There is no lesser evil. Vote for other candidates and prepare for the collapse of the dollar.
PG&E has been in control of state and local governments in Calif. for more than a century. Their earliest megavictory was keeping San Francisco from establishing a city-owned electric utility at the turn of the 20th century when the other two major west coast cities at the time (Los Angeles and Seattle) established city-owned electric utilities that have maintained lower rates and much higher reliability than PG&E for the past century.
I am uncertain as to the efficiency of those local utilities. Could you offer any proof of such. I do know that TUD runs higher rates and longer outages, as does SMUD as well. In order to form a local utility one must purchase the infrastructure from PGE, at a rather great cost. Further, when outages occur in these districts PGE utility workers are called in to assist, at further cost to rate payers.
The ills that affect Pacific Gas and Electric should be laid at the door of the Corporation, under Peter Darby. The Utility, a separate corporate entity, struggles to perform in the clutches of Darby, a Wall Street darling, with a far too large focus on stock price and none at all towards the rate payers.
I would offer that the workers who see plainly their role in the community, and die far too often in the performance of their jobs ( one just two weeks ago) should be exempt from the criticisms of this ailing company. PGE the Corporation demonstrates the same bent towards political control as does most all of our major corporations. As a publicly held corporation I would offer that the shareholder is the primary force of reformation and should be encouraged to stand up and be counted.
PG&E in California even gives to the Green party. Were the model of the new world order don't ya know?
>^^<
OK, here we go again. CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY/ACCOUNTABILITY
Mr. O-bomb-a should have the entire PG&E executive team arrested and held for questioning as suspects in a mass homocide/wrongful death crime investigation. Residents of this neighborhood have been smelling strong gas vapors for 3 to 4 weeks. If it turns out that the company did everything humanly possible to protect the people from harm from PG&E products and services, Mr. O-bomb-a releases them with a thank you for their cooperation in the investigation. If there is any doubt (enter Levin, Papantonio, et al), then these PG&E executives are held over for trial. So simple. And what a nice message it would send to the rest of the mega-corp CEOs of America. Don't I make up cool fantasies?
I'm sure they'll be tried and duly executed. Right after BP and the board of Goldman-Sachs are delt with...
Yea it is cool to dream!
>^^<
Enron's Ancestors at Work
I like your idea, but I think it would be better to execute them first and then hold a trial, just to make sure.
We'd still be morally ahead of the Rs, because they would ignore the trial part entirely, even in absentia.
I'll take this moment to point out the fundamental flaw of having for-profit businesses run basic needs like energy and water (or waste collection for that matter). The fundamental flaw of capitalism, when applied to basic needs, is that as we become more frugal with those resources, private businesses will be unable to keep their share holders happy. So, as a 3rd Generation PG&E customer living in a dwelling in San Francisco, I'm stuck paying every higher energy costs even though our family of three is using less (yes LESS) kilowatts and therms, then when my mother lived her by herself. This is an easy lesson. PG&E, which we already bailed out for $100 something million when it went into bankruptcy, has to keep those share holders happy. As I, and many of my neighbors get more frugal, YES BUY those CFL lights and get that digitally controlled thermostat, we all end up using LESS energy. But that goes against the very core of their business which is for us to use ever more. But we aren't. So we are left with ever higher energy costs to make up the difference DARE the shareholder become unhappy at stocks that aren't performing well enough. This is where you interject those points from this article about PG&E using it's lobby power against having any real competition. What part of the free market do these Free-market-fucks not get?
It's an incredible indictment of our free market system when it's applied to basic needs.
"I'll take this moment to point out the fundamental flaw of having for-profit businesses run basic needs like energy and water (or waste collection for that matter)."
Yup, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I might add health insurance to your list ....
Dear Pacific GAS and Electric:
You are really full of it ( that would be both gas and money)
Money ..112 million spent on lobbying , wow, and how much did you save by spending there and not on adequate training and proper materials? NBC in San Francisco reports that your PREVIOUS fireball came about from the wrong pipe being used. So, was that poor materials or UNTRAINED employees?
You know , a few years back, my cousins's historic building was set on fire by you nitwits!
She barely escaped with her life. Yeah, you had to rebuild the whole thing because she had the original plans, and you tried to escape out from under that too. Wow, sometimes justice does prevail! Besides being annoyed with how you treated one of my relatives, this only reflects a mindset which shows how you treat many humans( probably many who work for you too.)
Like you really know what you're doing, and yet you want to stop any cities from having their own power sources. ARROGANCE and yes, NO Common Good!
I think you should rename yourselves Pacific FART and Electric, because you are giving citizens, communities and the environment a lot of gas. However, now that you've murdered all those people, maybe you will be out of gas. Those homeowners were certainly out of luck, and I really think that it's your turn now. PG&E, oh wait , make that PF&E. I really don't like you.
They've been outsourcing a lot of the work to sub-contractors since Reagans time their union is too weak to fight it, they can barely protect their wage and medical as it is.
Maybe if they'd listen to their engineers they would have done it differently. Of course a lot of this information on corousion is new (since the late 90s) but you'd think an orginization that get 1/3 of every cailfornians paycheck would have the money to go safer :)
>^^<
Eighty percent of new construction work goes to outsourced contractors, as does an increasing number of other work also. The number of crews have been cut and the staffing of those crews going from four to three as well, leading to longer outages and increased danger of injury or worse to the worker.
Local 1245 is known in the industry as a house union, with little power or, seemingly, little desire to fight the corporate cutters. When Warren Buffet offered thirteen billion for PGE a while back the management got rather nervous about losing their lucrative jobs. They launched a program designed only to raise stock prices above that which would favor a buy out, a program that makes it much, much harder for the workers to fulfill their commitment to the public.
Just like we state employees have to put up with, we pay for representation. Then get run over by right-wingers who want to privatize everything, and their demi-god commentaters who shreik 24/7 about how lazy government workers can't do anything.
The truth is somewhat different, we can do most anything. We have our dead-heads but the rest of us do a great job, with whatever tools we are given.
>^^<
Best of luck,,,, to us all
The American worker is trapped in a system that has been perverted by the profit motive, as have the great majority of Americans in fact. We are aware of the failings of our individual companies but most cannot make the leap to understanding that it is the very system that has been kidnapped and altered to its detriment. This is, sadly, the only outcome when under a Capitalist system.
"PG&E put its political muscle behind several of the Democratic-led legislative efforts to address global warming through cap-and-trade measures, including the House and Senate versions of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, and the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act."
'Nuff said about the "merits" of the Dems "energy" bill ......
fire air traffic controllers
nafta
repeal glass steagal
citizens united
oil pipelines
mines
oil drill rigs
spinach
eggs
meat
drywall
childrens toys
drug recalls
auto recalls
bridges collapsing
and WHAT do they SHOUT - GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR PERSONAL LIBERTIES AND FREEDOMS!!!!!!!!!!!!
lower taxes
cut back regulations
give corporations rights of personhood (but not the responsibilities)
sounds like a plan to me...
maybe... oh yeah... let's CUT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE... THAT's the PROBLEM...
have you run over a tea bagger today?
Listen, I like PG&E and I support them. The infrastructure of our country is falling apart and while PG&E has the responsibility to update and upgrade those lines it owns or uses unless they had previous warning that was ignored they couldn't have known that pipe would explode.
As to their political contributions, at least they aren't supporting an insane Republican agenda and are giving to the side which supports caps to emissions.
Unless each of those Democrats are individually opposing such caps, but no, I couldn't possibly be that naive...
Does cancer from hexovalent chromium mean anything to you? Go watch Erin Brockovich. You might learn the real truth about PG&E.
I find it insulting that you believe I don't know about that.
I believe that they have become a more responsible company since then.
Fortunately, we live in a district served by Southern California Gas company. Two days ago six of us witnessed a faint odor of gas in our alley and reported this to the gas company. Within a few hours a tech arrived with sophisticated sensing devices to determine the source of the leak.
This is what CAN be done by a responsible company. Isn't there a way to vote PG&E out of business?
There is , thus far, no evidence that a leak was reported. The reports seem to indicate that, while some folks did smell gas, they left the reporting of such to someone else. Just a couple of days ago a leak in a similar gas transmission line was reported in the West Sacramento area. The line was shut down and repaired. Should the evidence show that leaks were indeed reported and either ignored or given cursory attention I wold be shocked, and just as eager as anyone to see great changes in that company.
To offer that PGE has no sophisticated devices, or has fewer that another California utility is pretty damn silly. By the by, one doesn't witness an odor.....gas is invisible you know.... ;-)
PG&E needs to hire a boiler room full of bloggers who go around the blogosphere (including Common Dreams) denying that the massive explosion ever occurred. That'll solve the problem!
Bring America Back !!!!
**millions for scratching the backs of the blue dog
demmies, but not one penny to upgrade their pipelines,
equip, and security. we have another bp there in calif.
**sure hope those affected homeowners and victims bring
a collossal class action lawsuit vs this lobby, with
a big bunch of punitive damages attached.
**dont let the campaign dollars to demmies fool you,
those calif demmies are the worst blue dogs, esp
nancy pelosi==who we all know took impeachment off
her table for the war criminal king george the w.
**pelosi got 10 thousand from this incompetent gas company
Unless I missed it on this thread -- Wasn't PG & E the same utility company that Erin Brockovich investigated for contaminating water with hexavalent chromium, causing an unprecedented number of individuals to grow tumors and to contract various types of cancers? But, the authorities and those in charge of PG & E continued to tell the people that the water was safe.
WideofVision: Great post!
I also agree with Aquifer -- adding health care/insurance to the list. If this country implemented the precautionary principle rather than "we the people" always having to prove that chemicals, etc., used by the corporations, aren't good for us and make us deathly ill -- our land, our air, our water, our bodies -- all would be healthier and we could all live better lives.
We are unable to survive without support from private utility Cos such as PG$E. Even in California for Christ sake. We are so soft and needy in our cozy houses full of toys and gadgets. Too cold? Turn up the thermostat. Too hot? Turn on the AC. Good grief. Grass getting brown? Turn on the sprinkler. Hungry? Get in your steel and plastic auto and drive to the super market. Bored? Take some anti depressants, have a glass of wine and watch someone having fun on your flat screen TV. When we take responsibility for our own welfare, for profit assholes might lose their power over us.
err, when we want to work we need the gas and electricity supplied as well.
Some of us do, Need power and light and other things to live If I can't get the right heat/cold conditions I can't sleep, Powered machines; vacumns, lifters, allow me to live independently.
Others rely on oxygen, and compressors for sleep disorders.
Sorry if we're not all caveman perfect. in your world I'm sure we could be converted into soylent green to feed the masses.
But this cripple ain't volenteering.
>^^<
Richard, you are missing the point or lack imagination. I suppose you could argue that whatever a minority or special group requires, everyone must have. It is this attitude that helped utilities retain their power over us and politicians. Cave men!? Soylent green? Good grief, Richard, new technologies not developed in caves are available to operate all your gizmos, help you sleep and provide oxygen. Perhaps even give you the courage to try some of them.
don't be a caveman bro
get yourself a solar panel if you live in urbia, then get a solar cooperative going
there's an important ballot issue in CA this Nov propodsition 16 is PGE sponsored bill that would require 2/3 of all voters to get a municipal cooperative, solar or otherwise.
it's hard enough to get 51% to start a municipal solar project, let alone 75%.
please vote No on Prop 16 if you live in CA.
long live the solar revolution.
Put a solar panel on your roof!
One of my neighbors pays 0-15 a month for 5 person household.
Its a very reasonable and affordable (Rebates!!!Now!!!)
They can bring that Carter solar panel and put it up on my roof, yup.
When a corporation does it that means it is not illegal...
So if a corporation is a "person", who will be charged with these deaths?
PG&E SO-CALLED SMART METERS ARE DANGEROUS & PG&E CORPORATE MANAGEMENT LIE.
PG&E CANNOT demonstrate that the RF and EMF radiation does not interfere with the millions of necessary, but delicate electronic signals between the brain and cells of CHILDREN while they sleep in order for them to develop and grow the organs and systems necessary for their lives.
PG&E just says "Its safe."
That is exactly what PG&E said when they killed and sickened thousands of children and families as documented in the Erin Brockovich Movie. Not only did PG&E lie and say it was safe, but PG&E Corporate kept the truth from the families and then destroyed documents to further cover the truth. That is who PG&E CORPORATE is, not the heroic linemen that also get treated like dirt by PG&E.
All of these radiated signals can be sent through shielded cables so children will be saved and safe, but Peter Darbee, PG&E CEO, wants the money that it would cost for the shielded cables, instead for his own bonus.
Your comment is not factual sorry to say. The whole idea behind the Smartmeter is the remote access to billing information. This eliminates the need for all meter readers, thus cutting jobs, raising the stock price and thus benefiting Darby ( correct spelling) who gets between three and four million in stock each quarter.
Further your rant about "radiation" from Smartmeter communications is pretty much nonsense as well. The technology is in use in numerous applications and has been for years. Also the meters only communicate once a month in normal usage. The real problem is that the accuracy of those readouts is in doubt. That is why PGE has been "secretly" pulling and replacing thousands of the meters and sending them in for testing.