Utility-funded ads against Prop 7 go live!

The California Majority Report put up a post this morning that regurgitates the false and misleading lies in a television commercial airing against Prop 7. The author of the post toed the Big Utility line. I immediately registered so that I could leave a comment/rebuttal, which follows:

What a disappointment to see the California Majority Report joining the Big Utilities’ rank and file advocates by parroting their lies about Prop. 7.

The ‘environmental’ coalition opposed to Prop 7 is the same coalition that made it possible for the Big Utilities to pass deregulation (resulting in CA’s energy crisis and rolling black outs) and then kill a voter-initiated ballot measure that would have mitigated those devastating effects. The National resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the chief ‘environmental’ opponents to prop. 7, was the architect of an almost identical campaign in the 90’s to promote the Big Utilities’ agenda of deregulation. Don’t trust me on this, I encourage you to look it up for yourself by going to any of the links listed below.

"See the following articles and books that credit NRDC with the 2001 energy crisis in CA (also referenced in a previous post): “How Environmentalists Sold Out California to Help Enron,” Center for Media and Democracy, Third Quarter Volume 3 2003; “A Dime’s Worth of Difference,” Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, (Counterpunch 2004) available at http://www.amazon.com/Dimes-Worth-Difference-Beyond-Counterpunch/dp/1904859038; “American Foundations: An Investigative History,” Mark Dowie, (MIT Press 2001) available at http://books.google.com/books?id=Nv1SZdM1tz0C; “Power Play: A California Ballot Drive Tries to Short Circuit a Utility Industry Bailout,” Harvey Wasserman, 10/27/1998, available at http://www.salon.com/news/1998/10/27newsb.html to name only a few."

As to the Democratic Party’s opposition – well, what can I say? Money talks. Also from an earlier post:

"This is how serious Pacific Gas and Electric and the other Big Utilities in CA are about defeating Prop. 7: They contributed $24 million dollars to the No on Prop 7 campaign (to date, the only money funded the No on Prop 7 side). Compare that to the total giving by electric utilities to candidates in the 2004 and 2006 election cycles: $30.3 million. That’s right, the Big Utilities in CA are spending almost as much as all the nation’s electric utilities did in two election cycles just to defeat prop. 7. And that’s not to mention the millions spent over the years “sponsoring” events and doling out grants to ‘environmental’ groups. I expect we’ll be seeing some gloom and doom television commercials to incite hysteria in the coming days.On a related note, California’s Democratic and Republican Party committees were among the highest recipients of energy industry money in 2004 and 2006, taking $1,113,180 and $4,000,357 respectively."

As to the California Young Democrats – the chair of CYD is an employee of the NRDC. I would encourage him to make a public statement to the effect: “I never allowed my vested interest as an employee of NRDC to influence the vote of the California Young Democrats.”
Oh and that these hefty Big Utility contributions to CYD had no impact on CYD’s vote:

7/24/2007 Sempra Energy to Young Democrats-$5000 (3rd largest donation)
8/18/2005 Southern California Edison - $1000