PG&E vows to yank funding to enviros who support clean energy measures

I’ve spent a great deal of time on this blog trying to illuminate the connection between Big Utilities and the actors opposing Proposition 7, including the state’s democratic and republican parties and a few big environmental groups. While I think the evidence I’ve unearthed so far is overwhelmingly suggestive of a tit-for-tat relationship, in which the enviros speak for the needs of the Big Utilities as if it were their own in exchange for financial sustenance, I re-read an old Beyond Chron article today and nearly fell off my seat when I read this:

“PG&E and its fellow electric utilities systematically subvert all legislation that would increase clean energy generation. Then they throw their hands in the air and say there is no clean energy to be had in the market, so they can’t meet their goals. Their executives even go so far as to threaten donations to the community should these initiatives pass. In June before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, PG&E’s manager of government relations, Brandon Hernandez threatened financial blowback for the community should the Clean Energy Act pass, “We no longer will be contributing to San Francisco’s non-profits and service organizations.”

If PG&E is threatening to yank funding to community (including environmental) groups over a city-wide initiative to mandate a higher threshold for electricity that comes from clean energy sources, I can only imagine the conversations PG&E, Edison, and Sempra had with the enviros and democratic party that got them to oppose Proposition 7 before it was even assigned a number. I think the $27.5 million they poured into the opposition coffers gives us an idea.