Campaign contributions pay off for Big Utilities

The blog has been a little quiet this week, but not because there hasn’t been plenty going on in the world of Proposition 7. Solar Cali Girl has been under the gun with deadlines at her real job.

So now that I have a minute:

Did you know between 2002 and 2008, electric utilities in California gave $13,291,877 to influence political parties and ballot measures? That, of course, doesn’t include the $27.5 million dropped by PG&E, Southern Cal Edison, and Sempra to defeat Proposition 7. Now we are talking $40,791,877.

Yeah, that's an eye-popping $40 million by the Big Utilities to influence California politics over the last seven years - 2/3rds just on defeating Prop 7 this year!

And were you aware that Pacific Gas & Electric is the 3rd largest industry-contributor to California elected officials and candidates? This isn’t money to the parties (which is included in the above amount) – this is money just to candidates and elected officials. The grand total that our legislative representatives have taken from PG&E? $973,078 this year alone. The distinguished list of utility beneficiaries that you elected to represent you can be found here.

And that's not counting the hundreds of thousands (millions, likely) doled out by PG&E to environmental groups, community groups, and various non-profits, by the Big Utilities to influence California politics and energy policy. This is most recently evidenced by the overwhelming misinformation campaign to defeat renewable energy requirements via Prop 7.

No wonder the Yes on 7 campaign just came out this internet ad: