New analysis from national grassroots environmental organization Food & Water Watch out today shows the revolving door between Governor Newsom’s California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and major energy interests that ensures a utility-friendly CPUC. This has led to a clear conflict of interest, and ultimately prevents fair and unbiased regulation of the industry. 

One place where this revolving door becomes highly problematic is Sempra subsidiary Southern California Gas Company’s (SoCalGas’s) Aliso Canyon gas storage facility – the site of the biggest methane and polytoxic blowout in US history nearly a decade ago. Governor Newsom has been promising since 2018 to shut down the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility but, despite these promises, Aliso Canyon remains operational. Under Newsom and his CPUC, use of Aliso Canyon has even expanded. 

Further, just last week, the California Public Utilities Commission released its proposed decision on the future of the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility. The dangerous preliminary decision would keep Aliso Canyon open with no closure date. The CPUC is expected to vote on whether to approve the proposal or not at a meeting on December 19. 

Aliso Canyon remains open in part due to influence peddling by major energy interests that ensure a utility-friendly CPUC by donating to politicians and hiring former commissioners as lobbyists.

Food & Water Watch found that of the 14 commissioners who have served since the Aliso Canyon gas blowout, more than half worked for the utility industry or a firm that advocates for gas and utility interests (such as law and lobbying firms). Of the former commissioners, nearly half have been hired by these industries after leaving. 

“The revolving door between the CPUC and California’s largest Big Utility companies – and the law and lobbying firms that support them – is alive and well,” said Andrea Vega, Southern California Senior Organizer for Food & Water Watch. “If Governor Newsom wants to really show California’s leadership and preserve his climate legacy, he must direct the CPUC to look past their industry connections and order the shut down of the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility by 2027.”