In the wake of revelations that the energy industry donated nearly $10 million dollars to Governor Brown and the Democratic Party since he came to office, often within days of winning favors that have slowed California's transition away from fossil fuels, is Brown trying to wash his dirty hands?
Our report, Brown’s Dirty Hands, describes Brown’s relationships to the fossil fuel industry, including his own stake in a coal project.
His personal stake in a deal to promote the burning of carbon-packed coal across the planet looks pretty awful given his public pronouncements in Paris not so long ago about “the horrors that might unfold” if we let man-made climate change destroy the planet via wildfires, diseases, and mass migrations.
Now, he’s trying to distance himself from that project backed by his friend and long-time financial supporter Paul Tagami, who won a lot of business in Oakland when Brown was mayor.
According to Brown’s Statement of Economic Interests, Brown invested between $100,000 and $1 million in Edgewater Park Plaza, which Tagami owns through real estate company California Capital and Investment Group. The group is developing part of the former Oakland Army Base and planned to lease out a new terminal to ship coal from Utah to Asian markets.
Environmentalists and local lawmakers have long opposed the idea of toxic coal dust in the East Bay damaging organs, stunting children, and causing cancer. Oakland had previously voted to ban shipping and coal handling anywhere in the city. But Brown refused to weigh in.
On Friday, in an abrupt turnaround, Brown signed a bill to block the use of state funds for any California coal-shipping terminals.
Going forward with a fossil fuel-related deal that could financially benefit him against the backdrop of legislation to slash carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels would only have highlighted that Brown's hands aren't clean.
In fact, our report may have spurred Brown to act on that legislation as well. Just days before our report was published, Brown sent mixed signals on whether he would move forward with SB 32, an extension of the state’s landmark 2006 climate change law with a new target of pushing emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
The report’s appearance may have been one factor in pushing it through in the face of intense oil industry opposition against what it viewed as too “aggressive” a goal.
Brown sacrificed extending the state’s cap and trade program that makes companies buy allowances to pollute as it comes under legal fire from industry. But at his press conference on SB 32's passage, Brown himself said that to meet new emissions standards companies would end up begging for the lesser evil--a market-based cap and trade system over a carbon tax or tough regulations on pollution control. “They are going to get orders” from regulators, Brown said. “And they are going to plead for a market system called cap and trade so they can respond in a way that is more beneficial to the bottom line.”
The question is, whether once again powerful donors will be allowed to shape any fundamental economic restructuring to be more beneficial to the bottom line than to the public and to the communities next door to their toxic operations.
Brown's hands are still not clean.
