Speaker 1: The world's second largest economy is increasingly being sealed off
Speaker 1: from the rest of the world. Think back to April
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, when every newscast was filled with warnings like this.
Speaker 2: Health officials cautioning we haven't hit the peak.
Speaker 3: The new warnings from survivors now, Brady, thank you from
Speaker 3: the virus. You don't know how.
Speaker 1: It's going to be.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're the mayor of a medium sized town in California,
Speaker 1: poised to hold a city council meeting with rules about
Speaker 1: masking and social distancing so everyone feels safe, and you
Speaker 1: get a letter like this.
Speaker 5: If the city council intends to move forward with another
Speaker 5: reading on a gas van, I can assure you that
Speaker 5: there will be no social distancing in place, and I
Speaker 5: strongly urge this city council to kick the can down
Speaker 5: the road and here to public safety measures. Please don't
Speaker 5: force my hand in busting in hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 5: pissed off people, potentially adding to this pandemic. We will
Speaker 5: pull permits in close streets and will have a massive protest.
Speaker 5: This is not the time to do this. Please tell
Speaker 5: Mayor Harmon and the rest of the council for the
Speaker 5: sake of people's health, that their efforts are better focused
Speaker 5: on how to deal with this pandemic than to stir
Speaker 5: up the emotions of people losing their jobs. Be smart
Speaker 5: about this.
Speaker 1: That's former mayor of San Luis Obispo, Heidi Harmon. The
Speaker 1: letter in question was from Eric Hoffman, the leader of
Speaker 1: one of the unions representing utility workers in California and
Speaker 1: an outspoken critic of attempts throughout the state to move
Speaker 1: away from fossil gas. Hoffman did not respond to requests
Speaker 1: to speak with us for this series. Harmon says, a
Speaker 1: letter threatening a large crowd of people outside the council's
Speaker 1: chambers who refused to mask or social distance at a
Speaker 1: time when there was no vaccine for COVID and everyone
Speaker 1: was feeling really panicked. All of that really scared her
Speaker 1: and the rest of the city council, and ultimately the
Speaker 1: scare tactic worked. They postponed their vote on a bill
Speaker 1: that would have banned gas in new buildings. San Luis
Speaker 1: Obispo is a pretty little college town on California's central coast.
Speaker 1: It's got a large agricultural community and also one of
Speaker 1: the best architecture programs in the country at cal Poly University,
Speaker 1: downtown Spanish mission style buildings, house craft ice cream shops,
Speaker 1: hipster cafes, and farm to table restaurants. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's not the sort of place where you might expect
Speaker 1: this kind of drama. So what the hell prompted all this?
Speaker 1: That's the story we're going to get into today. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. This is part two
Speaker 1: of our three part season on the gas industry. You
Speaker 1: don't have to listen to Part one, Plastic Pipeline to
Speaker 1: understand what's happening in this part of the season, but
Speaker 1: it's worth a listen if you haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1: We're calling Part two the new Climate Villains, because the
Speaker 1: gas industry has really kicked into high gear with its
Speaker 1: efforts to block climate policy. Today, the story of what
Speaker 1: that opposition looked like in one town stay with us.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty sixteen, Heidi Harmon campaigned to be San
Speaker 1: LUs Obispo mayor on a platform that included carbon neutrality goals,
Speaker 1: fossil free buildings, and electric vehicle charging stations.
Speaker 5: So I ran for office as mayor with climate action
Speaker 5: as one of my main priorities.
Speaker 1: Some folks told Heidi she'd never win with such a
Speaker 1: radical platform, but she's not really the type to play politics.
Speaker 1: A single mom who worked as a maid and homeschooled
Speaker 1: her kids, Harmon's used to hard work and she's never
Speaker 1: been afraid to stand out from the pack. Her signature
Speaker 1: of silver hair is almost always adorned with a red
Speaker 1: or white flower, and her bright blue eyes are usually
Speaker 1: sparkling behind a pair of large, statement, black rimmed glasses.
Speaker 1: She's been who she is, saying exactly what she thinks
Speaker 1: for decades, and that wasn't going to change for a campaign.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I always felt like it's about the next generation, not
Speaker 5: the next election, and if that means that I don't
Speaker 5: get elected, then so be it.
Speaker 1: But she did get elected, and as soon as she
Speaker 1: took office, Harmon started to put forth exactly the sorts
Speaker 1: of policies she'd promised in her campaign.
Speaker 5: When I had just got elected, all these people wanted
Speaker 5: to meet with me. Okay, like, I don't know, I'm sure,
Speaker 5: I'm just meeting with everybody on.
Speaker 1: That long list of people wanting to meet with Harmon.
Speaker 1: Early On was a public relations guy who worked with
Speaker 1: the gas industry.
Speaker 5: So I meet with this guy. I think it was
Speaker 5: from Socau Gas, and he was trying to tell me
Speaker 5: about something. He was calling I forget now green maybe
Speaker 5: renewable natural gas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean renewable natural gas. It's a brilliant marketing
Speaker 6: term that the gas industry has created.
Speaker 1: This is Charlie Spatz from the Energy Policy Institute. He's
Speaker 1: been digging into the gas guys for years.
Speaker 6: And essentially they were referring to biomethane. So the capture
Speaker 6: of methane from landfills or sewage plans, CAFOs can fined
Speaker 6: agricultural feeding operations.
Speaker 1: And sure, why not capture those emissions. But to hear
Speaker 1: the industry talk, you'd think this was the cleanest energy
Speaker 1: going right up there with solar or wind, and that
Speaker 1: there's enough of it to replace fossil gas altogether. Here's
Speaker 1: a little explainer video put out by SoCal Gas. The
Speaker 1: gas utility in Harmon's.
Speaker 4: California is dedicated to improving air quality and the environment,
Speaker 4: and sokel Gas is a partner in that vision by
Speaker 4: supporting the development and use of renewable energy. When many
Speaker 4: people think of renewable energy, they think of solar, wind
Speaker 4: and hydropower.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: Renewable natural gas or RNG is also a clean source
Speaker 4: of energy. RNG is reliable, it's always available, unlike solar
Speaker 4: and wind, which are intermittent and dependent upon the weather
Speaker 4: and time of day with limited storage capability.
Speaker 1: Who there's a lot going on here, and I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking about the girlish giggles and cowmws. So first off,
Speaker 1: RNG is not an apples to apples comparison to solar.
Speaker 1: The industry presents it as not just a zero emissions option,
Speaker 1: but actually a negative emissions option because, according to them,
Speaker 1: you capture the methane, turn it into gas, and voila,
Speaker 1: you've avoided all those methane emissions, except they've left out
Speaker 1: the part where you transport and then burn that fuel,
Speaker 1: emitting various greenhouse gases along the way. But anyway, look
Speaker 1: over here at how reliable ORANG is. In fact, the
Speaker 1: intermittency and storage issues associated with renewables like solar and
Speaker 1: wind have largely been addressed in recent years, so this
Speaker 1: ad is misleading on that front too. This is the
Speaker 1: sort of solution that the most recent IPCC report called maladaptation.
Speaker 1: It's something that's supposed to reduce emissions but actually locks
Speaker 1: in fossil fuel use or causes some other type of
Speaker 1: environmental problem, in this case the many water, soil, and
Speaker 1: air quality issues associated with industrial agriculture. Not that solar
Speaker 1: and wind are perfect, mind you, They're just not as
Speaker 1: unreliable and terrible as so Cal Gas would like you
Speaker 1: to believe. Gas companies are into renewable natural gas because
Speaker 1: it allows them to tell a good green story while
Speaker 1: locking in gas infrastructure. But by even the most optimistic estimate,
Speaker 1: RNG could only cover about sixteen percent of current gas use.
Speaker 1: The rest would be supplied by the usual fossil gas
Speaker 1: at any rate. Back in twenty sixteen, when Harmon first
Speaker 1: took office as mayor of San Luis Obispo, Soco Gas
Speaker 1: was pretty high on its own RNG supply.
Speaker 5: And me, not knowing any better, was I was confused
Speaker 5: for multiple reasons because this immediately sounded like bloony.
Speaker 1: Harmon didn't bother to sugarcoat her response to the gas
Speaker 1: industry guy, because I just.
Speaker 5: Turned to him and said, oh, I think, actually we're
Speaker 5: going to be moving away from natural gas altogether and
Speaker 5: not using it at all. And I had no idea because,
Speaker 5: like in my world. That seems obvious, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, of course we're not doing natural gasm. Oh, oh,
Speaker 5: we don't need the renewable because we're not going to
Speaker 5: be doing any type of it whatsoever. And his face
Speaker 5: went from like public relations face to don't I can't.
Speaker 5: Like the muscles in his face, you could see he
Speaker 5: was trying to hold it together, but also had not
Speaker 5: understood that this time had actually already come. I don't
Speaker 5: think you know they. I think they must have been thinking, oh,
Speaker 5: we're going to trick him with this renewable whatever the heck,
Speaker 5: and that I'll stop these changes from happening.
Speaker 1: The gas industry really didn't seem to be expecting this
Speaker 1: at that time. For decades, their product had been thought
Speaker 1: of as a climate solution, delivering major reductions in CO
Speaker 1: two emissions. And that's true. But the problem is CO
Speaker 1: two isn't the only greenhouse gas. As scientists discovered more
Speaker 1: about the methane emissions associated with gas and the chemicals
Speaker 1: associated with fracking, the tide began to turn. Now big
Speaker 1: changes were looming, and Harmon started making good on her
Speaker 1: climate action campaign promises in her first years in office.
Speaker 5: And so we had made the most ambitious carbon neutrality
Speaker 5: goal of any city at the United States at that time,
Speaker 5: which was twenty thirty five, and we've happily been surpassed
Speaker 5: since that time. We'd committed to community choice energy and
Speaker 5: we've done a lot of things, and so we're really
Speaker 5: looking at the landscape of what needed to happen next,
Speaker 5: and decarbonization and electrification is really becoming really well understood
Speaker 5: is one of the main ways to get us to
Speaker 5: less fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Then, in twenty nineteen, the city of Berkeley, California, became
Speaker 1: the first US city to pass what's called a gas van.
Speaker 1: Sounds scary, but what it actually means is a policy
Speaker 1: that bigs energy transition into the building sector. It basically says,
Speaker 1: we're not going to connect any new buildings to gas lines,
Speaker 1: because once you wire a building for gas, your fuel
Speaker 1: options are pretty limited to well gas, maybe hydrogen. But
Speaker 1: if you wire a building for electric, you've got a
Speaker 1: pretty broad portfolio of choices, including renewable sources of electricity.
Speaker 1: So Harmon learned about this gas ban in Berkeley and
Speaker 1: wanted to do the same in San Luis Obispo, which,
Speaker 1: of course was also the local gas industry's nightmare coming true.
Speaker 1: The band started to make its way toward approval and
Speaker 1: then boom, COVID hits. In April twenty twenty, the city
Speaker 1: council was set to vote on it when Harmon got
Speaker 1: that letter threatening a protest slash COVID superspreader event.
Speaker 5: You can imagine the overwhelm of dealing with the pandemic
Speaker 5: with and not being sure what was going to happen next,
Speaker 5: and then having this threatening letter.
Speaker 1: Harmon decided to press pause to avoid the public health
Speaker 1: consequences of a protest. The gas band came up for
Speaker 1: consideration again and the opposition was still fierce. It included
Speaker 1: front groups from the gas industry who put out attack
Speaker 1: ads like this one from a group called the Consumer
Speaker 1: Energy Alliance, which claims to be a citizen group but
Speaker 1: is run out of HBW Resources and industry lobbying firm.
Speaker 2: Have you heard about the blow the Berkeley, California City
Speaker 2: Council has landed on consumer choice? The city has banned
Speaker 2: natural gas in all new low rise residential buildings. That
Speaker 2: means the new Ritchie rich of Berkeley will have to
Speaker 2: use an electric stovetop to cook their meals. No natural gas,
Speaker 2: water heaters, furnaces, clothes dryers, or barbecue grills.
Speaker 1: Either that barbecue grills one is a stretch. Most gas
Speaker 1: grills have their own refillable gas tank. You have to
Speaker 1: be pretty serious about your barbecue grill to pipe gas
Speaker 1: to it. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's not
Speaker 1: exactly a common scenario. As you heard at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this story, the Utility Workers Union of America, which
Speaker 1: represents local utility workers in California, is a major player
Speaker 1: opposing the gas ban. Since Harmon considers herself pro labor,
Speaker 1: she says, it was a weird feeling for her to
Speaker 1: be at odds with the union and getting threatening letters
Speaker 1: from a union boss.
Speaker 5: So there was a lot of money spent on social
Speaker 5: media and also robocalls, you know, pushing the classic line
Speaker 5: that the fossil fuel industry always uses around jobs, you know,
Speaker 5: which is one that I'm very sensitive to. You know,
Speaker 5: I brought the first Project Labor Agreement, which is a
Speaker 5: union support policy in this county's history, to our city.
Speaker 5: I'm a huge labor supporter. So it's a really interesting
Speaker 5: tension to be in, and when you're in a leadership position,
Speaker 5: wanting to support workers and also wanting to move to
Speaker 5: a fossil fuel free world, so people are sensitive to
Speaker 5: that claim around jobs.
Speaker 1: The campaign to oppose the gas band relied on another
Speaker 1: your talking.
Speaker 5: Point, choice being taken away, and you know Americans are
Speaker 5: very sensitive to that. So really trying to tell a
Speaker 5: story about you know, government coming in to take away
Speaker 5: your choice about things.
Speaker 1: Part of the opposition's strategy involved harassing Harmon directly too.
Speaker 1: She got a lot of nasty voicemails like this.
Speaker 3: One, Miss Hidi Herman, I highly encourage you to discourage
Speaker 3: this ban on natural gas because it is a scourge
Speaker 3: on the whole community. You are raping the people that
Speaker 3: have the least amount of money. You are taking things
Speaker 3: away from people.
Speaker 5: No matter what.
Speaker 3: This is not a good thing. Reconsider your youthful on
Speaker 3: utual goods. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Some of the attacks against her got personal, too, taking
Speaker 1: on her physical apearance down to her silver hair and
Speaker 1: trademark flower pen.
Speaker 5: At a city council meeting, after it was clear that
Speaker 5: things were not going to go in their direction, the
Speaker 5: president of the union himself said, I'm not resting to
Speaker 5: that fucking red flower. Corilla de Ville kunt and all
Speaker 5: those other fucking bitches are voted off that fucking council.
Speaker 1: Hoffman said this to a room full of utility and
Speaker 1: union supporters following the council's vote to move forward with
Speaker 1: its decarbonization policy. That was a few months before he
Speaker 1: sent the letter threatening an intentionally unsafe protest if they
Speaker 1: moved forward with a gas ban.
Speaker 5: I just think of what's going on in a wider
Speaker 5: context with the fossil fuel industry, is really this toxic
Speaker 5: masculinity just percolating throughout it and what is called maybe
Speaker 5: petro masculinity. Right as soon as I heard that word,
Speaker 5: I just thought, this is exactly on some level a
Speaker 5: deep thread of what's going on in general. The bullying
Speaker 5: so was largely men in the union, really threatening the
Speaker 5: largely predominantly female city council in a way that quite frankly,
Speaker 5: you know, had there's a violence to the culture that
Speaker 5: they brought, and you can see it here in their letter,
Speaker 5: you know. And then so they could see though that
Speaker 5: I was committed to this, you know, and on some
Speaker 5: level I think that's one of the gifts of being
Speaker 5: in this potential penultimate moment of human existence, you know,
Speaker 5: I've got kids, So you're going to bust load in
Speaker 5: hundreds of scary guys with potentially a disease and violence
Speaker 5: in mind, Okay, because my kids' lives are already at stake,
Speaker 5: so bring it on. I mean, I don't want them
Speaker 5: to do that, obviously, but I'm not going to let
Speaker 5: that intimidate me into not doing what's right to save
Speaker 5: my kids' lives. On some level, which is how it
Speaker 5: feels to me, and on some level is how it is.
Speaker 1: Despite all this, the insults and the attack ads. On
Speaker 1: July tenth, twenty twenty, Harman and the San Lusibispo City
Speaker 1: Council did pass a modified version of the gas ban.
Speaker 1: Rather than banning gas in new buildings altogether, it made
Speaker 1: it more expensive and incentivized electrification. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: the city council reintroduced the idea of an all out ban.
Speaker 1: So far, they haven't voted on that proposal yet. Looking
Speaker 1: back on all she endured along the way.
Speaker 5: I just want to state for the record a couple things. One,
Speaker 5: I was voted in the next election by landslide, and
Speaker 5: quite frankly, there's really nothing more complimentary than to be
Speaker 5: called a cunt because there's something stronger and more life affirming,
Speaker 5: and everybody you know is about it, So thank you.
Speaker 5: I guess i'd have to say.
Speaker 1: San Luis Obispo is the first city in so Cal
Speaker 1: Gas Is Territory to pass a ban, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: the last. Pretty soon the utility was playing whack a
Speaker 1: mole with gas bands all over Southern California. By the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty, there were more than fifty gas
Speaker 1: bands in California alone. Now they're in Washington, New York, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: even Texas. According to Charlie's spats with the Energy Policy Institute,
Speaker 1: the rapid growth and mobilization of the Electrify Everything movement,
Speaker 1: this push over the past few years to electrify buildings
Speaker 1: and transportation as part of a transition away from fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: really caught the gas industry off guard at first, especially Sokel.
Speaker 6: Gas in Southern California Gas Company or so Cal Gas,
Speaker 6: which is often trying to market itself as a green
Speaker 6: and climate champion, and all of a sudden that they
Speaker 6: are now the new coal and that is something they're
Speaker 6: still getting used to. And I think that's a shared
Speaker 6: experience throughout the gas utility industry that all of sudden,
Speaker 6: they are public enemy number one. They're now big coal.
Speaker 6: They are passing preemption legislation throughout the United States. They
Speaker 6: are a climate villain. And this is a new experience
Speaker 6: for many of those lobbyists.
Speaker 1: But it didn't take them long to adapt. As of
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty two, nineteen states have passed preemptive laws
Speaker 1: banning gas vans, Yeah, bans on bans. That aggressive strategy,
Speaker 1: harm and experienced firsthand, has only intensified. Next time, I'll
Speaker 1: look at how the industry has adapted to its new
Speaker 1: role as a climate villain.
Speaker 7: We're trying to beat counties and localities from passing bands
Speaker 7: that then force the hand of governors and state legislators
Speaker 7: to pass something nationwide.
Speaker 2: So we've got two.
Speaker 7: Wins on that so far, which is great news. The
Speaker 7: legislation has been introduced in several other our states, including Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma,
Speaker 7: and Kansas.
Speaker 1: Come back for that. Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Jules Bradley. Our editor for this season
Speaker 1: is Jude Joffy. Block. Sound design, mixing, mastering, and original
Speaker 1: music throughout this episode, including our new theme song by
Speaker 1: Peter Duff. Our fact checker is wood an Yan. Our
Speaker 1: First Amendment attorney is James Whitton of the First Amendment Project.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is drawn by Matt Fleming, and of course
Speaker 1: the show is reported and created by me Amy Westervelt.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at we are Drilled
Speaker 1: or me at Amy Westervelt. Big thanks to our new
Speaker 1: Patreon supporters. We're now at three hundred supporters. That's so awesome.
Speaker 1: Thanks you guys, particular thanks to Quinn Emmett, David Urbander,
Speaker 1: Frank Berg, Jesse Worker, JJ Starr, Michael Constantino, Stephen Kretzman,
Speaker 1: Mimi one oh one, Claire Kelly, Jesse, Greg Nison, Paul Whitefeld,
Speaker 1: Abigail Rome, and Julie Getmanis. Thanks very much. We appreciate
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