Speaker 1: So far this season, we've focused on the gas industry's
Speaker 1: most recent fight, electrification. Remember this is Sue Forrester, vice
Speaker 1: president of Advocacy and Outreach at the American Gas Association,
Speaker 1: a trade group for utilities, talking about the industry's recent
Speaker 1: strategy to stop the wave of local gas bands.
Speaker 2: So the idea behind choice is to really get ahead
Speaker 2: of the localities, the big cities and counties, and say
Speaker 2: we are allowing our customers the right to be hooked
Speaker 2: up to any kind of energy they would like. So again,
Speaker 2: preserving energy choice, because we're trying to beat counties and
Speaker 2: localities from passing bands that then force the hand of
Speaker 2: governors and state legislators to pass something nationwide.
Speaker 1: Today, an early precursor of that fight that should have
Speaker 1: been a preview for environmentalists of what they would be
Speaker 1: up against, a fight not about buildings, but about trucks.
Speaker 1: At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach five
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 3: In twenty seventeen, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports
Speaker 3: basically were aware that the pollution in the area was
Speaker 3: getting out of control and they had to do something
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: And in twenty twenty one, reporters from the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Times and Floodlight and environmental news collaborative that partners with
Speaker 1: local outlets and The Guardian dug into how the ports
Speaker 1: made their decision.
Speaker 3: I'm Miranda Green. I'm an editor and investigative reporter at Floodlight.
Speaker 4: I'm Sammy Roth. They cover energy for the Los Angeles Times.
Speaker 1: The trucks coming and going from the ports were severely
Speaker 1: polluting the surrounding neighborhoods, creating a major air quality problem
Speaker 1: and related health problems for the people who lived there.
Speaker 1: So port officials set about trying to do something about it,
Speaker 1: and they came up with two potential solutions.
Speaker 3: One was to transition from diesel engine trucks to all
Speaker 3: electric vehicle trucks. The idea is that the technology would
Speaker 3: take a little bit longer to catch up, and it
Speaker 3: might be a longer timeline to be able to do so,
Speaker 3: but it would go from heavy polluting trucks to a
Speaker 3: much cleaner, obviously zero missions vehicle.
Speaker 1: So option one transition to electric vehicles and option two.
Speaker 3: And then the second idea was that there would be
Speaker 3: a bit of a transition, that they would transition to
Speaker 3: natural gas trucks instead, with the idea that eventually they
Speaker 3: would move towards electric vehicles when the technology was more
Speaker 3: readily available and cheaper.
Speaker 1: In other words, back to the idea again of using
Speaker 1: gas as a bridge fuel and kicking the can on
Speaker 1: alletrification down the road to an indefinite date in the future.
Speaker 3: Natural gas is cleaner than diesel, It does not as
Speaker 3: emit as much, but it is still a midscarbon and
Speaker 3: is a lot dirtier than moving over to electric vehicles entirely.
Speaker 1: So one proposal would make the port a big new
Speaker 1: customer for companies selling natural gas for vehicles, and one
Speaker 1: would not. One would connect natural gas to clean air
Speaker 1: and environmental solutions in general, the other not so much.
Speaker 1: One of the groups that showed up to support the
Speaker 1: gas option was the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, whose
Speaker 1: backers included SOCl GAS. As you can imagine, there was
Speaker 1: a lot at stake here for the gas industry to
Speaker 1: decide which route to take. The port's solicited public input.
Speaker 3: So they brought together community members in the area to
Speaker 3: speak about it, and they held many hearings. They did
Speaker 3: a lot of community of times.
Speaker 1: By this point in the season, after hearing about a
Speaker 1: number of different tactics used by the industry to promote
Speaker 1: gas use might have some inkling of what's coming.
Speaker 4: There were definitely strong rumors at the ports of la
Speaker 4: and Long Beach at the time when this was all
Speaker 4: going down in twenty seventeen that there were folks getting paid.
Speaker 4: It was something that was talked about pervasively among people
Speaker 4: involved with this that some people were getting paid to comment,
Speaker 4: but it was not something that could be proven easily,
Speaker 4: and so it's been several years, but we were able
Speaker 4: to come in and prove this.
Speaker 1: That's the story we're going to get into today. What
Speaker 1: was happening in a few years right before proposed gas
Speaker 1: bands ignited a war between environmentalists and the gas industry
Speaker 1: that's coming up after this quick break.
Speaker 4: I'm Michael Starn, local resident, So I'm concerned citizen of
Speaker 4: this area and we need.
Speaker 5: To start using near zero trucks there nineteen ninety percent
Speaker 5: cleaner irreliable today. I don't agree that we should wait
Speaker 5: for zero technologies in the future.
Speaker 6: When you just start using these near zero trucks that
Speaker 6: are nine nine percent cleaner and reliable today, I don't
Speaker 6: agree that we should wait for zero technologies in the
Speaker 6: future when we have ninety nine percent cleaner near zero today.
Speaker 4: I don't agree that we should wait phrazero technologies when
Speaker 4: we have trucks that are much cleaner today.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 6: I came here to fight for cleaner but that renewable
Speaker 6: natural gas technology sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 1: This is the public comment period of just one port
Speaker 1: meeting in Los Angeles in August twenty seventeen. These folks
Speaker 1: spoke one after the other, all saying very similar things.
Speaker 4: A group called Climate Investigation Center did an analysis of
Speaker 4: comments and saw that there were a couple of dozen
Speaker 4: people who spoke at these meetings who seemingly were repeating
Speaker 4: the talking points of the gas industry. But you know,
Speaker 4: unclear how many of those may or may not have
Speaker 4: been getting paid.
Speaker 1: This is Sammy Roth from the Los Angeles Times again.
Speaker 1: He and reporters from Floodlight soon began finding a connection
Speaker 1: between all of those commenters making similar comments and a
Speaker 1: campaign services firm called Method.
Speaker 4: We did find some documents indicating that it looked like
Speaker 4: they were about nineteen or twenty people who this campaign
Speaker 4: firm Method had on a list organized to show up
Speaker 4: and talk at these meetings.
Speaker 1: That got the reporting team wondering if they could track
Speaker 1: some of these folks down, Could they get Method the
Speaker 1: campaign firm that had hired all these people to talk
Speaker 1: to them? Maybe, was the gas industry involved and did
Speaker 1: the paid commenters know about any of it.
Speaker 4: We were able to document that this campaign firm, Method
Speaker 4: Campaign Services, was getting paid by a company called Clean
Speaker 4: Energy Fuels, which is a natural gas vehicle fueling provider.
Speaker 1: Method declined to be interviewed and referred Sammy and Miranda
Speaker 1: to their client, Clean Energy Fuels, a company that supplies
Speaker 1: natural gas for vehicles. Clean Energy Fuels is also one
Speaker 1: of the backers of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition,
Speaker 1: which had been vocal in its support of the ports
Speaker 1: opting for natural gas powered trucks. Greg Roche, Clean Energy's
Speaker 1: vice president for sustainability acknowledged that Method did community outreach
Speaker 1: as part of the gas industry campaign, but he said
Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about the firm paying local residents.
Speaker 4: We were able to talk with four or five different
Speaker 4: people who were actually on the receiving ends of these
Speaker 4: payments for Method, who lived in these communities around the ports,
Speaker 4: were showing up to these hearings commenting in fa favor
Speaker 4: of natural gas trucks and ultimately didn't realize that is
Speaker 4: firm that had hired them and was paying them to
Speaker 4: do this was an arm of the natural gas industry.
Speaker 1: Not only did these hired commenters not know that they
Speaker 1: were getting paid by the natural gas industry via a
Speaker 1: pass through campaign organization, many of them actually thought they
Speaker 1: were doing environmental work. Here's Miranda Green from Floodlight.
Speaker 3: They said that they were specifically told to just speak
Speaker 3: as if they were locals. One woman actually brought her
Speaker 3: children to the hearings and kind of use them as
Speaker 3: an example of why she didn't want diesel engine fuels
Speaker 3: in her community. And the other distinction here, of course,
Speaker 3: is that those individuals who were speaking and paid again,
Speaker 3: they thought that they were working as part of an
Speaker 3: environmental movement. Two people I spoke to they found the
Speaker 3: jobs that method through indeed dot com and they were
Speaker 3: actually advertised as environmental fellowship. So they had been told
Speaker 3: and you did believe that the transition to natural gas
Speaker 3: would be a better safer option than keeping the trucks
Speaker 3: with diesel engines. So they did think they were standing
Speaker 3: up for sustainability, but they didn't realize that they were
Speaker 3: pushing that narrative and saying that they were supporting that
Speaker 3: because the group they were working with was being paid
Speaker 3: by a gas industry.
Speaker 1: Here's one of the paid campaigners speaking during the public
Speaker 1: comment period at a port meeting about her and her
Speaker 1: children's asthma.
Speaker 5: I am a local resident, not certified with the proposal
Speaker 5: changes for the cap. The reason why I hit, why
Speaker 5: i'm here, I'm persung with that pollution. Myself and my
Speaker 5: son we suffer for severe allergies and asthma. I want
Speaker 5: to ask you to please make the changes we need
Speaker 5: near certain missions now. Please the community and myself. We
Speaker 5: can't wait a couple of years for now, because we're
Speaker 5: getting sick.
Speaker 1: Now the time. What component she mentions there was a
Speaker 1: key part of the industry's messaging natural gas vehicles would
Speaker 1: reduce air pollution now converting all the ports trucks to
Speaker 1: electric that would take at least two years. Here's clean
Speaker 1: energy fuels. Greg Roche weighing in at that August twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen port meeting. We heard audio from just a couple
Speaker 1: minutes ago.
Speaker 8: This is clearly a case where you can't let the
Speaker 8: perfect get in the way of the good. This will
Speaker 8: require a lot of leadership. But think of the significance
Speaker 8: A child born today can enter kindergarten in five years
Speaker 8: and breathe cleaner air thanks to bold action taken this year.
Speaker 1: While Roche was knowingly representing the company he works for,
Speaker 1: the local residents who were hired by Method and echoing
Speaker 1: some of these same messages were not.
Speaker 4: They thought they were doing something, you know, good for sustainability,
Speaker 4: which is an argument whether or not they were that
Speaker 4: they really didn't know about the natural gas industry involvement.
Speaker 3: You can make the argument too that environmental groups have
Speaker 3: paid advocates that work for environmental organizations who show up
Speaker 3: at these hearings and testify in favor of those environmental groups.
Speaker 3: But what we were seeing here is that we were
Speaker 3: seeing locals come up and not identify themselves as campaigners
Speaker 3: for METHOD campaigns or as being paid by clean energy fuels,
Speaker 3: but just identify themselves as being locals who care about
Speaker 3: the industry. And so that is kind of the distinction here.
Speaker 3: They're asked beforehand to fill out these forms that say
Speaker 3: who they are there with and who they are speaking
Speaker 3: on behalf. But many of the people that I spoke to,
Speaker 3: I spoke to five different individuals who said they were
Speaker 3: paid through different campaigns, four of which were through Method,
Speaker 3: and they said that they were specifically told to just
Speaker 3: speak as if they were locals.
Speaker 1: Remember the woman we heard just a minute ago, she
Speaker 1: did not say she was working for Method.
Speaker 5: I am a local resident.
Speaker 3: The way that Method operated when it did bring in
Speaker 3: these employees is, you know, it paid them twenty dollars
Speaker 3: an hour to show up and to work with them.
Speaker 3: And they kind of worked with Method in multiple ways.
Speaker 3: First they had them meet altogether and they trained them.
Speaker 3: The individuals I spoke to you said the training was
Speaker 3: kind of a public speaking training. Taught them how to
Speaker 3: give good sound bites. It told them specifically to use
Speaker 3: personal anecdotes to kind of make their point stronger, and
Speaker 3: they would get up kind of and do mock stages
Speaker 3: all together, kind of telling what their story would be
Speaker 3: when they did go to these hearings. You know, the
Speaker 3: individuals I spoke to you didn't say they were necessarily
Speaker 3: told what to say one way or the other. But
Speaker 3: it was openly spoken about how the transition to natural
Speaker 3: gas would happen quicker, it would be better for the
Speaker 3: environment than diesel, and so that was kind of the
Speaker 3: ongoing narrative.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, some of the campaigners did begin
Speaker 1: to pick up on who might be behind all of this.
Speaker 3: I spoke to a handful of people, and two of
Speaker 3: them have told me that they actually did find out
Speaker 3: or suspected that there was a natural gas or kind
Speaker 3: of a fossil fuel industry component backing Methods campaigns as
Speaker 3: they were still working for method They both found out
Speaker 3: because they saw logos on the pamphlets and logos on
Speaker 3: the tables that they were asked to stand at and
Speaker 3: to hand out that were connected to the gas industry.
Speaker 1: Miranda remembers speaking to one man who felt very weird
Speaker 1: about the job once he realized who is behind it,
Speaker 1: but his financial situation prevented him from quitting.
Speaker 3: He was so desperate to get a wage that he
Speaker 3: didn't feel like you could stand up and walk away
Speaker 3: from working for the campaign, despite feeling really uncomfortable about that.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, the poor did opt for the gas plan. According
Speaker 1: to the La Times is Sammy Roth. Though port officials
Speaker 1: said they knew something might be up with the public comments.
Speaker 4: They basically acknowledged and said, yeah, you know, at the time,
Speaker 4: we were aware that there were these rumors that folks
Speaker 4: were getting paid, that there was something happening behind the
Speaker 4: scence here that we didn't know about. But interestingly, they
Speaker 4: also really defended their process despite that, and they said, no,
Speaker 4: you know, we don't feel like there was undue influence.
Speaker 4: We had this whole extended process of public input and
Speaker 4: comment over multiple years and had all of these different
Speaker 4: forms for people to weigh in, so, you know, so no,
Speaker 4: we don't think that this played a major role in
Speaker 4: influencing our decision in an undue way. At the same time,
Speaker 4: then you've got to asked, like, okay, but if the
Speaker 4: public comments you were hearing from weren't, you know, having
Speaker 4: that big an influence on your decision, you know, it
Speaker 4: makes you wonder a little bit. But they defended their process.
Speaker 1: Roth has been covering energy in southern California for more
Speaker 1: than a decade, and he's followed what's been happening with
Speaker 1: the gas industry in recent years with great interest. He
Speaker 1: covered what happened in San Luis Obispo the story we
Speaker 1: heard about in episode one, and he's been tracking all
Speaker 1: of SOCOW Gas's regulatory issues closely over the years. Despite
Speaker 1: all that, he says this story was eye opening for him.
Speaker 4: I think one thing that surprised me was the timeline,
Speaker 4: and these were events that were taking place back in
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen. There have been a lot of stories reported
Speaker 4: like this since then. I mean, there's the paid actor
Speaker 4: scandal with Energy in New Orleans is a big one
Speaker 4: that comes to mind.
Speaker 1: A good evening.
Speaker 7: Back in March, an actor told us that he was
Speaker 7: paid to wear a shirt the support of the proposed
Speaker 7: Energy power plant in New Orleans East, and last week
Speaker 7: the Lens issued report citing more actors were saying they
Speaker 7: were paid as well to attend the meeting in favor
Speaker 7: of the plant.
Speaker 4: You know these stories about Instagram influencers getting paid by
Speaker 4: the American Gas Association to post about how much they
Speaker 4: love cooking on gas stoves.
Speaker 1: Guess cooking with gas, cooking.
Speaker 7: With guess, we all cooked better.
Speaker 3: We have a cooking with guess.
Speaker 6: Yes, it's so hot, it's not on, when it's off.
Speaker 6: It's the only way to cook.
Speaker 3: That's what I was taught.
Speaker 4: But this is all stuff that's kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: felt like it's more at the vanguard just the last
Speaker 4: couple of years.
Speaker 1: This story shows that the gas industry was testing out
Speaker 1: some of the defensive tactics it would ultimately use to
Speaker 1: fight electrification in a much bigger way for a few
Speaker 1: years before that fight really kicked off.
Speaker 4: And to see essentially the same type of attitudes and
Speaker 4: tactics of the gas industry of seeing electrification as the
Speaker 4: significant threat to their business model, of realizing that they
Speaker 4: needed to frame themselves as we're the clean fuel, We're
Speaker 4: the option that's going to get us beyond the even
Speaker 4: dirtier stuff. It isn't exactly a new phenomenon, I mean
Speaker 4: not the twenty seventeen was that long ago. But I
Speaker 4: was a little surprised to see essentially the same type
Speaker 4: of debate and same type of tactic that we're seeing
Speaker 4: today back at that point.
Speaker 1: That same old frame bridge fuel cleaner than coal, no
Speaker 1: need to rush the move to electrification. It's having a
Speaker 1: major resurgence right now, especially as the industry uses Russia's
Speaker 1: recent invasion of Ukraine to justify pushing electrification off even longer. Instead,
Speaker 1: they're pushing to build out new gas infrastructure that they'll
Speaker 1: be fighting to keep for decades to come. That's our story.
Speaker 1: Next time Drilled is an original critical frequency production. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Jules Bradley. Our editor is Jude Joffy. Block Mixing, mastering,
Speaker 1: sound design and original music for this season is by
Speaker 1: Peter Duff. Our artwork is drawn by Matt Fleming. Our
Speaker 1: fact checker is wood am Yan. Special thanks for this
Speaker 1: episode to Floodlights, Miranda Green and The Los Angeles Times
Speaker 1: is Sammy Roth. Will drop links to their reporting in
Speaker 1: the show notes and more information on where you can
Speaker 1: follow all of their other great work. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at we are Drilled. You can
Speaker 1: also find online content related to all of our episodes
Speaker 1: online at Drilled podcast dot com, where you can also
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Speaker 1: it for this time. Thanks for listening, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you next week.