California Gov. Gavin Newsom bailed out his state’s greatest utility, which triggered among the Golden State’s worst wildfires, after being showered in lots of of hundreds in donations from executives, in accordance with a scorching evaluation of his management in a brand new ebook.
As an alternative, he opted to go after oil and gasoline corporations over local weather change claims.
“Newsom holds oil and gasoline corporations chargeable for wildfires however not the utilities that triggered most of them after he and his spouse raked in lots of of hundreds in donations,” Susan Crrabtree and Jedd McFatter write of their muckraking ebook, “Idiot’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.”
The authors notice Newsom, a possible 2028 Democratic presidential contender, filed a lawsuit towards oil and gasoline corporations, alleging they misled the general public about local weather change, which contributes to situations for wildfires.
However Newsom went straightforward on a monopolistic utility — Pacific Fuel and Electrical Firm or PG&E, the authors say.
“Whereas blaming the oil corporations for contributing to local weather change, he failed to carry PG&E and different utilities accountable for wildfires that spewed file quantities of carbon and different poisonous smoke into the realm,” the authors mentioned within the ebook, to be launched this week.
PG&E pleaded responsible in June 2020 to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter within the wildfires that destroyed the northern California city of Paradise in 2018.
That blaze — named the Camp Fireplace — ignited due to a downed PG&E energy line on Nov. 8, 2018, burning greater than 153,000 acres, leveling 13,500 houses and killing 85 folks
“However removed from holding the large utility accountable, Newsom spearheaded a legislative chapter deal that allowed the utility to proceed working, then signed $21 billion in new insurance coverage protections for PG&E into regulation,” the authors mentioned.
PG&E is a giant donor to California Dems, with shut ties to the Newsoms, the excerpts of the ebook obtained by The Publish reveal.
“Over the previous twenty years, Newsom and his spouse, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, have accepted a minimum of $700,000 in donations from PG&E. The funds went to Newsom’s many marketing campaign coffers and his spouse’s gender-justice movies, a minimum of considered one of which was screened in PG&E’s company San Francisco skyscraper in 2011,” the authors mentioned.
The ebook factors out that PG&E is listed within the credit of two of Siebel Newsom’s movies as an “affiliate producer.”
Siebel Newsom based the Illustration Mission movie firm.
The ebook additionally notes that Newsom pal Jason Kinney is a accomplice at Axiom advisers, a prime lobbying agency that represented corporations “to whom the utility [PG&E] owed hundreds of thousands [of dollars]” whereas it filed for chapter.
Newsom confronted a ferocious backlash for hypocritically attending a birthday celebration for Kinney on Nov. 6,2020 on the Napa Valley French Laundry restaurant, violating his personal COVID-19 pandemic keep at house guidelines and to put on masks at gatherings.
After Newsom engineered the chapter deal and that handed the state legislature, the PG&E collectors represented by Axiom had been “paid in full” and Axiom collected a minimum of $400,000 in charges for his or her lobbying work for the collectors, the ebook mentioned.
The California Utility Fee, whose commissioners are all now appointed by Newsom, additionally repeatedly accredited will increase on PG&E’s already sky excessive payments on prospects, the authors mentioned.
Newsom triggered a stir final week, splitting with Democrats, acknowledging that “it’s deeply unfair” to permit transgender athletes to compete towards organic ladies, whereas chatting with a MAGA conservative Charlie Kirk on his podcast debut episode, “That is Gavin Newsom.”
Co-author Susan Crabtree, in a press release to The Publish, mentioned Newsom is a part of the issue, not the answer, to California’s issues.
“Every thing about Gavin Newsom is performative, somewhat than performance-based,” Crabtree mentioned.
“From his school admission, the launch of his wine enterprise with Getty cash, to his political rise – all had been handed to him on a silver platter. That’s why he thinks he can run for president by way of podcast whereas leaving his state in shambles.”
She added: “It’s additionally why he has no drawback taking cash from PG&E, which triggered the deadliest fireplace in California historical past, to fund his campaigns, poll initiatives and his spouse’s gender-justice movies, whereas performing like he cares about wildfire victims.”
The Publish reached out to Newsom for remark.
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