S6, Ep9 | Epic Astroturfing

Drilled S6, Part2 Ep4

Speaker 1 [00:00:10] So far this season, we've focused on the gas industry's most recent fights electrification. Remember, this is Sue Forrester, vice president of advocacy and outreach at the American Gas Association, a trade group for utilities, talking about the industry's recent strategy to stop the wave of local gas bans.

Speaker 2 [00:00:34] So the idea behind choice is to really get ahead of the localities, the big cities in counties, and say we are allowing our customers the right to be hooked up to any kind of energy they would like. So, again, preserving energy choice because we're trying to beat counties and localities from passing bans that then force the hand of governors and state legislators to pass something nationwide.

Speaker 1 [00:01:00] To be an early precursor of that fight, that should have been a preview for environmentalists of what they would be up against a fight not about buildings, but about trucks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach five years ago.

Speaker 3 [00:01:23] In 2017, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports basically were aware that the pollution in the area was getting out of control and they had to do something about it.

Speaker 1 [00:01:34] And in 2021, reporters from the Los Angeles Times and Floodlight and Environmental News Collaborative, the partners with local outlets and The Guardian dug into how the ports made their decision.

Speaker 3 [00:01:47] I'm Miranda Green. I'm an editor and investigative reporter at Floodlight.

Speaker 4 [00:01:52] I'm Sammy Roth. They cover energy for the Los Angeles Times.

Speaker 1 [00:01:56] The trucks coming and going from the ports were severely polluting the surrounding neighborhoods, creating a major air quality problem and related health problems for the people who lived there. So port officials set about trying to do something about it, and they came up with two potential solutions.

Speaker 3 [00:02:15] One was to transition from diesel engine trucks to all electric vehicle trucks. The idea was that the technology would take a little bit longer to catch up, and it might be a longer timeline to be able to do so. But it would go from heavy polluting trucks to a much cleaner, obviously zero emissions vehicle.

Speaker 1 [00:02:34] So option one, transition to electric vehicles and option two.

Speaker 3 [00:02:40] And then the second idea was that there would be a bit of a transition, that they would transition to natural gas trucks instead with the idea that eventually they would move towards electric vehicles when the technology was more readily available and cheaper.

Speaker 1 [00:02:54] In other words, back to the idea again of using gas as a bridge fuel and kicking the can on electrification down the road to an indefinite date in the future.

Speaker 3 [00:03:04] Natural gas is cleaner than diesel. It does not is meant as much, but it still emits carbon and is a lot dirtier than moving over to electric vehicles entirely.

Speaker 1 [00:03:15] So one proposal would make the port a big new customer for companies selling natural gas for vehicles, and one would not. One would connect natural gas to clean air and environmental solutions in general. The other not so much. One of the groups that showed up to support the gas option was the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, whose backers included SoCal Gas. As you can imagine, there's a lot at stake here for the gas industry to decide which route to take. The ports solicited public input.

Speaker 3 [00:03:52] So they brought together community members in the area to speak about it. They held many hearings. They did a lot of community events.

Speaker 1 [00:04:02] By this point in the season after hearing about a number of different tactics used by the industry to promote gas use, you might have some inkling of what's coming.

Speaker 4 [00:04:13] There are definitely strong rumors at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach at the time when this was all going down in 2017, that there were folks getting paid. It was something that was talked about pervasively among people involved with this, that some people were getting paid to comment, that it was not something that could be proven easily. And so it's been several years, but we were able to come in and prove this.

Speaker 1 [00:04:34] That's the story we're going to get into today. What was happening in the few years right before proposed gas bans ignited a war between environmentalists and the gas industry. That's coming up after this quick break.

Speaker 2 [00:05:10] Am I concerned? Local resident. I am concerned citizen of this area. We need to start using near zero trucks that are 99% cleaner around today. I don't agree that we should wait for zero technologies in the future. When you just start using these near zero trucks that are 99% cleaner and reliable today. I don't agree that we should wait for zero technologies in the future when we have 99% cleaner near zero today. I don't agree that we should wait for zero technologies when we have trucks that are much cleaner today. Now, I came here to fight for clean air, but that renewable natural gas technology sounds pretty cool.

Speaker 1 [00:05:47] This is the public comment period of just one port meeting in Los Angeles in August 2017. These folks spoke one after the other, all saying very similar things.

Speaker 4 [00:06:01] A group called Climate Investigation Center did an analysis of comments and saw that there were a couple of dozen people who spoke at these meetings who seemingly were repeating the talking points of the gas industry. But, you know, unclear how many of those may or may not have been getting paid.

Speaker 1 [00:06:17] This is Sammy Roth from the Los Angeles Times. Again, he and reporters from Floodlight soon began finding a connection between all of those commenters making similar comments and a campaign services firm called Method.

Speaker 4 [00:06:31] We did find some documents indicating that it looked like there were about 19 or 20 people who this campaign firm method had on a list organized to show up and talk at these meetings.

Speaker 1 [00:06:42] That got the reporting team wondering if they could track some of these folks down. Could they get method, the campaign firm that had hired all these people to talk to them? Maybe. Was the gas industry involved and did the paid commenters know about any of it?

Speaker 4 [00:06:59] We were able to document that this campaign firm Method Campaign Services was getting paid by a company called Clean Energy Fuels, which is a natural gas vehicle fueling provider.

Speaker 1 [00:07:12] Method declined to be interviewed and referred Sammy and Miranda to their client. Clean Energy fuels a company that supplies natural gas for vehicles. Clean Energy Fuels is also one of the backers of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, which had been vocal in its support of the ports opting for natural gas powered trucks. Greg Roche, Clean Energy's vice president for sustainability, acknowledged that method did community outreach as part of the gas industry campaign. But he said he didn't know anything about the firm paying local residents.

Speaker 4 [00:07:48] We were able to talk with four or five different people who were actually on the receiving end of these payments from method who lived in these communities around the ports, were showing up to these hearings, commenting in favor of natural gas trucks and ultimately didn't realize that this firm that had hired them and was paying them to do this was an arm of the natural gas industry.

Speaker 1 [00:08:09] Not only did these hired commentors not know that they were getting paid by the natural gas industry via a pass through campaign organization, many of them actually thought they were doing environmental work. Here's Maranda Green from Floodlight.

Speaker 3 [00:08:27] They said that they were specifically told to just speak as if they were locals. One woman actually brought her children to the hearings and kind of used them as an example of why she didn't want diesel engine fuels in her community. And the other distinction here, of course, is that those individuals who were speaking and paid again, they thought that they were working as part of an environmental movement. Two people I spoke to, they found the jobs that mattered through Indeed.com, and they were actually advertised as environmental fellowships. So they had been told and did believe that the transition to natural gas would be a better, safer option than keeping the trucks with diesel engines. So they did think they were standing up for sustainability, but they didn't realize that they were pushing that narrative and saying that they were supporting that because the group they were working with was being paid by the gas industry.

Speaker 1 [00:09:26] Here's one of the paid campaigners speaking during the public comment period at a port meeting about her and her children's asthma.

Speaker 2 [00:09:34] I am a local resident, not satisfied with the proposed changes for the CAP. The reason why I'm here. I'm concerned with that pollution. Myself and my son, we suffer from severe allergies and asthma. I want to ask you to please make the changes. We need near certain measures now, please. The community and myself. We can't wait. Couple of years from now because we're getting sick now.

Speaker 1 [00:09:59] The time component she mentions there was a key part of the industry's messaging. Natural gas vehicles would reduce air pollution, now converting all the port's trucks to electric, That would take at least two years. Here's clean energy fuels Greg Roche weighing in at that August 2017 port meeting. We heard audio from just a couple minutes ago.

Speaker 2 [00:10:23] This is clearly a case where you can't let the perfect get in the way of the good. This will require a lot of leadership, but think of the significance. A child born today can enter kindergarten in five years and breathe cleaner air thanks to bold action taken this year.

Speaker 1 [00:10:42] While Roche was knowingly representing the company, he works for the local residents who were hired by Method and echoing some of these same messages were not.

Speaker 4 [00:10:54] They thought they were doing something, you know, good for sustainability, which is an argument whether or not they were, but that they really didn't know about the natural gas industry involvement.

Speaker 3 [00:11:03] You can make the argument to the environmental groups have paid advocates that work for environmental organizations who show up at these hearings and testify in favor of those environmental groups. But what we were seeing here is that we were seeing locals come up and not identify themselves as campaigners for method campaigns or as being paid by clean energy fuels, but just identify themselves as being locals who care about the industry. And so that is kind of the distinction here. They're asked beforehand to fill out these forms that say who they are there with and who they are speaking on behalf. But many of the people that I spoke to, I spoke to five different individuals who said they were paid through different campaigns, four of which were three method. And they said that they were specifically told to just speak as if they were locals.

Speaker 1 [00:11:52] Remember the woman we heard just a minute ago? She did not say she was working for Method.

Speaker 2 [00:11:57] I am a local resident.

Speaker 3 [00:12:00] The way that method operated when it did bring in these employees is it paid them $20 an hour to show up and to work with them. And they kind of worked with method in multiple ways. First, they had them meet altogether and they trained them. The individuals I spoke to said the training was kind of a public speaking training. It taught them how to give good sound bites. It told them specifically to use personal anecdotes to kind of make their point stronger, and they would get up kind of and do mock stages altogether, kind of telling what their story would be when they did go to these hearings. You know, the individuals I spoke to didn't say they were necessarily told what to say one way or the other, but it was openly spoken about how the transition to natural gas would happen quicker and would be better for the environment than diesel. And so that was kind of the ongoing narrative.

Speaker 1 [00:12:49] At a certain point, some of the campaigners did begin to pick up on who might be behind all this.

Speaker 3 [00:12:55] I spoke to a handful of people and two of them had told me that they actually did find out or suspected that there was a natural gas or kind of a fossil fuel industry component backing methods campaigns as they were still working for method. They stand out because they saw logos on the pamphlets and logos on the tables that they were asked to stand at and to hand out that were connected to the gas industry.

Speaker 1 [00:13:20] Miranda remembers speaking to one man who felt very weird about the job once he realized who was behind it, but his financial situation prevented him from quitting.

Speaker 3 [00:13:30] He was so desperate to get a wage that he didn't feel like you could stand up and walk away from working for the campaign despite feeling really uncomfortable about that.

Speaker 1 [00:13:39] Ultimately, the board did opt for the gas plan, According to the L.A. Times's Sammy Roth, though port officials said they knew something might be up with the public comments.

Speaker 4 [00:13:50] They basically acknowledged and said, Yeah, you know, at the time we were aware that there were these rumors that folks were getting paid, that there was something happening behind the scenes here that we didn't know about. But interestingly, they also really defended their process despite that. And they said, no, you know, we don't feel like there was undue influence. We had this whole extended process of public input and comment over multiple years and had all of these different forms for people to weigh in. So, you know, so, no, we don't think that this played a major role in influencing our decision in an undue way at the same time. Then you've got to ask, okay, But if if the public comments you are hearing from were having that big an influence on your decision, you know, it makes it makes you wonder a little bit that they defended the process.

Speaker 1 [00:14:30] Roth has been covering energy in Southern California for more than a decade, and he's followed what's been happening with the gas industry in recent years with great interest. He covered what happened in San Luis Obispo, the story we heard about in episode one. And he's been tracking all of SoCal Gases regulatory issues closely over the years. Despite all that, he says this story was eye opening for him.

Speaker 4 [00:14:54] I think one thing that surprised me was the timeline. These were events that were taking place back in 2017. There have been a lot of stories reported like this since then. I mean, there's the paid actor scandal with Entergy in New Orleans is a big one that comes to mind.

Speaker 1 [00:15:09] And good evening. Back in March, an actor told us that he was paid to wear a shirt to support the proposed Entergy power plant in New Orleans East. And last week, the Lens issued a report citing more actors were saying they were paid as well to attend the meeting in favor of the plan.

Speaker 4 [00:15:27] You know these stories about Instagram influencers getting paid by the American Gas Association to post about how much they love cooking on gas stoves, gas.

Speaker 2 [00:15:40] Cooking with gas. Cooking with gas. We all cook better when we're cooking with gas. Gas is so hot. It's not only when it's off, it's the only way to cook. That's what I was taught here.

Speaker 4 [00:15:51] But this is all stuff that's kind of, you know, felt like it's more at the vanguard just the last couple of years.

Speaker 1 [00:15:57] This story shows that the gas industry was testing out some of the defensive tactics it would ultimately use to fight electrification in a much bigger way for a few years before that fight really kicked off.

Speaker 4 [00:16:10] And to see essentially the same type of attitudes and tactics of the gas industry, of seeing electrification as the significant threat to their business model, of realizing that they needed to frame themselves as where the clean fuel or the option that's going to get us beyond the even dirtier stuff. It isn't exactly a new phenomenon. I mean, not that 2017 was that long ago, but I was a little surprised to see essentially the same type of debate and same type of tactic that we're seeing today, that at that point.

Speaker 1 [00:16:37] That same old frame bridge fuel cleaner than coal. No need to rush the move to electrification. It's having a major resurgence right now, especially as the industry uses Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine to justify pushing electrification off even longer. Instead, they're pushing to build out new gas infrastructure that they'll be fighting to keep for decades to come. That's our story. Next time. Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. Our producer is Jules Bradley. Our editor is Jude JOFFE-BLOCK. Mixing mastering sound design and original music for this season is by Peter Duff. Our artwork is drawn by Matt Fleming. Our fact checker is rooted in special thanks for this episode to Floodlights. Miranda Green and the Los Angeles Times's Sammy Ross will drop links to their reporting in the show notes and more information on where you can follow all of their other great work. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at We Are Drilled. You can also find online content related to all of our episodes online at Drilled podcast ABC.com, where you can also sign up for our weekly newsletter. And you can support us via Patriot on app Patria CNN.com slash Drilled. Big thanks to our latest Patreon supporters. Blake, Michael Murray, JJ B, Carly Anderson, Meredith Ward, New Hot. Jared Laurie and Megan Isan, Devon Blackburn, Bernardo, Amanda Nash, Ellen Lennox, Kendall and Cameron Russell. Thank you so much. We really appreciate the support. That's it for this time. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.