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SPECIAL EDITION: LOBBYING
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IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR...
The jack-o-lanterns are gone and the fang teeth are put away for another year, which can only mean one thing... The new California lobbying figures are out!!
AND THE BIG SPENDER IS… THE OIL INDUSTRY! AGAIN!
The California Oil Lobby spent $32.4 million so far in 2015-16 legislative session. That’s the equivalent of dropping $50,750 EVERY DAY since January 1, 2015. We have trouble wrapping our heads around that number, so we broke it down into terms we could grasp.
$32,400,000 IS ENOUGH MONEY TO...
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Buy 648 refurbished DeLoreans
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Give away 81 thousand iPad airs
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Get 92,571 goats
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See Beyonce’s Formation World Tour 11,571 times
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Buy 16,200 Portuguese Water Dogs
- Go tandem skydiving 155,024 times
IF YOU WERE TO HAVE $32.4 MILLION IN 1 DOLLAR BILLS...
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End to end, they’d stretch the distance of 50 marathons
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Stacked, they would reach the height of 8 Empire State Buildings
- Weighed, it would be about the same as 200 average-sized male guerrillas
THAT'S A TON OF MONEY.
(Actually it’s 35 tons of money, if you’re weighing it)
And that’s just a fraction of the amount the oil industry has spent lobbying California policymakers in the last 10 years. Why? Ten years ago, we introduced a policy - AB32 - that was the most progressive climate law in the nation. And California just keeps on introducing and passing more policies to help us cut emissions and breath clean air.
And that threatens the oil industry. After all, if California can break free of fossil fuels, why can’t the rest of the nation? And the world?
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THE BIGGEST SPENDER: THE WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION
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So far this legislative session, the biggest spender is the oil industry's lobbyist the Western States Petroleum Association. And that should come as no surprise. They’ve regularly bought this honor, having single-handedly spent more than $60 million lobbying in California since the passage of AB 32.
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WHAT HAS THE OIL INDUSTRY GOTTEN FOR ALL THAT LOBBYING?
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Not much.
Sure, the oil industry has bought some wins along the way - they helped gut a bill that would have cut oil use in half, and California inexplicably continues to allow oil extraction techniques that endanger aquifers - but the people are pushing back and, overall, Big Oil is losing the war.
In the past year, we doubled down on AB 32, signing into law a bill that requires we get emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 (which is freakin’ amazing) AND we passed FIVE bills that focus on supporting low-income communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by pollution.
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WHAT HAVE CALIFORNIANS GOTTEN OUT OF THE AB 32 DEAL?
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A lot.
To name a few things: we’ve saved billions on health care (thanks to less air pollution), we’ve we've grown our clean economy (which currently employs more than a half million people), we’re world leaders in clean technology investment, and we have close to a quarter million electric vehicles in the state.
Oh, and not to mention we’ve made great strides to decouple our economy from fossil fuels.
And Californians get it. In fact, 69 percent support AB 32 - up from 64 percent at its passage in 2006.
Better luck next time, WSPA and friends.
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