The PAO probe has since widened to include other SoCalGas activities, including the company’s relationship with Imprenta Communications Group, a public affairs firm focused on issues in minority communities.

Three years ago, SoCalGas and Imprenta recruited Latino and Asian American politicians to support natural gas-fueled “near-zero emission” trucks, rather than electric ones favored by environmentalists.

Newly obtained internal company emails show SoCalGas worked with Imprenta throughout 2017 to enlist politicians of color ahead of a key climate vote by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest in the country, as they sought to reduce emissions from ships, trucks and other infrastructure.

The company ultimately scored a win as port officials exempted natural gas trucks from a fee levied on other trucks this year. Officials also allowed port users to meet stricter rules for new trucks in 2023 by buying natural gas vehicles, which environmentalists wanted to be banned entirely.

What investigators have uncovered so far suggests a well-coordinated operation by SoCalGas and Imprenta that involved writing gas-friendly remarks for politicians, making campaign contributions to those who delivered talking points and sending its own speakers to public meetings. If the PAO investigation concludes SoCalGas’ actions were improper, the company could face sanctions.

A POLITICO review of hundreds of pages of the emails, campaign finance records and legal and regulatory filings found the following:

— Imprenta helped SoCalGas start Californians For Balanced Energy Solutions, or C4BES, the group focused on natural gas bans in new buildings. It also created a campaign called Advanced Clean Trucks Now Los Angeles — or ACT Now L.A. — which said the ports should endorse off-the-lot “near-zero” trucks over zero-emission vehicles.

— SoCalGas and Imprenta wrote a speech for then-Montebello Mayor Vivian Romero to give at an October 2017 press conference on near-zero trucks, according to email correspondence between the company and the PR firm. They also wrote a November 2017 op-ed under the names of Romero and two other elected officials — current South Gate Mayor Maria Davila and current San Gabriel Council Member Jason Pu — that ran in the Orange County Register one day before the ports vote.

— Two high-level SoCalGas employees, George Minter and Ken Chawkins, coordinated much of the utility’s alleged ports campaign, emails show, and left the company earlier this year. Minter, Chawkins and former SoCalGas CEO Bret Lane, who retired in June, did not respond to requests for comment.

— The year after the ports’ climate vote, according to campaign finance records, Romero received a $300 contribution from SoCalGas parent company Sempra Energy, while Davila in 2019 received a $250 contribution from Sempra. Romero also received $500 in campaign contributions from Sempra from 2015 through 2016, plus $127 in meals.

Romero said in an interview that the contributions and meals she accepted stemmed from her service as president of the Independent Cities Association, an organization that SoCalGas sponsored. “It’s not transactional, it’s relational,” Romero said. “We walk a fine line.”

“They would like to have access to the political leaders in any community. ... I’m sure they’d like to influence us more,” she said of the company. “They want to influence, I want to be educated.”

SoCalGas did not respond to questions about its involvement with minority groups and leaders who advocated for its “near-zero” trucks position. Instead, spokesperson Chris Gilbride only addressed the source of funds for advocacy efforts, saying the company has “established protocols to make sure lobbying costs are not paid by ratepayers.”

A year after the ports campaign, Davila’s city of South Gate was selected for a SoCalGas energy efficiency pilot program. A company employee involved with the ports effort appeared alongside South Gate officials for the announcement.

Davila, who said she was unaware of SoCalGas’ involvement with ACT Now L.A., was asked by the campaign to speak in front of port commissioners at their November 2017 meeting “regarding clean air.” “Of course,” Davila recalled saying. “We need that.”

Davila said she previously did not know the distinction between near-zero and zero-emission trucks. “I guess at the time I didn’t do much of my homework on it, so I wasn’t aware,” she said.

‘Connect the dots’

Pu, the San Gabriel council member, was part of a markedly different arrangement from the mayors he spoke alongside in 2017. After he spent more than $24,000 on Imprenta services that year for his reelection campaign, the firm in ensuing years waived more than $4,300 of those expenses as a legal gift, according to a Fair Political Practices Commission filing obtained through a public records request.

Pu also received $500 in campaign contributions from employees of Imprenta and the Kaufman Legal Group, a law firm that worked with Imprenta on C4BES, the year before he was recruited for the ports campaign. One of the Imprenta-recruited minority groups later gave Pu $388 in meals.

That group — the Asian Pacific American Leadership Foundation, or APALF — was founded by the CEO of Imprenta, Ronald Wong, who did not respond to requests for comment. One of APALF’s programs is a political training “bootcamp” for Asian American candidates, many of whom now serve in the Legislature and other statewide positions.

“You’ve got the same entity [Imprenta] that SoCalGas has contracted with ... and now you see that same entity discounting political services for a politician who is furthering SoCalGas’ agenda,” said Matt Vespa, a staff attorney at environmental law firm Earthjustice. “It’s not that hard to connect the dots.”

An unrelated discrimination lawsuit filed against Wong by a former Imprenta employee in 2018 alleged that APALF and two other organizations “constituted an integrated enterprise and/or alter-ego of [Imprenta],” and that “at least” one of those other organizations “was used by Wong as a shell corporation to conduct business on behalf of customers who have conflicts of interest with or [who] would be perceived as unsavory by IMPRENTA customers.” The former employee voluntarily dropped his suit five months after filing the complaint and could not be reached for comment.

Pu said Imprenta has done pro bono work for his campaigns, and the firm “just charged me for the hard costs ... we were able to get a discount from the printers and the mail houses for the 2017 campaign. That’s why we got a reduction in the overall bill.”

He also paid $4,000 to Kaufman for its services during his 2017 run. Like Imprenta, Kaufman worked for the anti-electrification C4BES, according to an internal presentation obtained by POLITICO.

Pu said Imprenta did approach him to support the ACT Now L.A. campaign, but that he has independently supported reducing port emissions.

The council member said he did not know that SoCalGas was ultimately behind the ACT Now L.A. campaign. Although Pu supported near-zero trucks at the time in 2017, he said he now believes that electric trucks are “winning the battle” on technology and convenience.

One of the other groups recruited by Imprenta to write and speak in favor of near-zero trucks — the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund, or SALEF — received $7,500 in charitable contributions from SoCalGas in 2018 and 2019, the two years following the company’s win on the ports vote, according to CPUC disclosures. SALEF didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A SoCalGas lobbyist served on the SALEF board when the group wrote to the ports. And four Imprenta employees, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, said at a September 2017 public hearing that they were representatives of APALF, SALEF and other minority groups without disclosing their affiliation with Imprenta.

SoCalGas in at least one other instance received support from a clean air organization to which it has donated. BREATHE California of Los Angeles County, which promotes “clean air and healthy lungs,” also wrote and spoke in support of near-zero emission trucks as part of the ACT Now L.A. campaign.

The organization received $81,000 in SoCalGas charitable contributions from 2017 to 2019. The group also received an “environmental champion” award from SoCalGas last year.

BREATHE L.A. president Marc Carrel, who joined the organization one month after the ports vote, said the group is technology-neutral and supports any way for emissions to be reduced, including both near-zero and zero-emission trucks.

“We aren’t taking that position because SoCalGas told us to,” he said, adding that BREATHE L.A. also receives funding from Tesla, the University of California system and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Port of Los Angeles Vice President Ed Renwick said his vote for the climate plan was intended to support over a dozen technology-neutral strategies to reduce emissions, not specifically to favor natural gas.

“Was I swayed because a particular person with a particular title said something? The answer is ‘no,’” he said. “The identity of the person or the person’s elected status had no impact on my thinking. What mattered was the cogency of their argument.”

He noted the argument that natural gas is cleaner than diesel, and how near-zero trucks “exist in quantity and are a lot cheaper than zero[-emission] trucks.”

Commenting on the SoCalGas- and Imprenta-recruited politicians who spoke first in prime slots at the ports’ decisive November 2017 meeting, Renwick said, “Transparency is exceedingly important, especially with public officials.”

‘Fast and loose’

The PAO probe of the utility has ramped up in recent months. The office subpoenaed SoCalGas’ accounting software in May to see which of the company’s financial accounts paid for political campaigns. A source familiar with the investigation said the PAO has already found evidence of costs being booked to customer accounts.

SoCalGas says that the financial source of the campaigns will be adjudicated in the utility’s next rate case, when regulators determine whether ratepayers or shareholders pay for certain expenses. Its parent company, Sempra Energy, spent over $1.6 million in state lobbying last year alone.

The source familiar with the PAO probe said SoCalGas has been uncooperative with the office’s investigation, and the public advocates have asked regulators to impose a daily $100,000 fine on the company for not complying with the accounting subpoena. Commissioners have not done so, and a state senator this month asked the agency to force SoCalGas to cooperate.

The company has moved money from ratepayer accounts to shareholder accounts belatedly, according to the source. As a result, the source said, the PAO has not been able to determine how much has been charged to ratepayer accounts. SoCalGas declined to provide specific responses to questions about the matter.

The company wrote in July to CPUC President Marybel Batjer asking for clarity surrounding if and how customer cash can be spent on advocacy. The company cites how the CPUC allowed the company to collect $1.5 million from customers last fall to pay for its projected 2019 “business strategy and development” expenses.

“Unfortunately, today there is a gray area in the CPUC advocacy rules — especially when it comes to local government and community advocacy — that should be clarified to improve transparency and promote greater public participation in energy policy decisions,” Gilbride said. “That is why we have asked the Commission to open a formal proceeding to clarify its lobbying rules for all utilities.”

CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper said that the agency “intends to issue a determination on the matter this fall.” She didn’t address written questions about the PAO’s pending motion and the state senator’s letter on escalating the investigation.

Vespa, the Earthjustice attorney, took a more cynical view of the SoCalGas letter to Batjer.

The PAO is “closing in,” he said. SoCalGas “has been fast and loose with customer money to fight electrification policies for years, and frankly they need to be held accountable and liable for that. There needs to be consequences.”