'Filing Error' (cough) in PacifiCorp's Most Recent California Lobbying Disclosure

PacifiCorp likely spent the greatest amount on California lobbying of any firm during 1Q 2024. PacifiCorp supplied a misleading amount of ZERO on the first page of their mandatory disclosure

May 10, 2024

Here's the Summary of PacifiCorp's recent California Lobbying activity shown at the Secretary of State's website as of 10 May 2024. [1]

Here's CGNP's email chain with the Secretary of State's office:

Re: Error in PacifiCorp 1Q 2024 Form 635 Grand Total, Page 1

From

government [at] cgnp [dot] org

PRD Lobbying

Date

09 May 2024 3:58 PM PDT

Message Body

Hello, Sean:

Thank you for this follow-up. CGNP has made a filing with an oversight body in which this PacifiCorp filing error is highlighted.

Gene Nelson, Ph.D. CGNP Senior Legal Researcher and President
Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP)
1375 East Grand Ave Ste 103 #523
Arroyo Grande, CA 93420-2421
(805) 363 - 4697 cell
Government [at] CGNP [dot] org email
https://CGNP.org website
https://greennuke.substack.com Substack

On 2024-05-09 21:43, PRD Lobbying wrote:

Good afternoon Gene Nelson,

Thank you for contacting us with your concern. This filing was reviewed and determined to have a filing error. The filer appears to have incorrectly reported the zero grand total. A letter requesting an amended Form 635 to fix this error was sent by our office to the filer on May 8, 2024.

Sean Jensen

Staff Services Manager I

Secretary of State

Political Reform Division

Sean [dot] Jensen [at] sos [dot] ca [dot] gov

(916) 695-1547

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: government [at] cgnp [dot] org
Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2024 11:27 AM
To: Political Reform Web Mail prd [at] sos [dot] ca [dot] gov
Cc: Secretary Weber secretary [dot] weber [at] sos [dot] ca [dot] gov
Subject: Error in PacifiCorp 1Q 2024 Form 635

Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. - California Secretary of State
Political Reform Division - Cal-Access Lobbying Disclosures
1500 11th Street 4th Floor - Room 495
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 653-6224
prd [at] sos [dot] ca [dot] gov

May 7, 2024

Subject: Error in PacifiCorp 1Q 2024 Form 635 Grand Total, Page 1

Hello, Political Reform Division:

Independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) is an intervenor before the California Public Utilities Commission. For several years, CGNP has been monitoring and reporting on the California lobbying activities of PacifiCorp as found in the Secretary of State's quarterly Form 635 disclosures.

There is a misleading grand total reported on page 1 of PacifiCorp's first quarter 2024 Form 635. PacifiCorp reports a grand total of $0.00 as the sum of lines A, B, C, and D. The actual total is $2,731,125.08 CGNP respectfully requests this grand total be corrected. Please see the attached page 1. This will also change the first quarter 2024 summary of the Form 635 shown on your website for PacifiCorp.

CGNP anticipates your office's prompt attention in making those corrections.

https://CGNP.org

website

Substack

(The email chain was lightly edited to deter spambots.)

PacifiCorp is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE.) CGNP is aware of PacifiCorp's gargantuan lobbying budget. CGNP has been tracking PacifiCorp's activities for the past eight years. PacifiCorp operates a huge fleet of highly-polluting dispatchable (under human control) coal-fired power plants, mostly in Wyoming. CGNP believes that one of PacifiCorp's business objectives is to cause the unnecessary shutdown of dispatchable Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (DCPP) near San Luis Obispo, California. If this DCPP shutdown were to occur, California would have no choice but to import significantly more coal-fired power from Wyoming in order to insure that California's power grid remains stable to prevent blackouts. The addition of the largest amount of nondispatchable solar power of any state and a large amount of nondispatchable wind power destabilizes California's power grid. A landmark 2006 California environmental law, SB 1386 (Perata, 2006) prohibits long-term supply contracts with out-of-state coal-fired power plants. A key power engineering concept is the stability requirement of a large quantity of synchronous grid inertia at all times for the California power grid. [2]

To understand why the above filing error in PacifiCorp's lobbying disclosure is significant, here is an excerpt from CGNP's May 8, 2024 Comments in opposition to the West Wide Governance Pathways Initiative (WWGPI) filed with the Western Interstate Electricity Board (WIEB), a quasi-federal agency.

B. PacifiCorp expends millions annually lobbying California - CGNP Concerns with PacifiCorp lobbying disclosures

The previous section documents that PacifiCorp's electric generation is very dependent on coal-fired generation. California is one of PacifiCorp's important markets. The California legislature and executive branch have clearly expressed their preference for electricity that minimizes air and water pollution. Coal - fired electricity produces significantly more air and water pollution than natural gas - fired electricity. One method that is employed by PacifiCorp is to expend millions annually lobbying California decision makers. PacifiCorp was recently highlighted as spending the fifth largest amount for California lobbying in 2023.[3]

CGNP has highlighted some of its concerns regarding PacifiCorp and its holding company BHE in a recent trio of articles. [4] [5] [6]

One of the ways that investigative journalists and interested members of the public can learn more about the California lobbying activities of a large corporation is to refer to the Lobbyist Employer lookup at the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access website. Here's the URL to obtain PacifiCorp's mandated California lobbying disclosures: [7]

On the previous page is a May 8, 2024 screen capture of the screen showing PacifiCorp's 2023-24 financial activity / Filing History. Note the 5th quarter for 2023 - 2024 shows $0.00 expended for general California lobbying. This is a substantial decrease from the $1,931,158.85 PacifiCorp expended in the 4th quarter for 2023-2034. However, examining the first page of the 5th quarter 2023-2034 PacifiCorp Form 635 (reproduced below) shows that the GRAND TOTAL of lines A through D is shown as $0.00 when it is obvious that it is not zero. CGNP believes an automated process is used by the California Secretary of State to extract the GRAND TOTAL from the PacifiCorp Form 635.

Four lines down from PacifiCorp's misleading GRAND TOTAL OF $0.00 this section appears:

____________________________________________________________________________

VERIFICATION

I have used all reasonable diligence in preparing this Report. I have reviewed the Report and to the best of my knowledge the information contained herein and in the attached schedules is true and complete.

I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. On April 26, 2024, Annette Price, Vice President, Govt Affairs affirmed PacifiCorp's filing.

___________________________________________________________________________

Since PacifiCorp has filed California lobbying disclosures with the California Secretary of State for over two decades, they should have considerable experience with these filings. They likely understand the ramifications of the sentence, "I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct."

On May 7, 2024, CGNP emailed the following complaint to the California Secretary of State:

May 7, 2024

Subject: Error in PacifiCorp 1Q 2024 Form 635 Grand Total, Page 1

Hello, Political Reform Division:

CGNP anticipates your office's prompt attention in making those corrections.

CGNP attached the marked up first page of PacifiCorp's Q5 2023-2024 Form 635 shown on the previous page.

In CGNP's previous CPUC filings, we raised questions regarding PacifiCorp failing to follow the Secretary of State's guidelines for completing the narrative sections of each quarterly Form 635. Detailed information regarding specific legislation during the quarter being reported is requested. Instead, PacifiCorp has chosen to mostly "cut and paste" general statements from the previous quarter instead of referencing specific legislation. One of CGNP's concerns is that PacifiCorp did not disclose any lobbying activity regarding California AB 538 (Holden 2023) on any of its quarterly 2023 Form 635 filings. The 2023 CAISO grid regionalization bill AB 538 failed, per California legislative procedure on January 31, 2024. Here's the text of an October 14, 2022 article showing that PacifiCorp had a keen interest in AB 538, since PacifiCorp would be the first beneficiary of CAISO grid regionalization.

https://www.panc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/INSIDE-CAL.pdf Archived 01 22 23

California Advisors is one of PacifiCorp's registered lobbying firms.

INSIDE CAL/EPA - 10/14/2022

California Lawmakers Poised To Renew

Push For Expanded Western Grid

October 13, 2022

Leading California lawmakers are expected in 2023 to redouble efforts to pass legislation that would expand the state’s power system into a broad Western regional operator in part to help secure adequate amounts of affordable electricity, as the Golden State faces daunting challenges to maintaining reliability while boosting clean energy. “Given that there is other action in the West, by other folks, I think that ’23 and ’24 are just going to be watershed years about the ability for the grid to be expanded beyond just the” California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) balancing authority, said Delaney Hunter, managing partner of Sacramento-based lobbying firm California Advisors, LLC, during an Oct. 12 webinar hosted by the Power Association of Northern California.

Hunter noted that efforts to pass legislation to expand CAISO into a Western regional transmission organization (RTO) involving multiple states are likely to be spearheaded by Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), who formerly chaired the Assembly Utilities & Energy Committee and now is the chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Holden, who failed to pass legislation to establish a governance structure for such a new RTO in 2017, 2018 and 2019, authored a resolution on the topic that was enacted this year, ACR 188. That measure calls on CAISO to produce a report by Feb. 28 summarizing “recent relevant studies on the impacts of expanded regional cooperation on California and identifies key issues that will advance the state's energy and environmental goals.”

The forthcoming report by CAISO, which for years has been urging lawmakers to create an expanded Western RTO, is likely to be used to bolster arguments in favor of such legislation next year.

CAISO is holding a “public stakeholder call” Oct. 17 to discuss ACR 188 and “engagement between neighboring states on regional transmission organizations in the West.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has previously indicated he supported a grid-expansion proposal that was advanced by the administration of former Gov. Jerry Brown (D) through several bills authored by Holden in 2017 and 2018.

CAISO and Brown in 2016 proposed to expand the grid operator into a regional entity, a move intended to bolster renewable power generation, reduce greenhouse gases, and lower ratepayer costs. The plan called for first adding territory served by the utility PacifiCorp. The envisioned Western RTO would serve California and parts of the five other states served by that utility: Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The proposed organization could eventually also include Nevada and Arizona, which currently participate in CAISO's energy imbalance market, and other Western states.

More recently, researchers at the think tank Resources for the Future argued that expanding organized wholesale power markets into regions that currently lack them -- such as the West, as well as the Southeast -- is a crucial complementary strategy to achieve the projected GHG benefits of the suite of clean power incentives in federal Democrats’ recent budget reconciliation law. In addition, they argued that expanding such power markets would reduce the cost of deploying zero-emitting electricity.

Opposition To Regional Grid

However, legislation to expand CAISO into a Western entity has been opposed by leading Democrats in the Legislature and powerful lobbies in Sacramento, including major labor unions, public utilities and some environmental groups. They argue that expanding the grid operator to include other Western states would cost California thousands of renewable power industry jobs, threaten to cede too much power to federal regulators, undermine the state's GHG and clean power programs and increase ratepayer costs.

But given California’s continuing challenges to procure enough affordable power to keep the lights on -- chiefly on hot summer days -- sources indicate legislation to expand the CAISO may have a better chance at passing next year. In addition, experts say grid regionalization could solve the state’s problem in which it must curtail, or waste, vast amounts of solar and wind power it generates because it cannot dispatch it to nearby states.

Hunter and Chase Hopkins, energy advisor to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), said during the Oct. 12 webinar that lawmakers next year might also prioritize legislation to further address soaring utility bills. Policymakers “completely agree that there’s a growing affordability crisis in California,” Hopkins said.

And Hunter emphasized that lawmakers will also be focusing heavily on expediting new power transmission line projects, which are far behind schedule to meet the state’s lofty goals for renewable energy and decarbonizing the grid, describing the current situation as “dire.” -- Curt Barry (cbarry@iwpnews.com)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Here's a graphical presentation of PacifiCorp's California lobbying expenditures between 2000-2024:

And a tabulation of the data contained in this graph:

To put PacifiCorp's 1st Quarter 2024 general lobbying expenditures in perspective, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) is typically ranked as the leading California lobbyist in most quarters. Here is the summary data reported by the California Secretary of State.

With the correct values reported for PacifiCorp for general lobbying for the 5th Quarter of 2023-2024 (e.g. 1st quarter of 2024,) PacifiCorp exceeds WSPA's quarterly general lobbying expenditures by over $262,000.00

CGNP believes that PacifiCorp's gargantuan lobbying expenditures have caused significant harms to the interests of California ratepayers, the environment, and to our nonprofit's finances. CGNP further believes that PacifiCorp committed perjury in filing a mandated Form 635 quarterly filing with a misleading zero total for first quarter 2024 lobbying expenditures instead of reporting that the firm likely expended the greatest amount of any California lobbyist employer. Furthermore, PacifiCorp's quarterly lobbying disclosures do not follow the reporting guidelines provided by the California Secretary of State. What else is PacifiCorp hiding? Our next GreenNUKE article will feature CGNP's entire WIEB Comments which oppose a CAISO multistate grid governance proposal probably backed by PacifiCorp, available at https://cgnp.org/cgnps-opposition-to-the-wwgpi-08-may-2024/

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[1] https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Lobbying/Employers/Detail.aspx?id=1145547&session=2023&view=activity

[2] "Why is Grid Inertia Important? Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs," By Gene Nelson, Ph.D., March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important

[3] "A record amount went to lobbying California’s government. Who were the biggest spenders?," By Jeremia Kimelman, February 12, 2024, Cal Matters.

HTTPS://CALMATTERS.ORG/POLITICS/2024/02/CALIFORNIA-LOBBYING-STATE-GOVERNMENT/

[4] "BHE is a Likely Opponent of DCPP Extended Operations - Part 1" The CPUC has been aggressively lobbied, likely by BHE subsidiary PacifiCorp to make a series of "coal-friendly" decisions

Gene Nelson, Ph.D., April 20, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack.

https://greennuke.substack.com/p/bhe-is-a-likely-opponent-of-dcpp

[5] "BHE is a Likely Opponent of DCPP Extended Operations - Part 2" BHE's 2020 coal-fired generation was about 174% of DCPP's typical annual power production. BHE's 2020 natural gas-fired generation adds 67% of DCPP's production for a total of 241%, Gene Nelson, Ph.D., April 21, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/bhe-is-a-likely-opponent-of-dcpp-3f4

[6] "How Did the CPUC Decide to Deny CGNP Intervenor Compensation?" Lavish Opposition Lobbying Likely Culprit

Gene Nelson, Ph.D., May 2, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack.

https://greennuke.substack.com/p/how-did-the-cpuc-decide-to-deny-cgnp

[7] https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Lobbying/Employers/Detail.aspx?id=1145547&session=2023&view=activity

Al Christie

May 10

Glad you're on your toes, Gene, and keeping Pacificorp on their toes also.

The chart showing a "5th quarter" made me laugh and probably confused a lot of 3rd graders.

I wish I had 5 quarters for every dollar.

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1 reply by Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

Tuco's Child

Good catch

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