por 
THE BAJA POST
NEWSROOM
SOURCE: PR NEWSMEDIA
According to a new report being released by the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California (CSHC), Big Oil has now spent more than $61 million on their misinformation campaign to deceive voters about the public health benefits of keeping a law (SB 1137 – Senator Lena Gonzalez) that protects communities from toxic oil and gas drilling near schools and neighborhoods.
«Big Oil and their investors have created a web of deceit in their attempts to hide the fact that they’ve spent more than $60 million trying to dismantle a public safety law that protects our communities from their dangerous and toxic practices,» said Mabel Tsang, CSHC Steering Committee Member and Political Director of California Environmental Justice Alliance and CEJA Action. «Whether it’s creating fake coalitions, hiring AstroTurf public relations firms or loaning millions to their own campaign, potentially to delay disclosure of certain funders or to avoid paying taxes; their efforts to lie to voters are as dirty as their drilling.»
Here’s a table from the report briefly summarizing the $61 million in expenditures; each subcategory is detailed in the report.
| Type of expenditure | Amount |
| Lobbying expenditures in quarters when the setback law was explicitly referenced in filing entity’s disclosures | $21,847,821.62 |
| Lobbying expenditures in quarters when the issues pertinent to setbacks were implied, but the legislation itself was not directly mentioned | $15,916,217.13 |
| sub-total, LOBBYING EXPENDITURES | $37,764,038.75 |
| Payments to influence reported by oil industry front groups: | $13,405,787.30 |
| Media spending and reservations made by oil industry front groups, unreported* | $1,504,861.00 |
| [adjustment to avoid double-counting: LESS transfers of cash to dark money groups previously accounted for in the lobbying expenditures sub-totaled above | ($12,004,345.41) |
| sub-total, (NET OF) DARK MONEY PAYMENTS TO INFLUENCE | $2,906,302.89 |
| Loans from oil industry to «Stop the Energy Shutdown,» ballot measure campaign committee | $14,358,264.00 |
| Monetary contributions to «Stop the Energy Shutdown,» ballot measure campaign committee | $5,772,074.00 |
| sub-total, CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE RECEIPTS1 | $20,130,338.00 |
| TOTAL | $60,800,679.64 |
*This represents ad spending and reservations that either occurred after the March 31, 2024 filing deadline, or were made by an entity (Chevron Advocacy Network) that does not file campaign disclosures.
BIG OIL’S DODGY LOANS:
Despite record breaking profits, fourteen oil companies avoided making direct contributions to their campaign to overturn Senator Gonzalez’s law to keep California schools and neighborhoods safe from toxic drilling (SB 1137). Instead, these fourteen oil companies gave «loans» to their deceptive referendum campaign – a curious move that may be allowing oil companies to avoid paying taxes and delaying disclosure of certain campaign funders until after the election when the real donors pay back these loans. Even more than a year after the «loans» were made, not a single payment has been made on these «loans,» nor have any interest charges been reported.
As a result, Senator Gonzalez sent a letter to colleagues in the legislature asking them to investigate these dodgy practices.
«Not only is Big Oil trying to overturn California’s common-sense law to prevent them from poisoning California schools and neighborhoods with their toxic oil drills, it looks like they may have found a tax and campaign finance loophole that may be allowing them to deceive voters about the true nature of their contributions while avoiding taxes,» said Senator Lena Gonzalez, the author of SB 1137. «I am calling on my colleagues in the Legislature to investigate this practice and close any loopholes we find.»Chevron is also a known tax avoider: in 2015, a U.S. Senate investigation found the giant multinational had been hiding $31 billion in profit in 13 different offshore tax havens.
Three years later in 2018, Dutch and international unions filed a complaint alleging that Chevron funneled billions through Dutch subsidiaries to tax haven countries.
