Corporate "nonprofit" funds another junket for State officials

The Sacramento Bee has written another expose about the “California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy”. This so called “nonprofit”, actually made up of some of the largest Corporations in the State, made the arrangements for this “all expenses paid” trip to Japan for officials in the Schwarzenegger administration and several California State Legislators:

The California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit not required by law to disclose its donors, is paying for the trip. The group’s board of directors is populated by the top executives at the biggest energy and telecom companies in the state — among them AT&T, Verizon, PG&E, Chevron, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison and BHP Billiton — as the lawmakers and regulators tour Japan to discuss telecommunications and energy technology.

Along on the Asia trip — whose participants departed Thursday — are Timothy Simon and Rachelle Chong, two of the governor’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission, the powerful state board that regulates California’s multibillion-dollar telecommunications and energy industries. Also participating are Sen. Christine Kehoe of San Diego and Assemblyman Lloyd Levine of Van Nuys, both Democrats, who chair the legislative committees that oversee energy and telecommunications policy in California. Sen. Alex Padilla, a freshman Democrat from Los Angeles and a potential swing vote on the Rules Committee — which will decide the fate of embattled PUC nominee Simon — is on the trip, as well.

“What makes this trip so particularly egregious is that the corporations are focusing on the exact levers of power in hosting this junket for the state’s top utility cops,” said Doug Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a consumer-advocacy group. “If you had to identify the people with the most responsibility over utility issues in the state, they’ve brought the two in the Legislature and 40 percent of the Public Utilities Commission.”

One of the corporate executives traveling this week in Japan is Kenneth McNeely, the president of AT&T California. Last year, McNeely helped secure major legislation allowing phone companies access to the state’s cable TV and Internet market. AT&T spent $23.6 million in lobbying for the bill, which was jointly written by Levine and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, and signed into law by Schwarzenegger… On Friday, the Public Utilities Commission announced that it had approved a video franchise agreement to allow AT&T access to California’s lucrative broadband market. McNeely, who was traveling with PUC members Chong and Simon in Japan when the deal was announced, issued a laudatory statement, which Heller jested was made “over sake shots with the regulators, no doubt.”

The article did not mention that AT&T also gave generously to the Schwarzenegger reelection campaign, and some of this money may have been used for the huge bonuses the Governor recently paid to his senior staff. A smaller campaign contribution of $25,000 was transfered from Schwarzenegger to his Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy just a few weeks after she voted to approve the purchase of AT&T by SBC Communication, leading many to believe that this was a payment made by the giant telecommunication firm in exchange for this vote.