PG&E Watershed Lands Board Lures Lawyers, Not Enviros

The 17 people who applied for membership on a nonprofit board that will oversee the use of 140,000 acres of Pacific Gas & Electric?s hydroelectric-related watershed lands include attorneys, lobbyists, and politicians?and even a clergyman?but not a single environmentalist. There are 14 openings along with an additional 3 open ?public? seats that will be filled with California Public Utilities Commission president Mike Peevey?s picks. The applicants? names were kept secret but released in response to Energy Circuit?s California Public Records Act request. The finalists will be announced February 26. The board is an offshoot of PG&E?s bankruptcy settlement?one of the few parts of the $8 billion deal that brought no conflict among the disparate stakeholders. Applicants suffered from a tight deadline, receiving only one and a half weeks from the ruling date of January 16 (a Friday) to January 28?later pushed to February 2?to get their paperwork to the CPUC. The notice was sent to the service list for PG&E?s bankruptcy, but few environmental organizations were among the lawyers, consultants, and utility personnel on the list. Watershed groups, including the International Rivers Network, the Sierra Club Western Division, and Friends of the River, were unaware of the request for board members in late January. The short time requirement for action left them with little room to reallocate staff or get their own boards? permission. According to Juliette Majot, executive director of International Rivers, its own board would have had to approve an application and could not be convened in such a short time. The Sierra Club couldn?t allocate staff in that short amount of time. Applying for the job are lobbyists Lenny Goldberg, who is associated with The Utility Reform Network and renewables producers, and John Torrens, former PG&E lobbyist. Attorneys include Diana Dooley, Children?s Hospital Care general counsel; Howard Golub from the firm Nixon Peabody; and Scott Rafferty. Politicians include Assemblymember Hannah Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), San Francisco supervisor Sophie Maxwell, John Boogaert of the Shaver Heights Mutual Water Association, and the East Bay Municipal Utility District?s John Coleman. Minority group representation applicants are Luis Manuel Artaga, Latino Issues Forum director, and Larry Myers of the Native American Heritage Commission. Billie Blanchard applied as a CPUC analyst. Tim McCullough applied for the Mountain Counties Water Resources Association. Lawrence Papay, formerly with Southern California Edison and Bechtel, applied on behalf of Science Applications International. Shawn Smallwood applied for BioResources Consultants. Rita Norton, energy-efficiency consultant, also submitted an application. Alfred Smith, senior pastor for Antioch Baptist Church, would also like to be on the board. The three new board members the CPUC picks will have a say in the fate of the 140,000 acres under the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council but will be a minority voice. The 14 successful members are designated by the bankruptcy settlement. Those designated include PG&E, the CPUC, the California Department of Fish & Game, the state Water Resources Control Board, the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Resources Agency, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Association of California Water Agencies, the Regional Council of Rural Counties, the California Hydropower Reform Coalition, the Trust for Public Land, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, and the California Forestry Association. The bankruptcy settlement noted that the three public members would be used to ?champion this $30 million allocation [Environmental Opportunity for Urban Youth], among their other duties.? Another part of the settlement established a nonprofit to support research and investment in clean energy technologies in PG&E territory. The Clean Energy Technology Commitment organization attracted 25 applicants. Those include Carl Weinberg and Mason Willrich, formerly of PG&E; former deputy director of the state Office of Planning & Research Woodrow Clark; and several attorneys and corporate engineers.

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PG&E Watershed Lands Board Lures Lawyers, Not Enviros

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