By Count Friedrich von Olsen

I would like to bring to everyone’s attention the manner in which our governor, Jerry Brown, has been involving himself in the affairs of the California Public Utility Commission. Governors usually appoint that entity’s commissioners and trust them to oversee its operations. Of late, the California Public Utility commission has been beset by scandal, including one involving its former board chairman, Michael Peevey, a former Southern California Edison president who traveled out of the country, meeting secretly with Edison officials at the swanky Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, Poland. While at the Warsaw Bristol, Peevey worked out a deal with Edison whereby Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. ratepayers were consigned to coughing up $3.3 billion, roughly 75 percent of the cost of shuttering the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which grew inoperable because of Edison’s technical mismanagement of that facility. There have been other notable scandals, including one involving Dr. Tim Brown, who from 2011 until early 2014 was a senior scientist in the Advanced Power and Energy Program at the University of California, Irvine and was also serving as a consultant to the Energy Commission in drawing up a map for determining the best locations for hydrogen refueling stations throughout the state to serve the hydrogen fuel cell cars which are soon to become commercially available. After serving as the architect of the “hydrogen highway,” Tim Brown resigned his position and then formed a company, First Element Fuel, which tapped into the hydrogen station grants being handed out by the Energy Commission, reportedly to the tune of $10 million…
Governor Brown, who is apparently no relation to Tim Brown (although one does begin to wonder), has done nothing about these circumstances involving the Public Utility Commission or the Energy Commission, either looking the other way or purposefully promoting or sustaining others involved. And he has acted rather curiously, in my view. He appointed one of his former top aides, Michael Picker, to the Public Utility Commission. During his first year in that position, which corresponded with Peevey’s final year as chairman, they had identical voting records. Brown has now elevated Picker to be chairman. And Brown then moved to reappoint Energy Commission Chairman Robert Weisenmiller, who saw no problem with the conflict involving Tim Brown and approved the disbursements to First Element Fuel…
We now know what we do about these scandals because of the dogged determination of several inquisitive reporters and a few lawyers, who have ferreted out documents and letters, emails and other communications by, among and between commission members and staff and/or utility operators. But those revelations have not sat well with Governor Brown. How do we know that? This year, six bills were passed by the state legislature  pertaining to reforming the California Utilities Commission and laying out with clarity that commission documents are to be considered public ones that are not to be subject to intragovernmental privilege. In October, Governor Brown vetoed those bills, while offering a rather vague explanation to the effect that the reforms were contradictory and unworkable…
Now comes further indication that Governor Brown has involved himself in the decision-making process at the California Public Utilities Commission on a number of issues, including several problematic ones, to a degree unheard of in state history. This involvement has been variously described as “micromanaging” or “interference.”
In San Bruno, local officials are understandably alarmed about a pipeline blast that killed eight people there in 2010. Along the way, in large part because of a lawsuit filed by San Bruno against PG&E, San Bruno officials have come across some irregularities with regard to the way the commission has addressed the issue. They have accumulated a cache of internal PG&E emails as well as exchanges with commissioners and commission staff that indicate there was something less than an arm’s length relationship between the commission and PG&E. San Bruno officials are particularly incensed with the action of Mike Florio, appointed to the commission by Brown. They want him to resign from the commission or be prevented from having any say over matters involving PG&E. Some of the documents in San Bruno’s possession show that Governor Brown was clearly aware of Florio’s conflict-fraught involvement. Another, one authored by a senior PG&E executive, shows that Brown was not merely entrusting decisions to the commissioners but had pressured a commissioner to change his vote. Other communications show that Brown is told in advance – well in advance – of actions to be taken by the commission. This raises questions about the independence of the commission and the commissioners, their adherence to the Ralph M. Brown Act, which is California’s open public meeting law, and the integrity of the process in general…
Governor Brown’s office has steadfastly refused to release his emails, even when they bear directly on issues of public policy such as those involving the California Public Utility Commission. But some of these emails have been obtained indirectly from some of those to whom they have been mailed and communications between others have surfaced, the contents of which raise serious questions about the degree of the governor’s complicity in some shady dealing and his inability or unwillingness to hold commissioners and others who have violated the public trust to account. One example of this is an email Edison International Chairman Ted Craver wrote to his board of directors telling them he had phoned Brown on June 6, 2013, the day before the utility announced it would not seek to restart San Onofre. According to the email, Craver said he reached Brown in Rancho Mirage, where the governor was meeting with President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the midst of that meeting, according to Craver, Governor Brown took his call and was supportive of Edison’s plan to close the plant. During the call, Craver provided Brown with talking points, to the effect that Edison was “taking the high road” and “insuring system reliability for our customers.” The next day Brown put out a news release in which he was quoted as saying, “Since San Onofre nuclear power plant went offline last year, energy utilities and the state have worked to provide Southern California with reliable electric power year round.”
Is our governor on the take? Is he hobnobing with utility and energy company officials and giving their companies regulatory breaks in return for inside information or assistance in operating his own energy related enterprise or enterprises to enrich himself?
Perhaps the jury is out on that question but I would offer one more item to you, gentle reader, to consider: Governor Brown recently used his executive power as governor to extract from California’s oil regulating agency maps, geologic surveys and records relating to oil and natural gas reserves beneath his family’s 2,700-acre ranch in Colusa County…