Energy & Environment
Consumer Watchdog monitors California’s gas, electric, and oil companies, including municipal and investor-owned utilities, to protect ratepayers, consumers and the environment. We police the recycling industry to make sure consumers get their bottle deposits back, recycling is deposed of appropriately, and programs are effective.
Our nonprofit worked decades ago to fight and rollback California’s electric deregulation debacle, including stopping a ratepayer bailout in the legislature and getting ratepayers’ money back. We fight today to prevent Californians from being duped again by similar utility and energy industry scams.
In recent years, Consumer Watchdog established the PUC Papers to document the players and their roles in the corruption scandal that has plagued California’s Public Utilities Commission, or PUC. The searchable database of more than 100,000 documents is a public resource for researchers, journalists and activists.
Consumer Watchdog has also fought price gouging by oil companies with extensive research and reporting on their price and supply manipulations. We have policed the California’s regulator of toxics and toxics industry, creating change in oversight and spurring cleanup of toxic sites. This includes a pending legal case against Boeing for cleanup of the Santa Susana nuclear waste site outside Los Angeles.
Focus Areas:
75% of Whole Foods Markets Abandon Bottle and Can Recycling As Redemption Rate Sinks To 58% And Groups Back Fundamental Deposit Reform
Los Angeles, CA— With redemption centers closing at a record pace, now major supermarket chains that must choose to either redeem bottle deposits in store or pay a daily fee to the state are buying their way out of in-store redemption in record numbers.
75% of Whole Foods Market stores have opted out of having to recycle. With few places to get their bottle and can deposits returned, California’s redemption rate for 2020 has sunk to a low of 58%, leaving it third to last among ten bottle deposit states.
CA Permits To Drill New Oil And Gas Production Wells Rose 160%, While New Wells Actually Drilled Plummets To 60;
Los Angeles, CA — Oil companies received 160% more oil production drilling permits in the first nine months of 2020 over the year before, but the number of oil wells drilled in California has slowed to a trickle, Consumer Watchdog and the FracTracker Alliance said today. The two groups updated the permit numbers and locations on an interactive map at the website: http://www.NewsomWellWatch.com.
CA Governor Exempts Supermarkets From Bottle Deposit Refunds For Another 60 Days In Loss For Consumers And The Environment, Says Consumer Watchdog
Los Angeles, CA — Governor Gavin Newsom gave supermarkets and other dealers of beverages carrying a five or ten cent deposit another 60-day reprieve on refunding deposits, putting greater pressure on too few redemption centers to serve millions of Californians. California now joins Iowa’s Republican Governor as the only states letting the retailers off the hook for redeeming bottles.
CA Oil Well Permits Under Gov. Newsom Outpace First Quarter Last Year In Loss For Public Health, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance Report
Los Angeles, CA—As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, new oil well permits under Gov. Gavin Newsom rose 7.8% in the first quarter of 2020 through April 4, compared to the first quarter of 2019, Consumer Watchdog and FrackTrackerAlliance reported today. The Newsom Administration issued 1,623 permits during the first quarter of 2020. It also approved 24 fracking permits after a nine-month moratorium. The total number of permits issued under Newsom since he took office in January 2019 is 6,168.
Wine & Beverage Industry Stops Bill To Overhaul and Expand Bottle Deposit System On Senate Floor
Los Angeles, CA — A major reform bill to fix California’s broken bottle deposit system and get consumers back hundreds of millions in unredeemed deposits failed in the California Senate today after the wine and liquor industry joined with the beverage industry to unleash their lobbyists against the proposal. The bill is now on the inactive file after failing on the floor last night with 17 votes in favor.
Bill To Save Collapsing Bottle Deposit System Passes First Legislative Hurdle
Los Angeles, CA — SB 38 (D- Wieckowski), a bill to save the collapsing bottle deposit system by putting the responsibility for recycling empty CRV containers onto the beverage industry, passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee today in a decisive first step towards modernizing California’s rigid and antiquated system, Consumer Watchdog said today.
The bill, which passed by a vote on 5 to 2, next goes to Senate Appropriations Committee.
Consumer Watchdog Applauds Bill To Ban All Dangerous Forms Of Oil Extraction Including Hydraulic Fracturing
Los Angeles, CA — Consumer Watchdog today welcomed newly introduced state legislation—SB 467—to ban fracking and a host of other more commonly employed and dangerous techniques used to coax stubborn-and-hard to reach oil and gas out of the ground.
Consumer Redemption Rate Stands At 58.9%; Governor And Legislature Must Make Bottle Returns Convenient, Says Consumer Watchdog
Los Angeles, CA — The latest data on the bottle and can redemption rate for 2020 for the first eleven months, put out by the Governor’s recycling regulator CalRecycle, show that only 58.9% of Californians who pay deposits on beverages from beer to sodas are directly claiming deposit refunds, Consumer Watchdog said today. The rate is a full 10% less than what it was at the beginning of 2020 and does not appear to be recovering.
Mike Feuer Owes Antwon Jones An Apology And A Video Tape
The lawsuit filed in federal court on behalf of Antwon Jones, who was the average man caught in the middle of a fraud on the court over the LA DWP billing scandal, is a stunning and well-documented indictment of the failure of the City Attorney to represent the city.
Newsom Administration Doubles New Oil And Gas Production Well Permits, Misses Deadline for Drilling Setback Rule
Los Angeles, CA — California oil regulators more than doubled the dispensing of permits in 2020 to drill new oil and gas production wells, issuing more than 1,700 in 2020, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance reported today.
At the same time, the Newsom Administration failed to meet its own New Year’s Eve deadline for a draft rule designating the safe distance for drilling from a community, giving itself until Spring. Public interest groups who have pushed for a 2,500-foot setback are troubled by the delay. States such as Colorado have instituted setbacks of 2,000 feet.
Consumer Bottle Redemption Rate Falls To 58%, Major Overhaul Of Container Recycling Program Inescapable, Says Consumer Watchdog
Los Angeles, CA — Between July and September of 2020, the rate of consumer redemption of empty beverage containers fell another two percentage points to 58%, according to beverage sales data from CalRecycle, the state’s overseer of the bottle deposit program.
That means 42% of annual consumer bottle deposits—or about $546 million paid through September this year—is not being returned to consumers who could really use that money, according to Consumer Watchdog.
Redemption Rate For Empty Bottles And Cans Sinks To 60% As Consumers Forfeit $60 Million in Deposits Refunds
Los Angeles, CA—State data show that California consumers left $60 million in unredeemed bottle and can deposits with the state in the first six months of 2020 as the redemption rate for consumers plunged to 60.2% from 66% in the face of the pandemic and a deepening economic crisis for redemption centers.
Data published by the state recycling regulator, CalRecycle, show:
Newsom Administration Issues Six More Fracking Permits To Aera Energy Consumer Watchdog Says
Los Angeles, CA — The Newsom Administration issued six more fracking permits to Aera Energy late on Friday afternoon at a time of great risk to the environment and to the public health of affected communities also exposed to Covid 19, Consumer Watchdog said today.
The number of fracking permits issued this year—despite a nine-month moratorium imposed by Newsom that ended last April—now comes to 54 issued to Aera and Chevron.
Two Advocacy Groups Challenge California Oil Regulator To Correct The Record On True Oil Drilling Permit Numbers
Los Angeles, CA — Consumer Watchdog and the FracTracker Alliance challenged the state’s Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk “to be honest with the public about the data” on oil drilling in the state. They stated his refusal to acknowledge data published by the Department of Conservation’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) “sullies CalGEM and reflects poorly on an Administration that claims desperately to want to stem the cruel tide of climate change.”
Permits To Drill New Oil And Gas Wells Zoom Up 190% In The First Six Months Of 2020 Under Gov. Newsom Worrisome Trend
Los Angeles, CA — As COVID-19 cases shattered California daily records in the second quarter of 2020, oil regulators under Gov. Newsom also shattered records for dispensing new oil and gas production well drilling permits, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance said today.
Consumer Watchdog Urges Legislative Leaders To Reject Last Minute Raid By Waste Haulers On Consumer Bottle Deposit Funds
Los Angeles, CA — Consumer Watchdog urged Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to shut down a last-minute attempt by waste haulers, grocers and recyclers to steal consumers’ bottle deposit refunds and make the system less available to them, the group said.
Consumer Watchdog Warns Newsom Continued Emergency Exemption Of Retailers From Recycling Will Eviscerate Bottle Deposit System
Los Angeles, CA— The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog called on Governor Gavin Newsom not to give retailers another exemption from their duty to refund bottle and can deposits, warning it could decimate the fragile deposit system.
CalGEM Regulators Divest Oil Stocks In Wake Of Consumer Watchdog Conflicts Probe
Los Angeles, CA — Oil and gas regulators at the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) no longer hold oil stocks or other interests in the sector that they regulate in a radical departure from past practices, Consumer Watchdog said today.
A new conflict of interest policy at the division’s parent agency, the Department of Conservation (DOC), now prohibits such investments without explicit written approval by DOC’s director.
