The agency overseeing California’s first-in-the-nation emissions reporting law consulted with business lobbyists in a failed bid to significantly narrow the measure before it passed the legislature last year, according to internal emails obtained by Bloomberg Government.
Proposed amendments drafted by staff at the California Air Resources Board would have scrapped a requirement for the companies that will be covered under the law to report greenhouse gas emissions from their suppliers and customers — language that environmentalists say is key for the state to hit its ambitious climate goals to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.
David Ernest García, legislative director at CARB, shared the amendments with a lobbyist for the California Chamber of Commerce weeks ahead of a major Senate Appropriations Committee vote in May 2023, according to the emails from last year, which Bloomberg Government received via a public records request.
“They don’t make the bill read exactly like the concept we sent. We tried to take a light approach where we could live with differences given that they are pretty substantial,” García wrote to the lobbyist, Brady Van Engelen, on May 3, 2023.
The newly uncovered emails underscore a concern among the law’s backers that some top officials inside CARB have worked with opponents in industry to undermine a measure business groups could not stop legislatively. The emails showed the agency’s former executive officer — who left the agency in June 2022 and went to work for a consulting firm — contacted the current chair with other major changes to the legislation based on a California Chamber of Commerce report.
The so-called Scope 3 emissions from supply chains was a major point of contention in the legislative debate last year. The EU requires companies to disclose such supply-chain emissions under its rules, for example, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month abandoned plans for a similar policy, prompting an outcry from environmentalists.
The future of California’s law passed in September — without inclusion of the CARB changes that were sent to committee staff — is now uncertain. Business groups have sued to stop the program. Meanwhile, CARB faces a deadline at the end of the year to adopt regulations to implement the law, though a state budget proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) omits funding for the program and he has called for unspecified changes.
“It’s surprising and disappointing to read these email exchanges,” state Sen.
Scope 3
CARB spokesperson Lys Mendez said the agency does not take positions on proposed legislation and provided the amendments to a legislative committee as “cost-saving suggestions.”
The agency also gave the amendments to Wiener and later to the California Chamber of Commerce and the Western States Petroleum Association — a trade group that includes
“As with any bill that impacts the roles and responsibilities of the agency, CARB engages with all stakeholders that participate in the legislative process. That includes groups that represent business, environmental and consumer interests, in addition to the relevant committees, bill authors and their bill sponsors,” Mendez said.
The California Chamber of Commerce did not have any input on the amendments, said Denise Davis, the organization’s executive vice president of communications.
Bloomberg Government filed a request under the California Public Records Act asking CARB to turn over any emails from 2023 concerning the law from the chairperson’s special advisers and legislative liaisons. None of the more than 100 pages provided show similar discussions between the agency’s legislative affairs office and proponents of the measure such as environmental groups.
Backers of the law say the proposed changes would have gone beyond the merely technical to significantly water down the law.
“I made very clear that stripping out Scope 3 — which accounts for as much as 90% of corporate emissions — would gut the bill’s effectiveness and was a non-starter,” Wiener said in a statement after Bloomberg Government provided his office with the emails from CARB.
Environmental groups say Scope 3 emissions are often the biggest part of the carbon footprint at many companies and reducing such emissions with suppliers, rather than just focusing on direct emissions, is key for those companies to meet net-zero goals.
“Without transparency and full datasets on Scope 3, we’re not going to get there,” said Catherine Atkin, co-founder of the group Carbon Accountable, which co-sponsored the law. Bill sponsors in California can include advocacy groups, labor unions, and trade associations.
Atkin said the email exchanges between CARB officials and lobbyists working to stop the law were unseemly.
The proposed CARB amendments would have made several other changes, including ditching the roadmap that companies would be required to follow in reporting emissions; and a requirement that the agency get input on the program from investors as well as environmental justice advocates.
New Requirements
Companies operating in California and also have more than $1 billion in revenue will be required under the law to report emissions annually to CARB starting in 2026.
Firms will not have to report emissions from suppliers and customers until 2027.
CARB, which is governed by a 16-member body largely appointed by the governor, will be responsible for finalizing deadlines and setting up the system for submitting reports.
California is now at the frontline of the national debate after the SEC’s decision this year not to require supply chain emission disclosures.
Critics argue though that reporting these emissions is imprecise and the California measure will burden smaller suppliers far beyond the state that serve the larger corporations covered by the new rules.
CARB Influence
The California Chamber of Commerce has cited these concerns in its opposition to the law and was a major force against it. The chamber reported spending about $3.4 million on lobbying in 2023 — about $500,000 more than the previous year — and joined several other business groups this year in suing to stop the measure. Its members include many of the state’s biggest companies, including electric utilities and the oil company
Emails show the lobbyist for the group, Van Engelen, contacted CARB’s García on March 31, 2023, seeking a meeting.
Following the call, García sent the draft amendments on April 14, 2023 — a few weeks before the measure faced a major vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee, where members would either advance or quash the measure without public deliberation.
“I would imagine that this would change the makeup of the opposition coalition and the amount of opposition that this bill would see moving forward,” Van Engelen, the chamber’s lobbyist, wrote to García in a May 1 email.
The amendments were not adopted, advancing from the Senate Appropriations Committee on a party line vote of 5-2.
The emails also illuminate how opponents sought to influence the agency, including a top official there.
Richard Corey, the agency’s former executive officer, sent a 17-page written report from the California Chamber of Commerce to the agency’s current chair on July 17, 2023, ahead of another major vote last summer.
Corey worked at CARB for 37 years and had only retired in June 2022. He later joined a consulting and lobbying firm, AJW, Inc, though he is not registered as a lobbyist. Corey did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The former chair he worked alongside at the agency, Mary Nichols, publicly supported the emissions reporting law, writing in a letter to top lawmakers that California is “being called to lead in action.”
Corey suggested in his email to current CARB Chair Liane Randolph that the emissions reporting law should instead be a much narrower pilot program focused on a few industries, such as automobiles, consumer electronics and petroleum.
“The documents may be helpful to look over,” he said. “Please do not forward.”
Records don’t show that Randolph replied but she forwarded the email to her then chief of staff.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: