Barbara Boxer made me happy I'm not a gentry journalist
It was a pleasure to help defeat the self-proclaimed greatest environmentalist in California history and the greenwashing machine that paid her
Continuing with memories of my encounter with Barbara Boxer at the Sacramento Press Club on September 27 2017. See Part I, here for context.
Poseidon Resources (aka Poseidon Water), a subsidiary of Brookfield ($650b in assets at the time), had tried for decades to get regulatory approval to build a giant ocean desalination plant in southeast Huntington Beach.
Based on recent history, the project would have become part of a $1.4 billion public-private “financialisation” (investment) scheme much like its nearly identical Carlsbad ocean desalination plant that opened for business in 2015.
Ultimately, the HB project was unanimously rejected by the California Coastal Commission in May of 2022.
In 2015, in a mock interview with her grandson posted on YouTube, Senator Barbara Boxer announced that she would not run for reelection in 2016.
Lauding herself for supporting the middle-class, women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, and the environment, she pledged that “I am never going to retire” because even though she won’t be in the Senate “I’m going to continue working on the issues that I love.”
After her announcement, Boxer sponsored legislation to give millions of federal dollars to the ocean desalination industry for research. “I’ve known for years desalination was a solution,” she told the NY Times.
That same year, she wrote to the Coastal Commission in support of Poseidon’s HB desal project, an anathema to her usual environmentalist allies, who were now angry with her.
In April 2017, Poseidon announced it had signed up Boxer to help push its project through the state’s regulatory process.
Poseidon tried to create the impression that the project was a fait accompli and that local politicians would risk their careers by opposing it. Push-polls commissioned by Poseidon showed public support for the project and were promoted in the Orange County Register.
But Orange County rank-and-file residents who showed up at public meetings of the Orange County Water District (Poseidon’s sponsor from 2013 - 2022) to oppose the project equaled or outnumbered proponents, including student interns, construction unions, business associations, and local politicians of both parties who would benefit from Poseidon’s campaign contributions.
Full disclosure: the presence of opponents from all over Orange County was due to organizing by Residents for Responsible Desal (R4RD), a Huntington Beach based non-profit that I helped start in 2005. I was the group’s first president for six months before leaving to start a local newspaper, Orange Coast Voice.
R4RD’s members represented a cross section of local politics from liberal to conservative, including NIMBYs, who didn’t want their neighborhood to be torn up during two years of pipeline construction and didn’t want a desal plant there (in addition to the existing toxic waste dump and the nearby sewage treatment tanks), ratepayers concerned about the high cost of unneeded desalinated ocean water, and environmentalists worried about cumulative damage to marine life along the entire California coast from Poseidon-type desal plants to-come.
With stricter rules designed to limit the environmental impacts of ocean-desal intake and outake systems on the horizon, Poseidon’s biggest concern was obtaining operating permits from the city of Huntington Beach and the State’s regulatory agencies.
To expedite project approval, Poseidon tried to circumvent regulations, a strategy that caused long delays and ultimately led to defeat.
In the meantime, Poseidon was desperate to create a green friendly brand for its energy-guzzling and sea-life killing machine.
Boxer’s hiring followed a ongoing strategy used by Poseidon and its labor allies of misappropriating environmentalism and co-opting environmentalists to create a green facade that would placate the media, public, and regulators.
Poseidon Town: Labor leaders push ocean desal project on workers' backs
For the past 20 years Poseidon Water has sold its $1.4 billion Huntington Beach ocean desalination project to trade unions as a job creator—it would provide about 3,000 (non concurrent) temporary jobs during construction and 21 permanent jobs after completion, according to Poseidon officials.
Boxer hid her Poseidon pay-off by using legal technicalities that protect lobbyists from transparency.
Based on lobbying industry standards for retired high-profile politicians like Boxer, she was easily worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to a company like Brookfield-Poseidon.
The purpose of the Sacramento Press Club event (evidenced by what took place) was to allow Boxer to promote her new book—and the Poseidon project—without media friction. After some routine questions, the facilitator, a Los Angeles Times reporter, asked her about working for Poseidon.
“That’s something that’s on the minds of a lot of environmentalists that you work with quite a bit,” she said. “So I’m curious if we can talk about squaring your legacy of championing environmental projects with this project you’re working on now, which a lot of your allies have a problem with.”
Boxer was irritated by the question. “It’s not a lot of my allies,” she answered. “It’s just a few people who are mad at me.”
If you count the environmentalist organizations on record as opposing the Poseidon project shown in the graphic below, Boxer’s response seems delusional at best.
But the Times reporter did not challenge Boxer on that or other falsehoods in her answer, including her claims that:
ocean desalination, including the HB Poseidon project, is a desperately needed tool for adapting to and preventing climate change;
ocean desal, including the Poseidon project, is necessary to prevent the loss of the state’s clean water, and;
Poseidon, part of a $6.5 billion (at that time) multinational infrastructure investment corporation, was “going to step up” and “pay all the costs.”
As I sat in the audience directly in front of Boxer just a few rows back, her handler from Poseidon, VP Scott Maloni, monitored her performance from the back of the room.
I asked the first question from the audience.
Next: “No one in the history of our state has ever been a greater environmentalist than I have been.” — Barbara Boxer
Wasn't there something about her son (or other relative) getting a sweet position on the Poseidon payroll? I may be mistaken, but I remember this coming up.