Emails further detail restaurant association effort to derail Sacramento climate ordinance
More than 1,400 pages of emails newly obtained by The Sacramento Bee further reveal the efforts by the California Restaurant Association to water down the city of Sacramento’s climate change proposal to require new buildings be powered by electricity.
Those efforts, detailed in a recent Sacramento Bee investigation, are also now drawing scrutiny from Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela.
Pollution from heating, cooling, refrigerating and cooking in buildings make up California’s third-largest source of carbon emissions behind transportation and industry. Sacramento is among the many California cities that has sought to move away from gas-powered buildings — a move opposed by the restaurant association as well as the nation’s largest gas utility, SoCalGas.
The recent Bee investigation noted that contributions to the Sacramento-based restaurant association and its foundation from Sempra and its subsidiaries SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric grew from $174,594 in years 2015 to 2018 to $1.8 million from 2019 to 2022 — a tenfold increase.
The CRA successfully sued to overturn a gas ban in Berkeley and also strongly opposed a similar proposal in Sacramento in 2021. The association told The Bee that none of its efforts were in coordination with SoCalGas, and that its opposition was rooted in protecting cultural cooking traditions, particularly the use of gas-powered woks.
In Sacramento, one of CRA’s vice presidents Matthew Sutton was named to a council technical advisory committee that also included Kevin Fat, owner of Frank Fat’s restaurant and then-Sacramento chapter president of the California Restaurant Association, as well as retired chef David Soohoo and Stockton Boulevard Partnership Executive Director Frank Louie.
Ultimately, that technical committee successfully lobbied for a change in the ordinance that included significant exemptions. Any developer with a restaurant or commercial kitchen on the bottom floor can now claim a socio-cultural conflict with electrification and apply to continue using gas indefinitely.
What the emails show
The emails obtained by The Bee show that Sutton set up meetings between city staff and Fat, Soohoo and Louie.
“If you could provide some dates and times that work over the next few weeks,” said one Sutton email to city staff, “we will herd our cats for a productive discussion.”
Fat, the second-generation owner of the legendary and politically influential Frank Fat’s, said in another email that “our industry provides the most jobs and sales tax revenue in the city and state. To add the electrification ordinance simply adds an additional burden to an already burdensome and in all honesty, hostile business environment.“
Previous text messages from Soohoo obtained by The Bee accused the city’s electrification effort of being racist. The newly obtained emails add to a sense of an at times confrontational presence.
“The electrification ordinance will create havoc on our Hmong and Southeast Asian people in Sacramento,” Soohoo said in an email to city staff. “Many believe that they eat dogs and are short stocky mountain people who should not come here. There will be about 500 wok kitchen worried as to what you all decide to do..... The application alone will push the younger Asian kids to go to pot and other embarrassing jobs for Sacramento parents.”
Fat, Soohoo and Louie all told The Bee they were acting on their own behalf and were not influenced by the CRA or SoCalGas.
City reaction
Nevertheless, at Tuesday’s Sacramento City Council meeting, Steinberg and Valenzuela expressed concern over the process.
During a staff presentation on the city’s proposed climate action and adaptation plan, they called for greater transparency in the electrification process and a review of conflict of interest standards.
Steinberg commented that The Bee investigation raised concerns about “influences from Southern California connected to some of our local advocates, trying to kill, frankly, at least some portion of the electrification ordinance.”
Steinberg added, that the makeup of technical advisory committees “deserves a thorough looking into so that we can make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
Valenzuela said some kind of review of conflict of interest standards with advisory committees is necessary.
“It’s really important as we move forward,” she said, “that we think about what does conflict of interest policies and ethics policies look like for committees like this.”
In an email to The Bee, Sutton defended his role on the technical committee.
“When government agencies seek technical expertise in an issue area, “ he wrote, “we make every effort to provide it, and frankly, it would be inappropriate for policymakers to move forward without that knowledge
“Cities and other regulatory agencies are correct to invite trade associations to apply to advisory posts. Not only can we provide expertise, we can connect cities to local restaurants. Without this insight, elected leaders would be making public policy decisions without knowing how a new regulation will impact an entire industry.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Emails further detail restaurant association effort to derail Sacramento climate ordinance."
