Vern here. Our old friend John Earl (right), who writes these days at “SoCal Water Wars” on Substack, has entitled his latest piece “Barbara Boxer Made Me Happy I’m Not a Gentry Journalist.“ “Gentry Journalism” is something John defined in his last piece, a piece you should read NOW, entitled, “Say NO to Gentry Journalism! Independent Journalism Full Speed Ahead!”
John’s latest piece, sporting the subtitle “It was a pleasure to help defeat the self-proclaimed greatest environmentalist in California history and the greenwashing machine that paid her,” is about former Senator and self-styled environmentalist Barbara Boxer and her immediate transformation, upon retirement from the Senate, into a paid lobbyist for the loathsome and now-defeated Poseidon desalination project. Without further ado, here’s Mr. Earl!
My 2017 Encounter with Barbara Boxer at the Sacramento Press Club
by John Earl, Nov. 24, 2024; crossposted from SoCalWaterWars
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.
Photo: SoCal Water Wars
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, the latter of which included student interns, construction unions, business associations, and local politicians of both parties who had benefitted 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.
Timeless contribution of the OC Weekly
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…
Read more at SoCal Water Wars,
as John confronts Boxer at the Sacramento Press Club,
while her Poseidon handler Scott Maloni watches protectively from the back.
Poseidon VP Maloni, non-plussed.
The look of final defeat.
Then I guess I must ALSO not be a “gentry journalist!” In 2017, when Boxer’s new career as a greenwashing lobbyist was first announced, I wrote an outraged letter to the Times which they were kind enough to publish. That letter’s still up and I’m pretty proud of it:
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/opinion/tn-dpt-me-commentary2-sunday-20170505-story.html
Four years later, when we were forced to hear Boxer singing Poseidon’s praises at a Water Board meeting, I included her in my list of “Poseidon Whores!” https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2021/04/the-poseidon-whores/
A lot of sensitive people got real mad at me; I guess you can call a male politician a whore but not a female one. That reminds me – I got the idea from John! We were planning to write a song together called “I’m a Poseidon Whore!” (You can just imagine what a sea-chanty it would’ve been, the very title radiates “maritime,” “jig,” and “Yo-ho-ho.” But now we don’t have to.)
And just recently, I re-read a story of mine from ten years ago about the 2013 Coastal Commission hearing on Poseidon; all the big OC and California politicians weighed in that day pro or con; and I’d forgotten but Barbara Boxer was notable for her silence/absence, which disappointed me at the time. Now we know she was already thinking, in 2013, of her next career:
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/11/poseidon-runs-headlong-into-infiltration-gallery/
That is all, on me and Barbara.
Thank you for all your reporting on this as most of the media failed to research its many problems and inadvertently promoted the project by simply taking Boxer’s word for it. Only much later did it become apparent that there was a financial gain for her down the road. I had always respected Boxer and supported her, but I met with her face to face early on and debated this issue for an hour and half. She did not know the facts and steadfastly did not want to. It was very hard to accept that an environmental icon I had trusted would do something like this, but I accepted the hard truth that she had turned to the dark side as her record since documents.
I know some people really looked up to her for many years and found it hard to accept where she went in the end, but I knew I had to get past it and forge on. As we all did. She lost and we prevailed. Thank god.
It’s hard to say how and why some people, sadly, change. “She did not know the facts and STEADFASTLY DID NOT WANT TO.” Sounds familiar.
Thank you for your work on the California Coastal Protection Network.
John exceeded his already great average with this one. I really hope that people do sign up to follow his substack. It’s worth it!
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.