Written by Nathaniel Mannor
On December 1, 2020, San Jose City Council passed a landmark ban on natural gas but left an exemption for new commercial buildings, such as Bloom Energy. Well, as it turns out, not only did Bloom Energy craft the exemption, but the only reason the City Council even considered it is because of Mayor Sam Liccardo’s close friendship with company Vice President Carl Guardino.
Let’s start from the beginning. In November of 2020, San Jose proposed a proposal that would halt all future construction projects from using natural gas, opting to switch to other energy sources. Bloom Energy then got involved, drew up an amendment that would offer exceptions to self-generating power sources, and began contacting city council members, prompting them to rewrite the bill.
But that’s not all. On November 16, Guardino sent an email to Liccardo with their “suggested language” on how the exemption should read just one day before the vote. This led to City Council’s postponing the vote due to backlash from environmental groups. But Guardino and Liccardo kept corresponding with one another to finalize the exemption language, which was added verbatim to the bill two hours before the City Council passed it into law.
More than a year later, the truth comes out, but the mayor won’t face the music. When pressed on Liccardo’s involvement with Bloom Energy, his spokesperson Rachel Davis claimed that “This was an administrative overstep on our part and we are taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” But, no, this was not an administrative overstep; this was corruption, pure and simple.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident, as the government sometimes takes direction from big businesses and therefore gets certain exemptions from the law. This doesn’t mean that San Jose’s initial ban on natural gas is a good idea. I think it’s a terrible plan to quit cold turkey. Instead, a better solution would be a slow transition away from natural gas towards clean energy sources. But America needs leaders who serve the people first, not greedy politicians who give out favors to friends.
Photo Cred: AP Photo/ Susan Walsh
