CAL DOGE Investigation: $1 BILLION California Solar Program Instead Funded Democrat Voter Registration & Activism Efforts

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s CAL DOGE reported Thursday that $1 billion in taxpayer funds was stolen from the California Solar Program, which had promised to to cut electricity bills for low-income renters, was instead diverted to Democratic Voter Registration & Activism Efforts.

…my shocked face:

A new report from CAL DOGE alleges that nearly $1 BILLION from California’s Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing program, intended to fund solar installations on affordable housing, has been diverted to Democrat voter registration and activism efforts.

The Solar Multifamily Affordable Program was created by Assembly Bill 693, by then-Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, in 2015. The bill created a Multifamily Affordable Housing Solar Roofs Program to provide financial incentives for qualified solar installations at multifamily affordable housing properties funded from investor-owned utility’s (IOUs) greenhouse gas (GHG) allowances,” according to Assembly Floor Analysis.

Funded by gas taxes, utility bills “cap and trade auctions proceeds,”the program has completed only 269 projects worth $72 million since 2015, raising questions about the missing funds, the California Post reported.

Notably, allocated within the bill was “Ongoing costs of $558,000 from the Public Utilities Reimbursement Account (special fund) for CPUC to oversee the contract to administer the program and to annually assess the success of the program,” according to Assembly Floor Analysis.

So the California Public Utilities Commission was supposed to be overseeing the program. Instead, according to CAL DOGE, the program has received roughly $1 billion, “and according to SOMAH’s own reporting, just $72 million as of 2024 had gone to actual solar installations.

That leaves $928 million unaccounted for, and no accountability to ensure those dollars aren’t flowing into a progressive voter mobilization machine. The evidence suggests they are.”

“$928 million has been stolen. Your money,” Hilton said. “Do you know where it’s gone? Voter registration. By leftist groups supporting the Democratic Party.

“It is an absolute scandal. Just the latest in the amount of money that’s been stolen from you.”

The CAL DOGE investigation reports:

that the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) co-sponsored the legislation that created SOMAH, then secured the role of coordinating organization and liaison for all community outreach under the same program. CEJA operates as a subcontractor under GRID Alternatives’ program administration team. GRID’s Chief Policy and Programs Officer Chris Walker serves simultaneously as SOMAH’s program director. CEJA’s own job listing instructs its SOMAH staff to “co-leverage SOMAH ME&O activities with CEJA’s activities supporting community needs.”

CEJA’s sister organization, CEJA Action, is a 501(c)(4) that endorses candidates and mobilizes voters in the same communities where SOMAH-funded outreach occurs. CEJA Action endorsed24 progressive candidates in 2024, publishing voter guides in English, Spanish and Chinese. It endorsed 19 in 2022 and 14 in 2020. Every endorsed candidate in every cycle is a progressive Democrat. Its 2024 legislative scorecard declared California must “stand as a leader of progressive resistance” against “the rising tide of fascism.”

CEJA Action does not file independent tax returns. It operates as a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Advocacy (now “Beyond Impact”), part of the Tides Nexus, which has been described as an organization that “washes away the paper trail between its grants and the original donor.” Nopublic accounting exists for funds flowing into or out of CEJA Action.

CEJA has never installed a solar panel. According to its 2024 IRS Form 990, the organization reported $10.7 million in revenue. Its Civic Engagement Project aims to mobilize “voters of color” while its Energy Justice Project, which includes SOMAH, targets “residents in low-income communities of color.” Both operate in the same communities with the same staff.

CAL DOGE calls on the CPUC and the state controller to audit all SOMAH payments to CEJA and its member organizations, investigate fund separation between CEJA and CEJA Action, and prohibit organizations from receiving contracts under programs they helped create.

It has become standard operating procedure for sponsors of legislation to benefit from the legislation, often sending funding directly to them. This is fraud, and something the Globe has been exposing for many years, but particularly in the “green energy” bills where transparency and accountability are in short supply.

The bill analysis said that “In 2015, the electric IOUs can seek CPUC approval to use a maximum of approximately $167 million in allowance proceeds for clean energy and energy efficiency projects not otherwise funded. The table below shows the maximum funds allocation available for 2015.”

Bill analysis ended with the promise: “This bill provides that the CPUC shall ‘ensure that electrical corporation tariff structures affecting the low-income tenants participating in the program continue to provide a direct economic benefit from the qualifying solar energy system.'”

So now what? Time to turn up the heat on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CPUC appointees, listed below.

“State and federal dollars should not fund political activist organizations that perpetuate California’s one-party rule,” said Jenny Rae Le Roux, Director of CAL DOGE. “CEJA wrote the law that created this program, got the contract to run outreach under it, and then its political arm showed up in the same neighborhoods with voter guides. The CPUC must open a full audit.”

CPUC Commissioners:

Alice Reynolds, President: President Reynolds served for three years as Governor Gavin Newsom’s senior advisor for energy. From 2011 to January 2019, she served in the administration of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr., most recently as the Governor’s senior advisor for climate, the environment and energy and previously as chief counsel and deputy secretary for law enforcement at the California Environmental Protection Agency.

 

Darcie L. Houck, Commissioner: Commissioner Darcie L. Houck was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) by Governor Gavin Newsom on Feb. 9, 2021. She formerly served as Chief Counsel for the California Energy Commission since 2019.

John Reynolds, Commissioner: Commissioner John Reynolds was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) by Governor Gavin Newsom on Dec. 23, 2021, and reappointed on Dec. 22, 2022. Commissioner Reynolds has experience in both the public and private sector as an attorney and policy advisor in the energy, telecommunications, transportation, and water industries.

Karen Douglas, Commissioner: Karen Douglas was appointed to the CPUC by Governor Gavin Newsom on Dec. 22, 2022. Commissioner Douglas was previously Senior Advisor for Energy in the Office of Governor Newsom since 2022. She was a California Energy Commission Member from 2008 to 2022. She was Director of the California Climate Initiative for the Environmental Defense Fund from 2005 to 2008.

Matthew Baker, Commissioner: Matthew Baker was appointed to the CPUC by Governor Gavin Newsom on Feb. 16, 2024. Previously, Commissioner Baker had worked as the California Public Utilities Commission’s Director of the Public Advocates Office and Deputy Secretary of Energy at the California Natural Resources Agency. He was previously a Program Officer for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.