Southern California Edison has repeatedly insisted that its former government affairs manager, state Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), was never an executive with the company.
But that’s not what Edison told the federal government.
Calderon is sponsoring legislation favored by Edison that would slash the credits that many homeowners receive for generating electricity with rooftop solar panels.
Edison has objected to The Times’ identifying Calderon as a former executive for the utility, claiming on its website that the news organization is “choosing sensationalism over facts.”
But in its official reports to the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Edison International — the utility’s parent company — listed Calderon’s occupation as an executive in more than a dozen filings made before she left the company in 2020 to run for office.
An example of the reports that Edison International’s political action committee filed with the Federal Election Commission.
All the filings were signed by the PAC’s treasurer saying that “to the best of my knowledge and belief” the information “is true, correct and complete.”
Asked to explain the contradiction, Edison spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy said that the company was referring in its filings with the commission to a broad class of individuals that met requirements for executive as defined by the commission, but not by Edison itself.
Edison uses the term to “designate someone in a high position of authority,” she said, such as “an employee director, vice president or similar title.” Because Edison didn’t consider Calderon an executive, she said, others shouldn’t either.
Calderon told The Times earlier that she was a senior advisor of government affairs at Edison International. In other biographies, she is described as government affairs director. On Monday, she said her official title was government affairs manager.
For years, she managed the parent company’s political action committee.
In a statement, Calderon said she had not filled out the political action committee’s reports. Instead they were prepared and filed by the company’s law firm, she said.
“Due to her professional responsibilities, she was categorized as an executive for FEC filing purposes,” her office said. “That does not mean that she was an executive at Edison.”
For years, Lisa Calderon managed Edison International’s Political Action Committee
(EIPAC — 2019 Annual Report)
Calderon’s AB 942 would sharply reduce the financial credits that the owners of rooftop panels receive when they send unused power to the grid.
The bill applies to those who installed the panels before April 15, 2023. It would limit the current program’s benefits to 10 years — half of the 20-year period that the state had told the rooftop owners they would receive. The bill also would cancel the solar contracts if the homes were sold. It wouldn’t apply to customers served by municipal electric utilities.
Edison and the state’s other big for-profit utilities have long fought to reduce the energy credits aimed at getting Californians to invest in rooftop solar panels. The popularity of the systems has cut into electricity sales.
Calderon, Edison and other supporters of the bill point to an analysis by the California Public Utility Commission’s Public Advocates Office that found the energy credits given to the rooftop owners were increasing the electric bills of those who don’t have solar panels.
The bill’s first hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Edison has been under scrutiny since Jan. 7, when videos captured the devastating Eaton wildfire igniting under one of its transmission towers. The wildfire killed 18 people and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures in Altadena.
Edison says it is cooperating with investigators working to determine the cause of the inferno.
