On Dec. 8 and 9, high-ranking state government officials will attend a private conference with executives from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), Chevron, AECOM, and other major energy industry players at Cavallo Point, a luxury resort in Marin County to talk about distributed generation, a decentralized system for renewable power. It’s a gathering of top governmental officials and industry leaders to talk about policy issues with far-reaching effects on California’s energy future, but members of the general public are not invited. Read more »

WePay, an upstart rival of PayPal, had a little pointed fun with the financial transaction behemoth today outside the Innovate 2010 software developer conference that PayPal hosted at Moscone Center. WePay employees created a large block of ice frozen around cash and the message “PayPal Freezes Your Accounts.”Read more »

Bay Area-based oil giant Chevron is spending millions of dollars to influence this election and protect its financial interests, most notably by being the top contributor to the Prop. 26 campaign, which would make it almost impossible for Californians to impose fees that would help pay for environmental and public health programs.Read more »

Amid the ongoing state budget impasse and an election season dominated by scapegoating public employee unions for public sector fiscal problems, Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) today introduced legislation to hold corporations that receive tax breaks accountable for the jobs they claim to create, a bill that was quietly killed earlier this year after being approved by both houses of the Legislature.

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Throughout the spring political season, we at the Guardian argued there were more important things on which Pacific Gas & Electric could be spending $45 million – the amount it spent on Prop. 16, its losing effort to kill public power programs in California – such as infrastructure maintenance, lowering its high rates, or adding more renewable projects to its dirty energy portfolio.

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PayPal has lost customers and credibility after freezing the accounts of Burning Man's Temple Flux – a story we broke this week that triggered an overwhelming response that caused the company to back down – with many of them flocking to the more community-based alternative WePay.com. But the publicity has also unearthed even more stories of nonprofit groups getting their assets frozen by PayPal.

Groups ranging from the National Association of Injured Workers to Burning Man camps Comfort and Joy and Black Rock Diner tell the Guardian they've recently had their assets frozen without warning by PayPal, a multinational company owned by eBay that reported $2.2 billion in revenue last year and makes its profits mostly from interest and other returns from the money it holds for others.

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Pacific Gas & Electric CEO Peter Darbee’s address to the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday focused on his company’s national reputation as a corporate advocate for addressing climate change, largely ignoring PG&E’s $46 million waste of ratepayer money supporting June’s failed Proposition 16, which was designed to expand the utility’s monopoly in California and thwart local renewable power projects. Read more »

After Guardian readers posted dozens of comments expressing outrage that PayPal froze the account of Burning Man's Temple of Flux crew, the company today agreed to release the funds, according to PayPal spokesperson Anuj Nayar, who just responded to a Guardian inquiry from yesterday.Read more »

PayPal has frozen the account of the Flux Foundation – a large crew of Bay Area artists and burners that is headed to the Black Rock Desert this week to build the most ambitious Temple in Burning Man's 25-year history – claiming the right to profit from the money until the group formally attains its nonprofit status from a backlogged federal government.Read more »

By Kaitlyn Paris

The Federal Communications Commission filed a Notice of Inquiry on May 25 asking for public input on its changing media ownership rules. Citizens concerned about proposals to expand corporate control of local television, radio, and print should submit their views within 30 days via the FCC website. The list of 107 topics can be found here, along with Commissioner's statements outlining the intent and scope of the rules and comments. Read more »