SLO mayor appears on ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ to blast gas industry ‘intimidation’
San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon appeared on the TBS news satire show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” this week to talk about being “targeted by the gas industry.”
The nearly six-minute segment, which aired Wednesday night, is titled “Here’s Why Your Gas Stove is Killing You.” As of Thursday, the clip had been viewed more than 36,000 times on YouTube and more than 67,000 times on Twitter.
In the segment, “Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee, show correspondent Allana Harkin and their guests, including Brady Seals of Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon-Free Buildings program, talk about the health and climate impacts of gas stoves — stating that 10% of carbon emissions are caused by the use of gas stoves, which research has shown contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.
“A kitchen island and a gas stove are what dreams are made of,” Harkin says in the segment’s opening. “Are you telling me the gas stove industry has been gaslighting me?”
Harmon, making what she called her first national television appearance, appears about midway through the clip.
“I’m Mayor Heidi Harmon and I was targeted by the gas industry” through “intimidation tactics,” she says.
On “Full Frontal,” Harmon cites a profanity-laced comment by a gas industry representative who lobbied against the city of San Luis Obispo’s energy building policy, which incentivizes all-electric energy use in new city buildings. The city passed the policy in June 2020.
“I’m not going to rest until that (expletive) red flower Cruella de Vil and all those (expletives) is off that (expletive) council,” Harmon quotes the industry representative as saying, referencing the “101 Dalmatians” character.
“Wow, this ‘Cruella de Vil’ reboot got really dark,” Harkin quips.
Harmon also recounts a threat by Eric Hofmann, president of the regional branch of the Utility Workers Union of America, to bus in workers to attend a San Luis Obispo City Council meeting amid the COVID-19 pandemic, promising in a letter that there would be “no social distancing in place.”
“I strongly urge the city council to kick this can down the road to adhere to public health safety measures,” Hofmann wrote in the March 2020 letter. “Please don’t force my hand in busing in hundreds and hundreds of pissed off people potentially adding to this pandemic.”
Hofmann didn’t respond to The Tribune’s email and phone requests for comment on Thursday.
In a May 2020 email interview, however, he told The Tribune the city “made a provocative attack on the livelihood of our members with its ill-informed energy policies.”
“That has stirred vehement reactions from our members, including mass attendance at past City Council meetings,” Hofmann wrote via email then. “When the City Council announced that it would re-start its anti-gas effort at the April 7th meeting, we thought it best to both organize our members’ attendance in an orderly and peaceful way, and at the same time try to persuade the City Council to postpone its anti-gas effort to a more prudent time.”
Seals says on “Full Frontal” that the gas industry has done a great job with marketing but gas stoves emit “a lot of the same pollutants that come from our car tailpipes” and contribute to climate change, fracking and lung problems.
According to Bee’s show, the gas industry isn’t shy about using strong tactics to get its views across.
Wednesday’s segment talks about gas companies launching public relations campaigns through sponsored social media influencers and allegedly paying actors to attend community meetings in New Orleans.
On Thursday, Harmon said she agreed to appear on “Full Frontal” in hopes of exposing “egregious gas union tactics of direct threats, lies and toxicity.”
“As a climate activist, I’m proud of the work we’ve done and not letting bullies threaten us,” Harmon said. “We had a mostly-female council and there’s a lot of misogyny in there as well. We stood up to all those threats.”
Harmon hopes “Full Frontal” will help spread the word about gas — particularly to younger viewers, who may be unfamiliar with the impacts of carbon stove emissions.
She urged other cities to take on new energy policies.
“Some cities have passed outright gas bans, which we didn’t,” Harmon said. “What didn’t get into the show was my hope that other cities would take bold action as well. ... I think this type of policy will eventually be mandated by the state.”
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