Electrifying

Sempra Energy, lobbying hard to build that controversial power line across Anza-Borrego state park, has taken its battle to the stomachs of legislators and their staffers. According to the company’s latest lobbyist disclosure statement, filed last week, lucky recipients included Dave Louden, chief of staff to GOP Sen. Mark Wyland; Cameron Durckel, director of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s San Diego office; and Tyree Dillingham, the office’s deputy director. Each partook of food and beverage valued at $75.04 during a presumably cozy session at Donovan’s, a posh San Diego steak house, on June 3. Republican Assemblyman George Plescia, no stranger to Sempra’s hospitality in the past, chilled out at L.A.’s Staples Center on June 10, his ticket, food, and beverage setting the company back $322. On April 19, Matthew Petteruto, chief of staff to Orange County supervisor Bill Campbell, got tickets worth $114 to an Angels game. Meanwhile, brewing giant and SeaWorld owner Anheuser-Busch, soon to be taken over by multinational beer maker InBev, enjoyed a last lobbying hurrah. Pablo Espinoza, deputy director of member services in the assembly speaker’s office, got $135.90 worth of admission to SeaWorld San Antonio. Ivan Altamura, chief of staff to GOP Assemblyman Mike Villines, got tickets to San Diego’s SeaWorld valued at $271.80. And Democratic Assemblyman Curren Price got an $81.90 dinner at the Park at Mason’s, a Sacramento restaurant.