The same fossil fuel lobbyists pulling out all the stops to defeat game-changing climate legislation in California this month are simultaneously collecting checks from dozens of cities and counties in the state being pummeled by the climate crisis, as well as major environmental and clean-energy groups pushing state lawmakers to adopt solutions, the Lever has learned.

In other words, powerful California lobbying firms — including those with ties to Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democratic leaders — are effectively acting as double agents for both the culprits of climate change and its victims, according to F Minus, a new climate group that reviewed thousands of state registrations for a database exposing the lobbying connections.

In the final two weeks of California’s legislative session, lawmakers are preparing to vote on a climate bill that would require thousands of large companies to fully disclose their carbon emissions for the first time. That means many of the same lobbyists who take taxpayer money to represent local governments will also be working overtime to sink a climate bill with national implications.

“Lobbyists have been playing both sides of environmental issues for decades,” said James Browning, the group’s executive director and a former state director for the watchdog group Common Cause. “Now we can see the extent of it — for hundreds of local governments facing crushing climate costs, their own lobbyists are part of the problem.”

Nationwide, the group’s database shows that more than fifteen hundred fossil fuel lobbyists are also being paid to represent liberal-run cities, universities, and environmental groups. In California, where the effects of climate change — including coastal erosion, wildfires, and other extreme weather — could cost the state $113 billion annually by 2050, the conflicting interests of major lobbyists’ clients are especially notable.

Take coastal San Mateo County, the site of a new, $90 million steel sea wall along the San Francisco Bay. The county is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking to hold Big Oil financially liable for the costs that local governments will incur from rising sea levels. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that the novel suit could proceed after oil companies sought to have it thrown out. But as the county makes the case that the world’s largest oil companies knowingly caused climate change, it is also sharing a lobbyist with one of the defendants.

San Mateo County has paid $32,000 this year to the lobbying firm Political Solutions LLC, which over the same period received $44,000 from the energy giant BP to lobby on fossil fuel legislation in California, according to state records. A county spokesperson said that Political Solutions did not provide services related to the lawsuit. State records show that it lobbied on funding for child support agencies and other budgetary issues.

Yet the county’s use of political insiders employed by oil and gas firms sets up a potential conflict of interest, according to Browning — one that sometimes extends to environmental groups.

The conservation nonprofit the Nature Conservancy this year retained Axiom Advisors, a lobbying firm whose founders include a longtime advisor to Governor Newsom, as well as a former policy director for Newsom when he served as lieutenant governor. The firm also lobbies on behalf of offshore wind and solar companies.

But the firm’s other clients include Marathon Petroleum, which paid Axiom $175,000 this year to lobby the legislature and governor’s office on climate and energy issues, including the climate disclosure bill. Marathon, the nation’s top crude oil refiner, operates the largest refinery on the West Coast in Los Angeles County.

A spokesperson for the Nature Conservancy told the Lever that the group supports the climate disclosure bill on which Axiom has lobbied.

“When we hire lobbyists to work on conservation policies, we strive to hire firms with a breadth of experience because their expertise, relationships, and perspectives across a spectrum of issues increase their effectiveness,” the spokesperson said. “While there can be areas of cross-purpose in different sectors, we always seek to find the best outcomes for conservation.”