In June 2025, the board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted 7 to 5 to reject a landmark rule designed to cut smog pollution from gas powered furnaces and water heaters across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The proposal would have imposed a mitigation fee on new gas appliances to reduce nitrogen oxides, the smog forming pollutants that worsen asthma, heart disease and premature death. Instead, the rule collapsed under a tidal wave of more than 20,000 public comments opposing it.
Many of those comments were generated and submitted using an artificial intelligence powered advocacy platform called CiviClick. The campaign was run by political consultant Matt Klink of Klink Campaigns, who is also a partner at California Strategies.
This was not a spontaneous grassroots uprising. It was a paid, AI assisted pressure campaign that reshaped a major public health decision.
CiviClick markets itself as an AI powered grassroots advocacy platform. It promises clients the ability to rapidly generate personalized messages to regulators and elected officials at scale. Its services are targeted to corporations, trade associations, public affairs firms and digital agencies seeking to influence public policy outcomes.
In the case of the South Coast rule, the platform was used to recruit individuals to send emails opposing the clean air proposal. The volume was extraordinary. More than 20,000 comments flooded the district in a short period of time.
When agency staff followed up on a sample of submissions, several individuals reportedly said they had not personally sent the messages attributed to them. That raises serious questions about consent, authenticity and transparency in regulatory proceedings.
Public comment is supposed to reflect real public input. Not synthetic amplification designed to simulate broad opposition.
The proposed rule targeted new gas appliances, a move strongly opposed by the fossil gas industry and allied business groups. The region is home to Southern California Gas Co., commonly known as SoCalGas, a subsidiary of Sempra.
SoCalGas has fought electrification policies across California for years. The company has spent heavily on lobbying and public relations campaigns to protect its gas infrastructure and delay policies that would transition buildings to cleaner electric alternatives.
Matt Klink’s firm has represented clients including the California Apartment Association and energy interests. Sempra, the parent company of SoCalGas, has also been among the firm’s clients.
What remains unclear is who directly funded the AI driven comment blitz targeting the South Coast rule. There is no public disclosure requirement that clearly identifies the financial backers behind such digital advocacy campaigns. That opacity is part of the problem.
Corporations can now outsource mass public pressure efforts to digital firms that leverage artificial intelligence to create the appearance of widespread community opposition, without clearly revealing who is paying for the campaign.
This is not an isolated case. CiviClick has also been used in other policy fights, including efforts related to gas infrastructure expansion in North Carolina. In the Bay Area, other regulatory battles have seen similar large scale comment campaigns using AI integrated advocacy platforms, including Speak4.
This is the new generation of astroturfing.
Traditional astroturf campaigns relied on identical form letters or robo calls. Today’s AI tools can generate thousands of slightly varied messages that appear personalized and authentic. Regulators see volume and may interpret it as broad public sentiment. But in the age of generative AI, volume no longer equals legitimacy.
Southern California continues to fail federal clean air standards. The South Coast basin has some of the worst ozone pollution in the nation. Communities near freeways, refineries and warehouses experience disproportionate exposure to smog and toxic air contaminants.
Gas appliances contribute significantly to indoor and outdoor nitrogen oxide pollution. Peer reviewed studies have linked gas stoves and furnaces to increased asthma risk in children. The rejected rule was part of a broader strategy to clean up the region’s air and transition toward electric appliances powered by an increasingly renewable grid.
Instead, a digitally amplified opposition campaign helped tip the political balance.
When regulatory boards are flooded with AI generated messages, it becomes harder to distinguish between genuine community concern and industry manufactured outrage. That distorts democratic processes and undermines urgently needed public health protections.
California’s Bot Disclosure Law requires bots to identify themselves when used to influence elections or commercial transactions. But regulatory comment processes fall into a gray area.
AI generated public comments can be framed as authentic constituent communication, even when they are orchestrated by paid consultants using proprietary software tools. There is currently no clear requirement that AI assisted advocacy campaigns disclose who paid for them, how messages were generated or whether individuals explicitly approved the final text submitted in their names.
That gap allows powerful interests to weaponize artificial intelligence in regulatory arenas that were never designed to filter out automated or semi automated mass submissions.
If companies are confident in their position, they should argue it openly and transparently. They should disclose funding sources and methods. They should not hide behind synthetic grassroots campaigns that blur the line between public participation and digital manipulation.
Regulators should require disclosure when comments are generated or facilitated by AI driven advocacy platforms. Agencies should be able to identify coordinated campaigns, verify participant consent and weigh comments accordingly.
Southern California residents deserve clean air and honest governance. Artificial intelligence should not be allowed to erode the integrity of public decision making.
The future of environmental policy cannot be decided by algorithms deployed in the shadows.