Google Fiber’s Subcontractors: Identifying Information

First, this report reviews publicly available municipal permit information, dating back to as early as 2014, to catalog contractors named by Google Fiber or a municipality working on fiber projects using each city’s respective permitting system: Austin Build & Connect for the City of Austin, and Accela ROW Public Web for the City of San Antonio. Where available, contractor names and addresses were documented. Beyond municipal Right of Way utility permits, additional Google Fiber contractors were cataloged as a result of public information requests regarding CPS Energy demand letters and detailed permit notes recorded by City of San Antonio staff. 

Google Fiber Subcontractors: Federal & State Enforcement Data

Second, the name of each entity was cross referenced with public federal enforcement data made available by Occupational Safety & Health Administration (“OSHA”) and the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”). In addition, this analysis also cross references these contractors with Texas Railroad Commission enforcement data because of its role enforcing pipeline safety.

Using OSHA and WHD enforcement data tools, searches were performed for each documented contractor.  Enforcement cases that had not yet been closed by the government, and violations that were  classified as “Contested,” were removed from the dataset. If an inspection or violation was recorded prior to 2016, it was also removed from the dataset.

This initial dataset therefore included OSHA and WHD enforcement records that included contractors also named in Google Fiber Texas municipal permits, and that were generated after 2016, and that were not classified as “Contested,” and that were not still active. Additional steps were taken to help verify whether the contractor named in the enforcement record was the same entity listed on the Google Fiber municipal permit. Sometimes, both the contractor name and address were listed together on Google Fiber municipal permit information, and the same name and address appeared in the enforcement record. This made verification straightforward.

When the addresses did not match, however, or when the individual contractor was named on a municipal permit without any address, additional publicly available sources were reviewed to help generate additional identifying information. This included: State of Texas Office of the Comptroller taxable entity information, company documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State, county central appraisal district information, individual company websites, and in the case of OSHA violations documented outside of Texas, company documents filed with each respective state’s Secretary of State. Contractors that could not be verified using any of these additional steps were also removed from this analysis.

Put affirmatively, enforcement records to be reviewed in this analysis must have met the following criteria: the firm was listed as a subcontractor on Google Fiber municipal permit documents in either San Antonio or Austin; the firm appeared in an OSHA Establishment Search or WHD search after January 1, 2016 and had at least one closed violation that was neither open nor contested; and the firm’s mailing address listed on the OSHA violation either matched the municipal permit information, or could be verified through additional review of publicly available government and primary data from firm sources.

Data gathered from the Texas Railroad Commission followed a similar method. First, Texas Railroad Commission Master Agreed Order enforcement actions were cross-referenced with the list of contractors named in municipal permit information. Second, individual docket numbers, corresponding incident reports, penalty amount, and violation details were gathered from the Texas Railroad Commission website. Third, Texas Railroad Commission meeting minutes were reviewed to determine the enforcement action outcome. 

Google Fiber City of Austin Emergency Permits 

Fourth, this analysis reviewed municipal permit information dating back to January 1, 2020 to document each permit that includes a reference to an emergency. While the City of Austin makes this information publicly available and is included in this analysis, the City of San Antonio does not make this information public and is therefore not included in this analysis.

CPS Energy and Austin Energy Damage Demand Letters

Public information requests were filed with CPS Energy and the City of Austin in order to obtain information about these demands from both CPS Energy in San Antonio, and Austin Energy. Data gathered in this analysis from these demand letters include contractor information, incident date, monetary damages sought, and damage descriptions were all retained.

The process for obtaining data from CPS Energy, the electric utility owned by the City of San Antonio, under this part of the report is as follows. In December 2021, Texas Climate Jobs Project filed two separate public information requests with CPS Energy under Chapter 551 of the Texas Public Information Act. The requests asked for “all invoices sent by any individual with any CPS department to Google Fiber or Google Fiber Texas for the repair and/or replacement of damaged water, electricity, or gas lines from January 1, 2016 to January 1, 2018” and later “every demand letter sent by CPS to Google Fiber contractors” from January 1, 2015 through early 2022. On December 28, 2021 an attorney with CPS Energy stated that “CPS Energy has no ‘invoices’ sent to Google Fiber. However, please find attached a report showing all demand letters sent by CPS Energy to Google Fiber contractors for damaged water, electricity or gas lines during the time frame of your request.”

It should be noted that, in the case of San Antonio, company information contained in CPS Energy letters and documents released as a result of public information requests are not triangulated to specific Google Fiber projects. This is primarily due to the fact that detailed permit information is not made publicly available by the City of San Antonio without the filing of extensive public information requests, and the cost cited by city staff to release this information under the Texas Public Information Act was prohibitively expensive. This part of the analysis therefore depends on the veracity of CPS Energy’s disclosure, and the accuracy of internal CPS Energy recordkeeping protocols that resulted in the release of specific incident information as a result of a specific request for demand letters sent to Google Fiber contractors.

Public information requests seeking demand letters sent to Google Fiber Texas contractors, similar to those filed with CPS Energy, were filed with Austin Energy in early 2022. Initially, the City of Austin indicated they had no responsive records to the request. Unlike CPS Energy, City of Austin does not appear to classify retained demand letters by the applicant, in this case, Google Fiber. Instead, the demand letters are classified by individual contractors. Information produced by the City of Austin through a second public information request reveals 11 Austin Energy demand letters sent to contractors who are also named on a Google Fiber Texas permit, and where the incident date and incident location referenced in the Austin Energy demand letter are also within the scope of the Google Fiber Texas permit. In addition, the addresses of each contractor named in the Austin Energy demand letter were redacted, therefore, this analysis could not replicate the method of verification used in the federal and state enforcement data analysis. However, a step was taken to verify that each contractor included in this analysis is the only taxable entity by that name listed by the Texas Office of the Comptroller. Any instance where an entity’s name and address could not be verified resulted in removal from the analysis. 

City of Austin 311 Complaints

Public information requests were filed with the City of Austin to document the public’s reaction to Google Fiber activities through 311 service logs from 2014 to December 2021. Once received, each service log was documented to include the service log’s date and time, address, whether the 311 service log was categorized by city staff as a complaint, and if so, the complaint details. It should be noted that this analysis does not seek to independently verify the veracity of any allegations made by residents about Google Fiber; the purpose of this portion of the study is to understand and make factual statements about the metadata found in 311 service logs generated by municipal staff that reference Google Fiber, not to investigate, substantiate, or amplify individual allegations raised by residents. The focus of this study therefore is on how city staff receive and categorize 311 service logs; the details of individual service logs are excluded from this study.

Methodological Limitations

It is beyond the scope of this analysis to triangulate the enforcement data gathered in this study with specific Google Fiber projects. In fact, an overwhelming majority of incidents recorded by federal and state regulatory authorities presented in this analysis occurred outside of Austin and San Antonio, the two cities where Google Fiber is active in Texas. It should be stated therefore that there is no claim that violations or enforcement actions were a result of activity on Google Fiber projects. Rather, it is stated here that steps are taken, described in the methodology, to match identifying information between the contractor listed in federal and state enforcement data, and the contractor named in Google Fiber Texas municipal permit information.

Similarly, it is outside the scope of this analysis to substantiate any specific allegations made by property owners whose calls and emails generated the 311 service call logs created by city staff. A great number of 311 service logs reviewed in this analysis include additional detail and context provided by the individual initiating the complaint, however, that information is excluded here because they simply cannot be independently verified within the scope of this analysis. Public knowledge of Google Fiber contractors subject to federal and state enforcement actions, municipal demand letters for damage of public utilities, and 311 service log metadata gathered in this analysis, are all vital to ongoing dialogue regarding the high-speed fiber deployment and the public interest. While this report seeks to advance the public’s understanding of this process, additional analysis is needed to substantiate individual allegations and enforcement actions.