Steyer ups ante in fall elections

STEYER’S WAY TO (ELECTORAL) HEAVEN: Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer is pledging an additional $15 million to a super PAC that he co-founded earlier this year with several unions, he tells Pro’s Andrew Restuccia in an interview. Steyer had previously promised to give $5 million to the For Our Future PAC, bringing his total contributions to the group to $20 million. "The measure of this will not be the dollars, the measure will be the impact, whether we change people’s thinking, people’s engagement and people’s participation," Steyer said. Feeling good about November: Steyer told Andrew he feels no obligation to compete with conservative donors like Sheldon Adelson, who is reportedly forking over $45 million for Republicans. Instead, his group, NextGen Climate, is working on a series of state-based ground operations focused on driving climate-minded voters to the polls. Steyer said that he last spoke with Hillary Clinton about two or three weeks ago, but avoids close contact with the campaign to avoid the perception of inappropriate collusion. He said he sees his friends in Clinton World "very, very occasionally and talk to them occasionally, but I don’t coordinate with them." Staying out of Exxon probe: Steyer also insisted he isn't playing a central role in the face-off against ExxonMobil over allegations that it misled the public and its investors about internal research detailing the threat of climate change. Despite a New York Post report that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's staff tried to reach out to Steyer over the AG's investigation into the company, Steyer said he's largely staying out of the Exxon fight. "We’re definitely not pushing this thing," he said, adding, "We are not part of this effort.” Any thoughts on 2018? And he brushed off questions about whether he'll run for governor of California in 2018, as many people suspect. "I don’t know what we’re going to do," he said, explaining that he won't make any decisions until he analyzes the outcome of this year's election...more