Valero

By Staff - Center for Biological Diversity, January 8, 2024

This is an ongoing pillar of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook in California: front groups organized and funded by the oil companies masquerade as “broad coalitions” of concerned citizens and business representatives but are functionally opaque entities with a single mission: furthering the oil and gas industry’s agenda in the state.

Usually organized as 501(c)(4) nonprofits (“social welfare organizations”), such groups are referred to as “dark money” because they’re able to spend money on certain types of campaigns without revealing their donors. Under California law, these types of groups are legally permitted to spend funds on “issue advocacy” campaigns without revealing their donors.

Because these “issue advocacy” campaigns don’t explicitly advocate for or against ballot measures or referenda, millions of dollars can be spent to subtly influence voters without disclosing the true funders behind the messaging campaign. Because of the lack of donor disclosure, we refer to these groups as “dark money groups.”

This report profiles three such groups that have been actively pushing an oil industry ad campaign to promote anti-SB1137 talking points (higher gas prices, losing good jobs, foreign oil); all three track back to the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) and to the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the top lobbyist for the oil industry in the western United States.

Download a copy of this publication here (link).

By Dan L. Wagner, Christopher Kuveke, Alan Zibel, and Lukas Ross - Bailout Watch, Public Service, Friends of the Earth, November 2022

The fossil fuel industry received between $10.4 billion and $15.2 billion in direct economic relief from federal efforts under President Donald Trump.

During a year of massive economic losses caused by climate change-driven wildfires and hurricanes, the U.S. government has sent billions in pandemic-related economic aid to the fossil fuel companies most responsible for catastrophic climate damage.

An analysis by BailoutWatch, Public Citizen, and Friends of the Earth reveals the fossil fuel industry received between $10.4 billion and $15.2 billion in direct economic relief from federal efforts under President Donald Trump to sustain the economy through the pandemic.

These direct benefits were magnified by indirect lifelines, most notably the implied seal of approval conferred on some companies’ debt when the Federal Reserve bought $432 million in oil and gas bonds from private investors on the secondary market. The Fed earlier signaled its support for the broader bond market, including junk-rated debt, by buying Exchange-Traded Funds that included $735.4 million of fossil fuel bonds.

By demonstrating its willingness to take on fossil fuel debt — and risky debt from any part of the economy — the Fed drew private investors back into a shaky market. This fueled a lending boom of more than $93 billion in new bond issuances by oil and gas companies since the Fed intervened in March — the fastest rate of energy bond issuance since at least 2010.

The Fed’s bond purchases, along with the new issuances they spurred, amounted to indirect benefits totaling $94.7 billion. Together with direct benefits worth up to $15.2 billion, likely more, the 2020 fossil fuel bailouts add up to $110 billion.

Read the text (PDF).

By various - Climate Emergency Mobilisation Task Force, September 19, 2020

By Jean Tepperman - East Bay Express - July 22, 2020

California should begin gradually reducing output from its oil refineries in order to avoid climate catastrophe and to make the transition to clean energy as equitable as possible. That's the conclusion of a major new report released July 6 by Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), endorsed by more than 40 environmental and social justice organizations.

While most people agree on the need to use less fossil fuel, many fear that requiring refineries to reduce production could lead to higher gasoline prices and a big economic hit for workers and communities that depend on refineries for income. Report-author Greg Karras responded, "If we start now, doing it gradually, it will give us the time to replace refinery-dependent economics." The report calls for cutting production 4 to 7 percent a year, starting in 2021.

California has set targets for cutting carbon emissions between now and 2050: the state's share of global cuts needed to keep temperature increases below catastrophic levels. Because the carbon that causes climate change builds up in the atmosphere, California has a carbon "budget"—the total amount it can emit from now until 2050. According to Decommissioning California Refineries, California will have to refine much less oil per year to avoid blowing through this carbon "budget" by about 2037.

"California is the biggest oil-refining center in Western North America," Karras said. "Oil refined here emits more carbon than all other activities in the state combined." Even if all other sources of carbon are reduced on schedule, Karras said, "we must refine much less oil if we hope to meet the state's carbon limit."

"We have to break free from our toxic relationship with oil before it takes us over a cliff," Karras said. "When you're in a car heading toward a cliff, it matters when you start putting on the brakes."

The sooner we start, the more likely we are to escape the worst impacts of climate change.

The issue is not just climate, said Andres Soto of CBE. He pointed out that refinery pollution is concentrated in communities like Richmond, centers of racial and economic injustice.

"Only 20 percent of Richmond is Euro-American," he said.

And the health consequences of having a refinery as a neighbor are severe.

Rodeo, another Contra Costa refinery town, "is in the 98th percentile for asthma," said resident Maureen Brennan, and it has high rates of skin disease, autoimmune disease and cancer—all linked to refinery-generated pollution.

Retired refinery worker Steve Garey, past president of a United Steelworkers local in Washington state, said starting now to plan for reduced refinery production could actually benefit refinery workers, since "the movement away from fossil fuels and toward renewables is going to accelerate. It's an economic reality. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuel and getting cheaper all the time."

Recently when the pandemic cut demand for gasoline, Garey said, the Marathon refinery in Martinez shut down, leaving the workers and community stranded.

The current drop in oil use, Karras said, gives us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn away from the cliff and build a cleaner and more equitable recovery.

By Greg Karras - Communities for a Better Environment, July 2020

Machines that burn oil are going away. We will burn much less oil, either to prevent the increasing accumulation of pollution impacts that could cause the collapse of human societies as we know them, or as a footnote to the collapse of our societies and economies on which the petroleum fuel chain now feeds. Which path we take matters.

Sustainable energy technologies that are proven, available now, and obviously more economic than societal collapse could replace oil and other fossil fuels. But critical oil infrastructure, permitted mainly in working class communities and communities of color, is still growing. Environmental, economic, and racial injustice weaken societal capacity to break free of this toxic path. Societal capacity to organize—political feasibility—has emerged as the primary barrier to solving our existential pollution crisis.

California has this problem. It hosts the largest oil refining center in western North America. It has the worst air pollution in the nation, and yet it has allowed its oil sector’s critical infrastructure to grow in low-income communities of color, where this pollution is disparately severe compared with the state average. It uses pollution trading—the exchange of money for permits to pollute—leaving communities largely on our own to fight refinery and oil terminal expansion projects.

Communities rose up to stop tar sands projects in many inspiring efforts that for a decade have held to a trickle the flood of cheaper, dirtier oil that refiners sought. But some projects slipped through. The petroleum fuel chain emits more carbon from extracting, refining, and burning fuels made from the oil refined in California than all other activities in the state combined, and as other emissions have begun to decline, its emissions have not.

In fact its emissions increased from 2013–2017 as refiners here increased production for exports that sold for more money than the entire oil sector spent on permits to emit under the state’s carbon trading scheme. They could do that because no refiner faced any limit on carbon emissions from its plant. They still can because politicians caved in to their demand to make carbon trading the only curb on those emissions. Since 2017, state law has prohibited state air officials from setting a carbon-cutting limit on any oil refining plant under this carbon trading scheme.

Governor Brown argued this law was the best “compromise” that was politically feasible. Yet state climate policy has ignored the need, first voiced by the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union decades ago, for a mandate that assures workers a just transition. Equally important to political feasibility, communities must predict how fast to transition their job and tax bases from oil to sustainable alternatives. But by letting any polluter delay emission cuts at any time, pollution trading makes it harder to make this very prediction.

Read the report (PDF).

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 9, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 21, 2015) - railroadconference.org

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• BP Cleanup Crews, Refinery Workers, Fenceline Communities and the Effects of API-Funded Science - By Karen Savage, Bridge the Gulf, February 6, 2015
• Building unions return to Kentucky refinery despite Steelworkers' Picketlines - By Jarrett Renshaw, Reuters, February 6, 2015
• CBE Supports Striking Refinery Workers - Communities for a Better Environment, February 7, 2015
• First Nationwide Oil Worker Strike In Decades Grows Even Bigger - By Ari Phillips, Think Progress, February 8, 2015
• Steelworkers strike extends to BP plants outside Texas - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 7, 2015
• Supporters join steelworkers on strike at Tesoro: Union leaders call for nationwide “Day of Action” as a sign of solidarity - By Evan Marczynski , Go Skagit, February 8, 2015
• Union says U.S. refinery strike widened; cites unfair labor practices - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, February 7, 2015
• US Oil-Worker Strike Reaches BP Plants With Talks on Hold - By Lynn DoanAngela and Greiling Keane, Bloomberg, February 6, 2015
• USW Oil Workers at BP Refineries in Indiana and Ohio Join Unfair Labor Practice Strike - By Lynne Hancock and Tony Montana, USW Press Release, February 7, 2015
• United Steelworkers rally in downtown Houston after rejecting Shell contract offer - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• White House urges USW to strangle oil workers’ strike - By Jerry White and E.P. Bannon, World Socialist Website, February 6, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• CP Rail, Teamsters union tensions near boiling point; Latest fight involves union members training management to drive trains - By Kyle Bakx, CBC News, February 6, 2015
• Teamsters Membership Authorize Strike Action at CP - By Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, CNW, February 7, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Baker Hughes to close plant, cut 60 jobs in Louisiana - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• Siemens to cut 7,800 employees - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 6, 2015
• The Oil Price Collapse Is Not Just Another Bust Cycle - By Michael T. Klare, The Nation, February 4, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Syriza can show ‘another energy is possible’ - By Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, February 7, 2015

March for Real Climate Leadership:

• Anti-Fracking Protest Shuts Down California State Building, Street - Earth First! Newswire, February 6, 2015
• Anti-Fracking Activists Stage Direct Action in San Francisco, 12 Arrested - Rising Tide North America, February 6, 2015
• Californians March for Real Climate Leadership Against Fracking - Revolution News, February 7, 2015
• 'Game-Changing March for Climate' as Californians Rise Up Against Fracking; Thousands kick off protest to demand Governor Jerry Brown halt toxic drilling in stated - By Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams, February 7, 2015
• Protesters march in Oakland, push for Jerry Brown to ban fracking - By Victoria Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 2015

Other News

• Bulgarian anarcho-syndicalists protest railway cuts, privatization’ - By Karetelnik, Libcom.org, February 5, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 5, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Story:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 22, 2015) - railroadconference.org

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• Greens get behind striking oil workers - By John Light, Grist, February 3, 2015
• In Stand for People and Planet Over Profit, Green Groups Back Oil Worker Strike - By Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, February 3, 2015
• Local Union President Says National Oil Refinery Strike Isn’t About Wages, It's About Safety - By Sydney Brownstone, The Stranger, February 2, 2015 [USW video]
• Martinez: Tesoro refinery among nine plants where strikes planned - By George Avalos and Rick Hurd, Bay Area News Group / San Jose Mercury News, February 2, 2015
• Refinery workers in Martinez, elsewhere go on strike - By Michael Cabanatuan, San Francisco Chronicle, February 1, 2015
• Solidarity with Striking Refinery Workers - By David Turnbull, Oil Change International, February 2, 2015
• Strike negotiators back at the table Tuesday night - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 3, 2015
• Tesoro Refinery workers strike over work conditions, contract - By Laura Anthony, KGO ABC 7, February 2, 2015
• Tough talk from Shell, union as refinery pay talks resume - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, February 3, 2015
• United Steelworkers stage downtown Houston protest at LyondellBasell HQ - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 3, 2015
• For bargaining updates call 888-429-4217

Crude by Rail:

• Safety Board Says Transport Canada Must Do More To Keep Railways Safe - By John Kristensen, Railroaded, February 2, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Drilling contractor may cut 2,000 jobs - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 30, 2015
• Economist: A short-term ‘bloodbath’ in oil and gas; More layoffs - By Jennifer Hiller, Collin Eaton and Ryan Holeywel, FuelFix, February 2, 2015
• More oil jobs threatened as cheap crude persists - By Ryan Holeywell, FuelFix, February 2, 2015
• Oil rig count falls by 94 in biggest drop since 1987 - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 30, 2015
• Russian pipe maker OAO TMK laying off at Pennsylvania plants - Associated Press, FuelFix, February 2, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Greenwire: Groups pressure Congress to invest in passenger rail, transit infrastructure - Environmental Law & Policy Center, January 30, 2015 [related] Report: Long-term Federal Funding Needed in Passenger and Transit Rail Projects - By Anika Reed and Jasmine Whittington, Capital News Service, January 30, 2015
• MACED statement on announcement of President Obama’s proposed budget plan to aid Central Appalachian communities - By Ivy Brashear, Renew Appalachia, February 2, 2015
• New Report Showcases America’s Rail, Transit Manufacturing Opportunity - By the Blue-Green Alliance, Mass Transit Magazine, February 1, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Crossing the River of Fire: The liberal attack on Naomi Klein and ‘This Changes Everything’ - By John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, Monthly Review, February 2015
• EPA should strengthen the standards for clean air - By Heather Albright, Sacramento Bee, January 31, 2015
• In an Age of Soulless Mass Production, the Artisan Craft Worker Still Lives On - By W. Rand Smith, In These Times, February 2, 2015
• Nuclear power plant’s security changes mixed one year after ‘unusual’ death - By Joe Jordan, Nebraska Watchdog, February 2, 2015
• Review: Another Politics by Chris Dixon - By Alexander Reid Ross, Earth First! Newswire, February 1, 2015
• UWAC: More than 5500 trees uprooted in one month! - La Via Campesina, February 2, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Dan Bacher - Indybay.Org, September 23, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Jerry Brown, one of the worst governors for fish, water and the environment in California target="_blank" history, spoke to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City today in a cynical attempt to greenwash his deplorable environmental record.

During his U.N. address, Governor Brown touted California’s controversial carbon trading policies as an example of "innovative climate strategies."

“The California story is a very hopeful one,” Brown gushed. “It’s a story of Republican and Democratic governors pioneering innovative climate strategies. It’s not been easy, it’s not without contest, but we’re making real progress."

“I believe that from the bottom up, we can make real impact and we need to join together,” added Governor Brown. “We’re signing MOUs with Quebec and British Columbia, with Mexico, with states in China and wherever we can find partners, because we know we have to do it all.”

Brown's remarks at the summit are available at: http://cert1.mail-west.com/oUyjbH/myuzjanmc7rm/21oUgt/r8kgy/vnqoU2xx1jy8d/uqc5hy21oUq/043i8kyepg?_c=d%7Cze7pzanwmhlzgt%7C12lu5pdhlx8v340&_ce=1411519461.60b50da8597e418eaeff8b1b85e25029)

In a video message ahead of the Summit, Brown claimed, "We are carrying on because we know in California that carbon pollution kills, it undermines our environment, and, long-term, it’s an economic loser. We face an existential challenge with the changes in our climate. The time to act is now. The place to look is California.”

Yes, California, now under attack by the anti-environmental policies and carbon trading greenwashing campaign by Governor Brown, is definitely “the place to look” for one example after another of environmental destruction.

Once known as "Governor Moonbeam" for his quirkiness and eccentricities during his first two administrations from 1975 to 1983, has in his third administration transformed himself into "Big Oil Brown.”

The following pamphlet, compiled by Gifford Hartman (Fall 2014) offers a brief, and concise description of the five oil refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area, located northeast of San Francisco. [PDF File]