Big Oil

By Oscar Reyes - Foreign Policy in Focus, November 21, 2016

One of the sad ironies of Donald Trump’s victory is that climate change has risen up the political agenda only after the campaign, when both candidates and debate moderators largely ignored it. Trump’s denialism in the face of an urgent, planetary threat provides some potent imagery for how the devastation caused by his presidency might look.

Climate scientists have been quick to condemn Trump’s election as a “disaster,” and it’s not hard to see why.

The last three years have broken temperature records, with 2016 set to become the hottest yet. The UN Environment Program just warned that we need to do far more and far faster, while a new study of pledges from G20 countries found that even under Obama, the U.S. remained a long way off meeting its share of the global effort to tackle climate change. Yet we’ve just elected a man who promises to drill more oil, burn more coal, and scrap our national climate plan.

The Trump disaster could hit communities on the front line of climate justice struggles the hardest. Scenes like the militarized response to the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline could be the new normal under Trump if the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure is matched with increasingly repressive policing.

It’s little wonder, then, that Trump’s election has left climate advocates reeling. But as mourning turns to anger and resistance, it’s worth recalling that there are significant limits on what Trump can do to hold back action on climate change.

The transition to cleaner energy will carry on regardless, as coal will remain uncompetitive. States and cities could ramp up their own climate efforts irrespective of the federal government. And international climate action has a momentum that’s not solely dependent on who occupies the White House.

Rogue State

Some of the loudest noises coming from the Trump camp suggest that his administration will withdraw from the Paris climate deal.

Since this process takes four years, it’s rumored that Trump is considering the shortcut of leaving the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which George Bush Sr. signed in 1992 and the Senate ratified. That would set the U.S. apart from every other nation on earth (except the Vatican, which is strongly in favour of climate action all the same). There would be no clearer way to signal that Trump is making the U.S. a rogue state.

Unilateralism on this scale could throw up legal, political, and diplomatic hurdles that Trump’s team might not easily overcome. The Senate might demand a say on leaving the UNFCCC — and it’s not a given that a majority would favor the path of global isolation.

Alternatively, the Trump administration might choose to ignore Washington’s commitments without formally abandoning the international climate process. One of the first victims could be the global Green Climate Fund, which was set up to help developing countries with their climate transitions — and is now unlikely to see at least $2 billion of the $3 billion originally promised to it by the United States.

But the Trump wrecking ball won’t be able to destroy everything in its path. There are strong signs that U.S. isolation won’t wreck the Paris Agreement. Many other countries (including Saudi Arabia) have suggested that they will stick to their international climate commitments with or without the United States. There’s precedent here, too: When George W. Bush withdrew from the last global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, the rest of the world continued with it anyway.

Faced with failed harvests, floods, droughts, and ever more extreme weather, most countries now realize that taking on climate change is in their own self-interest. Ultimately, the countries that lead the way in renewable energy, efficient buildings, and improved public transport (among other climate measures) will be best placed to cope with changes in the global economy.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 20, 2016

A supplement to Eco Unionist News:

Lead Stories:

• Another coal domino falls as the Indian Government’s billion tonnes a year by 2020 target fades - By Bob Burton, End Coal, September 14, 2016
• Seven charts show new renewables outpacing rising demand for first time - By Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, September 14, 2016
• Creditors lose historic sums in oil bankruptcies, Moody’s says - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, September 12, 2016
• China’s Continuing Renewable Energy Revolution – latest trends in electric power generation - By John A. Mathews, Asia-Pacific Journal, September 1, 2016

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 13, 2016

A supplement to Eco Unionist News:

Lead Stories:

• Peabody Energy’s Pathway Out Of Bankruptcy Leads … Backs To Bankruptcy, Says IEEFA - By Joshua S Hill , Clean Technica, September 8, 2016; [related]: As coal companies sink into bankruptcy, who will pay to clean up their old mines? - By David Roberts, Vox, September 2, 2016
• Frustration among out-of-work attendees at annual Labour Day BBQ - By Roberta Bell, CBC, September 5, 2016
• State of The Transition, August 2016: Tailwinds for clean energy and the Paris agreement, deepening doldrums for the incumbency - By Jeremy Leggett, Jeremy Leggett, September 4, 2016

Carbon Market Watch:

• Panic buying sees coking coal price jump 20% in a week - By Frik Els, Mining.Com, September 11, 2016
• South African mining output falls sharply - By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud, Mining.Com, September 11, 2016
• One Hundred Years of Natural Gas? Not At These Prices - By Art Berman, The Petroleum Truth Report, September 8, 2016
• Traders see low prices, more pain ahead for oil industry - By Bloomberg, FuelFix, September 8, 2016; [related]: Oil trims weekly gains as market discounts drop in inventories - By Bloomberg, FuelFix, September 9, 2016 | Oil climbs on report of inventory decline - By Bloomberg, FuelFix, September 8, 2016 | Oil, gasoline inventories plunge; crude prices rise - By Staff, FuelFix, September 8, 2016 | Oil advances as traders look to OPEC, Russia for signs of output freeze - By Bloomberg, FuelFix, September 7, 2016 | Market Currents: Production freeze hopes fizzle - By Matt Smith, FuelFix, September 6, 2016
• Global Coal Plant Pipeline Slows, According To CoalSwarm - By Joshua S Hill, Clean Technica, September 7, 2016

Other Carbon Bubble News:

• Norway's Wealth Fund Dumps Duke Energy Over 'Risk of Severe Environmental Damage' - By Donna Lisenby, EcoWatch, September 8, 2016
• The Energy-Water Nexus [25] - Jordan Macknick interviewed by Chris Nelder, The Energy Transition Show, September 7, 2016
• Great Lakes Region Pivots From Fossil Fuels - By Codi Kozacek, Circle of Blue, September 6, 2016
• Oil downturn ripples through city finances in New Mexico - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press, September 6, 2016
• Waiting for rebound, producers still looks at west coast for coal export potential - By Heather Richards, Casper Star Tribune, September 4, 2016

Utility Death Spiral News:

• NSW energy minister blames Basslink for SA price spikes - By Giles Parkinson, REnew Economy, September 9, 2016; [related]: Gas plants fingered again for South Australian power price hikes - By Giles Parkinson, REnew Economy, September 6, 2016
• Solar developer protests community solar size in Colorado Xcel settlement - By Robert Walton, Utility Dive, September 7, 2016
• New proposals from Iowa utilities raise red flags for solar advocates - By Karen Uhlenhuth, Midwest Energy News, September 6, 2016

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC; Hashtags: #greenunionism #greensyndicalism #IWW. Please send suggested news items to include in this series to euc [at] iww.org.

By Greg Muttitt and David Whyte - Red Pepper, August 2016

The anti-war demonstration in London on 15 February 2003 was the biggest protest in British history. And probably the most popular slogan on the placards and banners that day was ‘No blood for oil’. It was a connection that seemed obvious to many on the march but was repeatedly ridiculed by supporters of the invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair said that ‘the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it.’

Why is it so easy to dismiss the idea that access to oil and the interests of those who profit from it may be part of the motive for war? Why, given our experience of wars though the ages, is this not the first question we ask? After all, as the celebrated General Smedley Butler famously observed after completing numerous military campaigns on behalf of the nascent US empire: ‘War is a racket. It always has been.’

By the standards of an official inquiry, Chilcot’s was utterly damning of a government that took the country to war without justification. But compared to the evidence Chilcot had, his conclusions were mild, because the questions he asked were limited. In particular, while noting that there was no convincing case for WMD, even at the time, Chilcot failed to ask how other political and economic motivations affected decisions.

Was it a war for oil?

A year after the February 2003 demonstration, an international opinion poll conducted by US think tank, the Pew Research Centre, asked sample populations from nine countries (the US, Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco and Jordan) about the ‘war on terrorism’. The majority in all but two countries (the US and Britain) thought it was ‘to control Mideast oil’. It is worth underlining that the question was not just asking about the invasion of Iraq, but about the motive for a war on terrorism full stop.

When it comes to the Iraq war, they were right. Evidence released with the report shows unequivocally that using Iraqi oil to boost British energy supplies was a central pre-war aim. A February 2002 Cabinet Office paper described the UK’s objectives as ‘preserving peace and stability in the Gulf and ensuring energy security‘. Right up to the withdrawal of British troops in 2009, successive British strategy documents, also released by Chilcot, maintain two consistent objectives: transfer the oil sector from public ownership to multinationals, and ensure that BP and Shell get a large share. Sometimes a third oil objective appears: to make Iraq an advocate of low oil prices within OPEC.

By Hamza Hamouchene - ROARmag, July 28, 2016

Kerkennah is a group of islands lying off the east coast of Tunisia in the Gulf of Gabès, around 20km away from the mainland city of Sfax. The two main islands are Chergui and Gharbi. When approaching the islands by ferry, one is struck by a curious sight: the coastal waters are divided into countless parcels, separated from one another by thousands of palm tree leaves. This is what Kerkennis call charfia, a centuries-old fishing method ingeniously designed to lure fish into a capture chamber from where they can be easily recovered.

As the land is arid, agricultural activity is limited to subsistence farming. For the islanders fishing is one of the key economic activities, but for big multinational corporations it is the exploitation of oil and gas.

Despite a new article in the Tunisian constitution stipulating state sovereignty over natural resources and transparency in the related contracts, oil and gas companies continue to garner obscene profits and enjoy impunity. At the same time, local communities continue to shoulder the externalized social and environmental costs of this industry.

The Kerkennah archipelago is being doubly dispossessed and doubly threatened: first by the effects of disruptive global warming and second by the extractive operations of oil and gas companies, bent on making super-profits at the expense of the archipelago’s development. Caught in the intricate web of capitalist globalization, the collision between neoliberalism and climate change is potentially disastrous for the people of Kerkennah.

By Dan Bacher - IndyBay, October 12, 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.

As advocates of Senate Bill 350 were celebrating the signing of the amended renewable energy bill by Governor Jerry Brown, a major appointment to a regulatory post in the Brown administration went largely unnoticed.

In a classic example of how Big Oil has captured the regulatory apparatus in California, Governor Jerry Brown announced the appointment of Bill Bartling, 61, of Bakersfield, who has worked as an oil industry executive and consultant, as district deputy in the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources at the embattled California Department of Conservation. 

What are Bartling's qualifications? According to a statement from the Governor's Office:

Bartling has been president at Aspectus Energy Consulting since 2015, where he was president from 2005 to 2008. He was general manager at OptaSense Borehole Imaging Services from 2014 to 2015, president and chief executive officer at SR2020 Inc. from 2008 to 2014 and founder and chief technology officer at Ambrose Oil and Gas from 2007 to 2010.

Bartling was senior director of market strategy at Silicon Graphics Inc. from 2000 to 2005, manager of technical computing at the Occidental Petroleum Corporation from 1998 to 2000 and senior vice president of software engineering at CogniSeis Development from 1996 to 1998.

He held several positions at the Chevron Corporation from 1981 to 1996, including supervisor for exploration, supervisor for production and research, geologist and geophysicist.

Bartling earned a Master of Science degree in geology from San Diego State University. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $180,000. Bartling is a Republican.

The Center for Biological Diversity's Hollin Kretzmann criticized the appointment, stating, "Governor Brown's administration has shown a blatant disregard for the law, and time after time it has sacrificed California's water and public health in favor of oil industry profits. Hiring an oil executive to run one of the state's most captured agencies is completely inappropriate and only adds insult to injury."

By Dan Bacher - Elk Grove Citizen, September 6, 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.

Jerry Brown continually attempts to portray himself as a “climate leader” and “green Governor” at environmental conferences and photo opportunities across the globe, but new court documents obtained by the Associated Press bolster the claims by many anti-fracking activists that the California Governor is in reality “Big Oil Brown.”

In these documents, two former senior level officials in California Governor Jerry Brown’s administration reveal that they were fired on November 3, 2011, one day after warning the governor that oil drilling would imperil the state’s groundwater.

In a declaration, Derek Chernow, Brown’s fired acting director of the state Department of Conservation, told the Brown Administration that granting permits to oil companies for oilfield injection wells would violate safety provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, reported Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press.

“Chernow’s declaration, obtained by The Associated Press, was contained in an Aug. 21 court filing in a lawsuit brought by a group of Central Valley farmers who allege that oil production approved by Brown’s administration has contaminated their water wells. The lawsuit also cites at least $750,000 in contributions that oil companies made within months of the firings to Brown’s campaign for a state income tax increase,” according to Knickmeyer.

You can read the full story here.

The Committee to Protect Agricultural Water filed their civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit in Federal Court on June 3, 2015. On the following day, Mark Nechodom, the controversial director of the California Department of Conservation that replaced Chernow, resigned.

By Dan Bacher - IndyBay, July 27, 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 biggest, most explosive story in California environmental politics is the capture of the regulatory apparatus by the regulated, but you wouldn’t know it if you rely on the mainstream media for your information.

While corporate agribusiness, the timber industry, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and other corporate interests spend many millions of dollars every year on lobbying and campaigning in California, Big Oil is the largest, most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento.

No industry has done a better job of capturing the regulatory apparatus than Big Oil. The oil industry exerts inordinate influence over the regulators by using a small fraction of the billions of dollars in profits it makes every year to lobby state officials and fund political campaigns.

Big Oil spent an amazing $266 million influencing California politics from 2005 to 2014, according to an analysis of California Secretary of State data by StopFoolingCA.org, an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to “mislead and confuse Californians.”

The industry spent $112 million of this money on lobbying and the other $154 million on political campaigns.

2014 was the biggest year-ever for Big Oil spending on lobbying and campaigns. The oil industry spent a combined total of 38,653,186 for lobbying and campaigns in 2014. That is a 129 percent increase from the 2013 total of $16,915,226!

The top lobbyists in the oil industry during this 10-year-period were:

• Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA): $50,111,867
• Chevron: $23,442,629
• BP: $6,788,261
• Shell: $4,536,112
• Occidental: $4,315,817

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), an oil industry trade association that every year tops the list of spenders among the state’s lobbying groups, spent a record $8.9 million on lobbying in 2014, nearly double what it spent in the previous year. WSPA spent $4.67 million in 2013.

WSPA spent much of its lobbying money on stopping a fracking moratorium bill in the Legislature and trying to undermine California’s law to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The group also successfully opposed legislation by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson to protect the Vandenberg State Marine Reserve and the Tranquillon Ridge from offshore oil drilling plans. In a bizarre scenario that could only take place in the "green" state of California, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of WSPA and Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create questionable “marine protected areas” in Southern California, lobbied against marine protection in a "marine protected area" that she helped to create!

But for all of the millions WSPA and the oil companies spend every year on lobbying, they dumped even more money, $154 million, into political campaigns during the ten-year-period.

By Kirsten Stade - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, July 8, 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.

Washington, DC — The new leader of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is busy spending money on things other than chemical safety, according to records released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In the past weeks, CSB has let nearly $100,000 in sole-source contracts for outside lawyers and consultants without public notice or discussion and kept them below a dollar threshold that would trigger an array of federal procurement requirements.

Last month, Richard Engler declared himself the “Interim Executive and Administrative Authority” for the CSB, a status disputed by the only other remaining Board member, Manuel (Manny) Ehrlich. He then proceeded to put the general counsel and managing director on paid administrative leave and began reassigning staff. Without informing Ehrlich, he also began unilaterally executing no-bid contracts for –

• An organizational consultant called RGS of Arlington, VA for $49,998 ; and
• “Legal Services” from the Washington, DC firm of Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux and Roth. Records indicate two payments totaling $45,000 have been authorized thus far at a billing rate between $175 and $300 per hour.

Federal contracts under $50,000 avoid a variety of procurement rules, including stronger competitive bidding and affirmative action requirements. They also fall just shy of the $50,000 threshold requiring a full Board vote under an order passed this May (with Engler among the “aye” votes) in the name of improving governance and “transparency.” Yet, these contracts were approved with the other Board member and most of the agency staff left in the dark.

“This guy is spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting Engler craves loyalty from a divided and intimidated staff so much that he even tried to elevate a lawyer with a big lawsuit against CSB. “He is assembling a mercenary force paid to do his only bidding.”