Valero

Valero Energy Corporation

connected to tesoro? prop 23

$70B rev 2009

huh?

6 24

­C­o­m­p­a­n­i­e­s P­r­o­f­i­t­i­n­g f­r­o­m t­h­e G­a­z­a G­e­n­o­c­i­d­e

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===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/pipeline-plans/

an 721

'Triumph for environmental justice': Oil companies scrap pipeline plans amid grassroots pressure

Julia Conley and Common Dreams July 04, 2021

Community activists in Memphis, Tennessee and northwest Mississippi celebrated a grassroots victory on Saturday after two oil companies canceled plans to build a pipeline that would have run through wetlands and several low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods.

Valero and Plains All American Pipeline had long planned to construct the Byhalia Connection pipeline, which would have been 49 miles long and linked two pipelines that transport crude oil to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

The two companies announced they were canceling the project "due to lower U.S. oil production resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic," but opponents of the pipeline noted that the announcement followed grassroots organizing by climate action advocates, homeowners, and elected officials at the local and federal levels.

"This is a win for the entire community of Memphis, Tennessee, but especially those in the Black community who fought it courageously," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, tweeted.

Community members in Memphis neighborhoods including White Chapel, Westwood, and Boxtown objected to the pipeline project, which would have run over the Memphis Sand Aquifer—leading to fears that an oil spill would pollute the drinking water of about one million people.

Local organizations Protect Our Aquifer and Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) led rallies and garnered the support of former Vice President Al Gore and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), while the Memphis City Council weighed an ordinance to make it harder for the companies to begin construction.

MCAP leader Justin J. Pearson organized canvassers and lobbied the city council, and called Friday's announcement "an extraordinary testament to what Memphis and Shelby County can do when citizens build power toward justice."

A representative of the two oil companies sparked local outrage when they said South Memphis, where the Boxtown community was established in the 1860s by people who had been enslaved, had been identified as "the point of least resistance."

"We've shown them that we aren't the path of least resistance," said Pearson. "We are the path of resilience."

Lawyers for the two companies began legal proceedings against local landowners who refused to make deals with project officials; they planned to invoke eminent domain against the property owners.Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case in New Jersey that a company could use eminent domain to build a natural gas pipeline on state land.

"Their playbooks are the same everywhere," Pearson said on Twitter on Friday. "Find the poor. Appease the rich and politically powerful. Misinform the community. Make local leaders afraid to stop them. Exploit the poor. Reap billions in profits from the deaths of the poor and marginalized."

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which helped landowners fight the two companies in the legal battle, called Friday's announcement "a triumph for environmental justice."

"We are so inspired by the people of Boxtown, Westwood, and White Chapel, and the work of our amazing partners MCAP and Protect Our Aquifer, for showing what is possible when a community stands together," said Amanda Garcia, director of the SELC's Tennessee office.

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===

NuStar Energy (NS +2.4%) Chairman Bill Greehey now owns an 8.9% stake in the company he helped found, after disclosing earlier this week that he bought $15M worth of stock.

Greehey bought an additional 527,426 units at $28.44 each and now owns more than than 9.6M NS units.

Greehey was the founding CEO and chairman of Valero Energy, which spun off its midstream division to form NuStar in 2006.

==

omg borders on dis cap'l, massive subsidies

PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) — As the nation plans new defenses against the more powerful storms and higher tides expected from climate change, one project stands out: an ambitious proposal to build a nearly 60-mile “spine” of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Like other oceanfront projects, this one would protect homes, delicate ecosystems and vital infrastructure, but it also has another priority — to shield some of the crown jewels of the petroleum industry, which is blamed for contributing to global warming and now wants the federal government to build safeguards against the consequences of it.

The plan is focused on a stretch of coastline that runs from the Louisiana border to industrial enclaves south of Houston that are home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of petrochemical facilities, including most of Texas’ 30 refineries, which represent 30 percent of the nation’s refining capacity.

Texas is seeking at least $12 billion for the full coastal spine, with nearly all of it coming from public funds. Last month, the government fast-tracked an initial $3.9 billion for three separate, smaller storm barrier projects that would specifically protect oil facilities.

That followed Hurricane Harvey, which roared ashore last Aug. 25 and swamped Houston and parts of the coast, temporarily knocking out a quarter of the area’s oil refining capacity and causing average gasoline prices to jump 28 cents a gallon nationwide. Many Republicans argue that the Texas oil projects belong at the top of Washington’s spending list.

“Our overall economy, not only in Texas but in the entire country, is so much at risk from a high storm surge,” said Matt Sebesta, a Republican who as Brazoria County judge oversees a swath of Gulf Coast.

But the idea of taxpayers around the country paying to protect refineries worth billions, and in a state where top politicians still dispute climate change’s validity, doesn’t sit well with some.

“The oil and gas industry is getting a free ride,” said Brandt Mannchen, a member of the Sierra Club’s executive committee in Houston. “You don’t hear the industry making a peep about paying for any of this and why should they? There’s all this push like, ‘Please Senator Cornyn, Please Senator Cruz, we need money for this and that.’”

Normally outspoken critics of federal spending, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both backed using taxpayer funds to fortify the oil facilities’ protections and the Texas coast. Cruz called it “a tremendous step forward.”

Federal, state and local money is also bolstering defenses elsewhere, including on New York’s Staten Island, around Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in other communities hammered by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Construction in Texas could begin in several months on the three sections of storm barrier. While plans are still being finalized, some dirt levees will be raised to about 17 feet high, and 6 miles of 19-foot-tall floodwalls would be built or strengthened around Port Arthur, a Texas-Louisiana border locale of pungent chemical smells and towering knots of steel pipes.

The town of 55,000 includes the Saudi-controlled Motiva oil refinery, the nation’s largest, as well as refineries owned by oil giants Valero Energy Corp. and Total S.A. There are also almost a dozen petrochemical facilities.

“You’re looking at a lot of people, a lot of homes, but really a lot of industry,” said Steve Sherrill, an Army Corps of Engineers resident engineer in Port Arthur, as he peered over a Gulf tributary lined with chunks of granite and metal gates, much of which is set to be reinforced.

The second barrier project features around 25 miles of new levees and seawalls in nearby Orange County, where Chevron, DuPont and other companies have facilities. The third would extend and heighten seawalls around Freeport, home to a Phillips 66 export terminal for liquefied natural gas and nearby refinery, as well as several chemical facilities.

...

==

https://corporatewatch.org/valero-company-profile/

Envir racism:

In 1994, the state of Texas and the City of Corpus Christi were accused of environmental racism by two grassroots community groups in Texas’ Nueces County. People Against Contaminated Environments (“PACE”) and the American GI Forum of Texas (“AGIT”) filed a Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1964) complaint alleging that, due to the existence of the Valero refinery, people of colour residents of Texas and Corpus Christi respectively were discriminated against by having their environmental protection and public health needs ignored.

According to the Political Economy Research Institute, 59% of people exposed to Valero’s air pollutants, including ammonia, sulfuric acid, and benzene, are minorities. [23]

Air Pollution

In March 2010 Valero Energy was Ranked 12th in the Political Economy Research Institute list of the top 100 air polluters in the United States (based on quantity and toxicity of emissions), having released 4.13 million pounds (1.88 million kilos) of toxic air pollutants in 2006.[24]

In its relatively brief history, Valero has received huge fines on numerous occasions for violations of air pollution legislation. These are some the most significant incidents:

April 2008 – In a settlement with The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Valero agreed to pay a penalty of $905,796 and fund community projects worth $977,808. The settlement followed allegations of dozens of air pollution violations during 2005, 2006 and early 2007 at Valero’s refinery in Greenwich Township. The NJDEP cited Valero for exceeding overall emissions limits, violating stack-emission testing requirements, exceeding emission standards for pollutants during stack tests and various other violations.[25]

August 2007 – Valero agreed to a $4.25 million fine and additional expenditure of $147 million on pollution controls at its refineries in Port Arthur (TX), Memphis (TN), and Lima (Ohio). The settlement with EPA/DoJ required Valero to spend $1 million on support for a local health centre treating residents suffering respiratory illnesses who are not covered by health insurance.

Days before the announcement, Valero was heavily criticised at a town hall gathering for two recent incidents: a release of toxic gas from its Port Arthur refinery on 28 July, which hospitalised some residents living near the plant, and a fire at the refinery on 8 August. [26]

June 2005 – Valero pledged to install $700 million in pollution controls and pay a $5.5 million penalty to settle a five-state/US EPA joint complaint following alleged violations of federal air-pollution law. The settlement was one of the largest the EPA reached since it started investigating the refining industry in 2000 due to widespread concerns over compliance and enforcement.[27]

April 2005 – In a settlement of alleged Clean Air Act violations between 2001 and 2004 at its Paulsboro (NJ) refinery, Valero was fined $793,000 by the New Jersey DEP. The company was ordered to pay a further $3.5 million to install emission controls, intended to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from its waste water treatment plant.[28]

2001 – Following repeated flaring of large volumes of sulfur dioxide between 1994 and 1998, Valero Refining was ordered to install a backup Sulfur Recovery Unit at their Corpus Christi refinery.[29]

2000 – Texas Natural Resources Commerce Commission forced Valero to pay a $174,455 penalty following alleged violations involving record keeping deficiencies and emissions exceedancies at its Texas City refinery.[30]

Water Pollution

A partial settlement between a dozen oil companies, including Valero Energy, and public water providers in 17 states was reached in December 2008. The litigation concerned groundwater contamination from the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), which had been used despite the fact that “No human health studies or long-term carcinogenicity studies on animals were conducted by the oil companies prior to adding MTBE to the nation’s gasoline supply”. The oil companies were required to Pay $422 million, and treat wells for MTBE over the next thirty years.[31]

In 2008 Valero Refining-Texas, L.P. agreed to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act following a spill of 3,400 barrels of oil into the Corpus Christi Ship Channel on June 1, 2006. Under the consent decree, Valero agreed to pay a $1.65 million civil penalty and perform a supplementary environmental project costing approximately $300,000.[32]

In January 2006 the New Jersey Department for Environment Protection announced an agreement made with Valero Refining Company that the company would preserve four properties totalling 615 acres as compensation to the public for ground water pollution at its oil refinery in Greenwich.[33]

Safety and Wrongful Deaths

In 2005 two workers suffocated while carrying out maintenance at Valero’s Delaware refinery, resulting in wrongful death lawsuits against the company in February 2006. According to evidence used in the lawsuits, the two men working for contractor Matrix Service Co were asphyxiated while retrieving a roll of duct tape that had fallen into a refinery reactor. Valero blamed the deaths on the victims, saying they hadn’t followed safety instructions. Others disputed this, asserting that a work permit gave no warning of suffocation hazards as required.

It was reported that Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Valero the previous year for failing to adequately oversee handling of work permits, and supervisors were unconcerned about discipline for violations. (Jeff Montgomery, “Valero staffing an issue in deaths,” Wilmington News Journal, 5/17/07). In addition,the company was accused of neglecting safety while rushing the refining system back into service to take advantage of high fuel prices.

One of the cases, brought by survivors of John A. Lattanzi, was settled in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board concluded that the deaths were in part due to “inadequate” warnings and barriers around an opening in the tank where the men died, and that managers had failed to give the workers adequate written notice of the suffocation hazard. There were also claims of destruction of evidence against Valero and disputes over expert testimony.[34]

According to the Federal Contractor Misconduct database, it was reported that the case brought by the family of John Ferguson was settled in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.[35]

A previous wrongful death claim associated with the same refinery was settled for $36 million in 2003. (Jeff Montgomery, “Suit in worker’s death: Valero put ‘profits over safety’,” Wilmington News Journal, 2/8/06). This followed a fatal explosion and fire in 2001, also at the same plant, which led to tough new laws on storage tanks and tens of millions of dollars in criminal and civil fines and penalties.Valero sold the plant in June 2010 to subsidiaries of PBF Energy Company LLC for $220 million.[36]

See here for a chronology of problems at the Delaware Refinery (Source: Wilmington News Journal, 11/7/05):

-March 2005: State regulators warn refinery managers about concerns over leaks, fires and risk of catastrophe.

-January 2005: 12,500 pound propane leak.

-September 2004: 20,000 and 9,000 pound butane leaks.

-February 2004: 11,000 pound propylene/butane leak.

-May 2003: Chemical reaction bursts a tank roof open, releasing 25,000 pounds of acid and 15,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, forcing employees to flee for their lives. (Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommended a $132,000 fine).

-March 2002-August 2003: Excessive releases of carbon monoxide and other pollutants. (237,500 fine by Delaware).

-July 17, 2001: Explosion and fire in a sulfuric acid tank kills one man, cripples several others and releases more than one million gallons of gasoline-laced acid.

-April 2001: State regulators file criminal pollution charge accusing refinery managers of twice neglecting caustic chemical leaks that damaged the environment.

-May 2000: Worker burned by pipe failure.

-December 1997: Four workers injured when a tank explosion splashes them with a caustic chemical.

Valero has been involved in numerous other safety incidents and lawsuits, including:

-An accident involving the release of sulfur dioxide at Valero’s refinery in east Houston in 2006, sending 28 workers to hospital for treatment of respiratory complaints.[37]

-A fire at the Valero McKee refinery in Sunray, Texas, in February 2007. Three workers were seriously burned, and the entire refinery was shut down and evacuated. In July 2008, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a final investigation report that concluded the refinery did not have an effective programme to identify and address the risk of pipe failure due to freezing and the hazards posed by fire exposure to neighbouring equipment. [38]

-In 2008 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed penalties totalling $101,750 for various violations including 13 alleged serious violations at Valero’s Port Arthur, Texas.[39]

Anti-Competition

==

XL  EJ

In many ways Texas, where the Keystone pipeilne would terminate, is the heart of the American oil and gas industry. Not surprisingly, activists there are routinely harassed by law enforcement and corporate security for nothing more than keeping tabs on the industry. In East Houston, the city’s industrial hub and most polluted neighborhood (Houston itself is one of the most polluted cities in the country), environmental activist and community organizer Bryan Parras has been questioned by the police on several occasions and once was contacted by a Coast Guard special agent assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Houston. The organization he helps run with his father, Texas Environmental Justice AdvocacyServices [10] (or TEJAS), has been closely watched. Parras frequently takes activists and journalists on what he calls “toxic tours” – a survey of the neighborhood’s refineries, chemical plants, and shipping ports. He’s made a point of documenting the air pollution caused by the flaring at the refineries that flank the neighborhood. He says the images “compel people to action.”

They’ve also made Parras a subject of interest for industry and law enforcement. He is routinely questioned by the police orharassed by security representatives from Valero Energy, a major refining company and one of the industries Parras monitors. In 2013 Parras got a text from a friend, Tish Stringer, saying that an agent had visited her home and wanted to know about her relationship with him. The Coast Guard special agent, David Pileggi, told Stringer he’d been tipped off by Valero.

“It’s nothing new,” Parras says. “Since 9/11 we’ve been harassed repeatedly and pulled over for taking pictures or video of the facilities.”

In an emailed statement, Bill Day, vice president of communications at Valero, said the Houston refinery is designated by Homeland Security as “critical infrastructure” and therefore must meet enhanced security requirements. “One of those requirements,” he wrote, “is that when we see people taking photos or video of our facilities, we ascertain the purpose of that activity and then report it to DHS.” According to Shauna Dunlap, media coordinator for the FBI’s Houston Division, photographing and videotaping of critical infrastructures “can be a precursor of potential criminal activity.” The Joint Terrorism Task Force, she says, is “obligated to look into each and every suspicious activity report.”

This kind of surveillance and intimidation, Parras says, is particularly chilling in an area with a large number of undocumented residents. Not only are they vulnerable to threats of deportation, but also they’re quite literally at the crossroads of environmental destruction and the risks associated with climate change. East Houston is home to a disproportionate number of the city’s largest sources of industrial pollution, four major highways, and the shipping channel that feeds into the Port of Houston. If built, theKeystone XL pipeline would terminate in East Houston; Valero has a contract with TransCanada to receive most of the oil. “On the basis of location alone these neighborhoods appear far more vulnerable to health risks than others in Greater Houston,” a 2006 study commissioned by the mayor’s office concluded. In addition, rising sea levels threaten to inundate the heavily industrialized shoreline. “It puts us at even higher risk because we’re on the coast,” says Parras. “All these facilities are right on the water.”

In many ways, for activists like Parras the last line of defense lies in taking photos, documenting the impacts of industrial pollution, and simply bearing witness. TEJAS hasn’t even engaged in civil disobedience or direct action, he says. Still, his organization is on Valero’s watch list. TEJAS organizers have been followed and photographed or videoed by Valero security personnel. Local teachers who joined Parras on one of his toxic tours were bullied into deleting photos and video they had taken of the refinery. Journalists he has shown around have been threatened by Valero that they’ll be reported to the FBI.

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/environmental-racism-poisoning-houston

The Kochs and their fossil-fuel-fed political network are reportedly gunning for the electric car.

According to an anonymous industry source who spoke to journalist Peter Stone, a new advocacy group will "make the public aware of all the benefits of petroleum-based transportation fuels."

If you think this sounds a bit nutty, you have to remember Koch front groups have also fought the implementation of street cars in city after city.

If the group follows the usual Koch playbook, expect bogus "research" studies by Koch-funded "think tanks," well-placed op-eds that repeat Koch talking points without disclosing ties to the network, and fear-mongering ads that hide their fossil fuel funding behind bland names like "Americans for Energy Freedom." (The group's actual name has yet to be announced.)

The effort is reportedly being headed by Koch Industries board member James Mahoney and lobbyist Charlie Drevna, formerly the president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. The pair have reportedly been meeting with executives at fossil fuel corporations including Koch, Valero Energy, and Tesoro Corp. In his new position at the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research, Drevna has already put out a paper attacking Tesla, while Mahoney led a seminar at January's Koch network retreat on "Changing the Energy Narrative."

The news of the emerging scheme against electric cars sparked new attention to the Koch network in the car industry, even provoking Tesla founder Elon Musk to mount a critique on Twitter....

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13048/kochs-go-after-electric-car-subsidies

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}:

http://www.calitics.com/tag/valero

==

oil company settles claims against it for Benecia refinery

by Brian Leubitz

Sure, you know Valero from their brightly colored gas stations. But if you've been following California politics for a while, you may remember when Valero got involved here. They were a big funder in Prop 23, a measure to repeal our landmark climate change legislation. It turns out that they have some other plans for chemicals in California air, as they have settled and acknowledge violations:

The Valero Refining Co. has agreed to pay more than $300,000 for repeated air quality violations, including gas leaks, over the past few years, regulators announced Tuesday.

The company will pay $300,300 in civil penalties for 33 violations in 2011 and 2012 at its petroleum refinery in Benicia, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. (SF Chronicle)

Valero actually self-reported, so this is somewhat a sign of the system working. However, for the people of the East Bay who face increased asthma rates, the system really isn't working. Children in Richmond have asthma rates twice normal rates, and air quality is thought to be chiefly responsible.

===

b2 epa went to B&G and crowell

Edward D. Krenik – Edward D. Krenik was the associate administrator for congressional and

intergovernmental affairs at the EPA from 2001 to 2003.123

After leaving the administration in 2003, Mr. Krenik joined Bracewell and Giuliani,124 and in

2008 became a registered lobbyist.125 He has lobbied on the behalf of oil producers Valero126and

Tesoro Corporation.127

==

http://m.sacurrent.com/news/move-over-koch-brothers-san-antonio-39-s-valero-energy-is-working-overtime-to-stop-climate-change-legislation-and-keep-the-future-oily-1.1258956

http://m.sacurrent.com/news/move-over-koch-brothers-san-antonio-39-s-valero-energy-is-working-overtime-to-stop-climate-change-legislation-and-keep-the-future-oily-1.1258956

The "new energy economy" got a boost last week when OCI Solar Power announced a move to our sunny city to manufacture solar components and produce up to 400 megawatts of solar power for CPS Energy. "San Antonio's vision is to occupy a space right at the intersection of environmental stewardship and job creation," said Mayor Julián Castro at a press conference behind La Villita Assembly Hall.

Castro and his predecessor, Phil Hardberger, have called for a bold push into the carbon-free economy to prepare South Texas for a future where global warming finally forces caps on greenhouse gas emissions. While local leaders try to stay a step ahead of the new energy game, San Antonio's Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corporation are using political spending and litigation to lead an historic battle against state and federal policies that threaten the old energy establishment.

Valero and Tesoro were vilified on the West Coast in 2010 when they spent $5 million and $2.3 million, respectively, on Proposition 23, also known as the "California Jobs Initiative." The failed ballot initiative asked voters to postpone the Golden State's greenhouse gas regulations — the first in the nation — until the unemployment rate fell from that year's 12.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

Voters rejected the measure, but Valero doesn't consider it a wasted effort. "Any time you have a chance to influence policy that affects our business, we'll take that, because there are a lot of things we can't control — like crude oil prices," Valero spokesman Bill Day told the Current.

Then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was among Californians pissed off by the oil industry's meddling in their election cycle. "Valero and Tesoro are in a conspiracy. Not in a criminal conspiracy, but a cynical one about self-serving greed," Schwarzenegger told Greentech Media in September 2010. "Does anyone think in their black oil company hearts that they want to create jobs? Valero and Tesoro want to stop the movement from old energy to new energy because it means lost market share."

Prop 23 would have stalled AB 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act, which was designed to trigger investments in electric vehicles and clean technology by pushing transportation and energy production away from fossil fuels. Voters thwarted Valero's political machinations, but the company managed to get a favorable outcome only a year later.

On December 29, 2011, a federal judge ruled that California's low-carbon fuel standard was unconstitutional because it discriminates against out-of-state fuel sources. The ruling stemmed from lawsuits brought by the ethanol industry, big agriculture, and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, or NPRA, where Valero CEO Bill Klesse served as chairman between 2009 and 2011.

The fuel standard would have penalized refiners for using high-carbon-density crude from Alberta's tar sands (which Valero is courting) or corn-based ethanol from the Midwest (where Valero operates 10 ethanol plants). California's Clean Air Board promises to appeal the ruling.

Valero's name hasn't only grown dirty in California. San Antonio's long-awaited solar news last week came the day after Valero diffused a Texas controversy by backing down from a pursued tax exemption that would have stripped public schools and local governments of more than $130 million per year in property tax revenue across the state. Valero filed for the exemption for its Texas refineries in 2007, but its continued push for the tax breaks after the state cut a whooping $4 billion from the education budget upset a coalition of environmentalists, school districts, and parents near Valero's Houston-area refinery. It was a sort of Occupy Valero movement that inspired a series of Associated Press articles.

"If you look at campaign spending or the bald-faced attempt to get tax breaks, Valero sticks itself out there as a corporation that doesn't let an opportunity pass it by regardless of how distasteful or even how unjust this opportunity might be," said Matthew Tejada of Houston's Air Alliance, the group that first warned parents of the exemption. "They're up there with the Koch Industries, I think, in plowing money into politics, policy, legislation, and any other arena where they might receive some business edge."

Although staff at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality declined the tax exemption, two out of the three TCEQ commissioners — all appointed by Governor Rick Perry — instructed the staff to consider giving Valero a partial exemption anyway. "No one expected such a clear slap at established rules that would have had a huge impact on local and school funding," Tejada said.

Activists accused the governor and commissioners of "crony capitalism" by granting favoritism to a company that was among the leading energy industry contributors to Perry and the campaigns of other top Republicans who won office in 2010.

Shareholders strike back

Watchdogs fear Valero will become even more emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which permits corporations to spend freely on political campaigns without disclosure. Together, Prop 23 and Citizens United triggered a backlash from a handful of progressive groups with enough Valero shares to file resolutions that urge its board of directors to come clean on corporate money funneled to organizations that pay for political advertising.

The Unitarian Universalist Association sought a comprehensive review of Valero's political expenditures with a report to investors. The group received little support, but it inspired others to take action. A resolution by the Nathan Cummings Foundation sought to force disclosure of Valero's political spending to trade associations. It received a favorable response from 35.7 percent of shareholders, enough to pass the resolution. But since it didn't hit the requisite 50 percent necessary to force policy changes, Valero's board voted against disclosure, Day said.

"That's still an impressive number — basically, a third of shareholders said Valero should disclose that type of spending," said Sister Susan Mika of the San Antonio chapter of the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition. "The issue won't go away anytime soon."

The Nathan Cummings Foundation resolution would require Valero to reveal how much it gives to groups like the NPRA and American Petroleum Institute, which started running pro-Keystone XL pipeline advertisements in Midwestern states last week. NPR reported that approval of the pipeline is likely to become a hot issue in the states along the proposed 1,700-miles route from Canada to Port Arthur.

Valero has a reported 20 percent stake in TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. It plans to refine tar sands crude into gasoline and diesel at its Port Arthur facility for export to Europe and developing nations. Thanks to a state-level push in California, Valero might eventually have to disclose political spending under the proposed AB 1148, the California DISCLOSE Act. It's a state-level response to both the Citizens United ruling and the Prop 23 push behind the scenes by Tesoro, Valero, Koch Industries, and other energy interests. The act now moving through the state assembly would require the three largest funders of political advertisements to clearly identify involvement with names and logos.

Valero's business model focuses on refining oil and selling petroleum products at "corner store" fueling stations. It differs from the "big five" oil companies like BP and ExxonMobil, which supposedly have greater control over costs since they drill for oil, transport it, and market products in addition to refining.

Valero is the nation's largest independent refiner, so it has managed to compete against the big five, in part, by focusing at least one-third of its capacity on refining "heavy sour" crude. This has earned Valero criticism among environmentalists, who say the cheap and dirty crude results in greater carbon emissions and air pollution.

As heavy crude production declines in Latin America, Valero's long-term strategy looks to source heavy oil from Canada's tar sands. Processing the bitumen in Canada, transporting the heavy crude via Keystone XL, and refining the oil would require about 20 percent more carbon emissions than the refining of "light sweet" crude from, say, the Eagle Ford shale, environmentalists say.

For that reason, none other than NASA scientist-activist Jim Hansen has said the Keystone XL would be "game over" for the planet's climate, while Midwest residents and environmentalists worry a major spill would contaminate the nation's largest freshwater aquifer, the Ogallala.

President Obama put the pipeline on hold, but Republicans are working overtime to put it back into play. With the assist is Valero lobbyist Craig Felner — a former staffer in the George W. Bush White House and aide to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison — working K-Street to the tune of $167,000 per year. "It just goes to show how the same oil industry insiders cycle through politics," said Ryan Salmon, manager of the Oil & Gas Program at Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmental groups active on climate change and water scarcity issues.

Many in the socially responsible investment community say Valero has become a leader in political spending to hedge against environmental regulations. The recent tax-exemption dustup, for instance, was tied to the installation of equipment that reduces pollution near refineries, such as the Valero facility near Houston's East End and Pasadena. Valero argued that installation of pollution-removing hydrotreaters qualified it for tax exemptions, but the TCEQ disagreed. Its staff said such equipment would actually increase pollution in neighborhoods near refineries before benefits could be realized through low-sulfur vehicle exhaust.

"Valero was taking a small loophole and trying to drive a refinery through it," Tejada told the Current.

Texas-style cronyism

On December 21, TCEQ's executive director issued a final decision denying the exemption. Valero had until Tuesday last week to appeal, but allowed the deadline to lapse without taking action. "It was ridiculous that a company that was continuously making profits would want more when our schools lost so much from budget cuts," said Patty Gonzales, a parent in the Pasadena Independent School District who traveled to Austin last fall to protest the TCEQ commissioners' support of Valero.

Valero actually reported consecutive losses in 2008 and 2009, however. Day, the spokesman, said the company deserves more credit for avoiding layoffs and maintaining millions of dollars in donations to the United Wayand other charities during those lean years. "If we feel like we're paying too much in taxes, we'll go through the appropriate procedures to see if we can reduce it," he said.

Observers say Valero's tax concession last week proves that Texas' powerful energy industry can be held in check, but it takes a budget crisis to mobilize an angry mob of parents, school districts, and community leaders. This type of activism has been especially challenging under the leadership of Perry, the king of crony capitalism, according to watchdog groups that have been tracking Valero's political spending. "The company has clearly had a keen interest in opposing global warming issues, and our governor and our attorney general have been very vocal about challenging federal rules having to do with pollution controls, global warming, and carbon restrictions," said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice.

Houston activists feel that Valero's insistence on the exemption spoke to the company's political spending on Perry's campaign, though Valero's Day said those accusations are baseless and unfair. Added Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle: "Neither Gov. Perry nor our office has been involved in TCEQ's review or decision on this matter."

But Perry's critics say it's all part of a sophisticated game where political spending at Valero's level automatically gets the company a seat at the negotiating table with an implied quid pro quo. "This is just one example of corporate cronyism," said Chris Young of the Texas Organizing Project. "We make no bones about calling the TCEQ commissioners Rick Perry's commission."

Out of the $2.4 million that Valero's political action committee spent in the 2010 election cycle, nearly $900,000 went to Texas candidates, according to Texans for Public Justice. The oil and gas industry's next highest spenders on Texas politics were ConocoPhillips with $803,451 and Spectra Energy Corp with $483,795.

According to FollowtheMoney.org's 2010 data, Valero's biggest five-digit contributions in Texas included: $78,078 to Rick Perry, $55,000 to Kay Bailey Hutchison (who lost to Perry), $35,000 to Attorney General Greg Abbott, $35,000 to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, $22,500 to Rep. Joe Straus, and $10,000 to Comptroller Susan Combs. Forty Valero executives and senior-level employees contributed another $12,500 to Perry in 2010, according to a review of FollowtheMoney.org data.

"Of Rick Perry's industry supporters, the oil and gas industry are clearly the ones he listens to first when considering policy questions," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which created FollowtheMoney.org. "That may not be a bad thing in Texas."

Nearly 80 percent of Valero's Texas money in 2010 was spent on incumbents, while 82.8 percent of its Texas money went to Republicans, according to FollowtheMoney.org. And nearly 76 percent of its Texas candidates won elections during the last cycle.

Perhaps the failed efforts of Prop 23 and the Texas tax exemption give a false impression that Valero has a poor batting average on getting returns for its political spending. Those winning Texas Republicans certainly didn't disappoint Valero after their successes. According to Texans for Public Justice, Abbott filed seven lawsuits against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the 2010 cycle. "These included the nation's first frivolous state lawsuit challenging EPA regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial sites. The rules apply to large industrial plants, including Valero's refineries," according to a TJP report "Texas PACs: 2010 Election Cycle Spending."

Tejada said Valero and the state's oil and gas industry will remain powerful in politics for years to come as long the public relies on oil and gas for transportation. And don't expect Valero to stop fighting as its carbon-based world closes in with new technologies and EPA regulations. "There's a natural fit between Valero and these kinds of Texas candidates who are 'carbon defenders,'" Wheat added.

Yet even if it wins Keystone, Valero remains on a collision course with the rapid development of carbon-free energy technologies, Salmon said. Perry's poor performance in the GOP presidential primary — where he made global warning denial and opposition to environmental regulations a key platform — also suggests cracks in the politics of good-ole-boy, carbon-economy protectionism.

Perhaps even last week's bankruptcy talks by Eastman Kodak Co., the former film giant that floundered with the rapid evolution of digital cameras and smart phones, may be a lesson for Valero of what happens when an industry-leading corporation fails to adapt to change.

==

valero wants to bring tarsand to wales? kpfa 5/29 8 am Pembroke

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/67208

(// venz dirty oil blocked) fqd notarsands.com emily cotes ---tarsnads network climateradio kpfa defusing the climate bomb phil england;http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/67208

Tar Sands Blockade

Longtime Gulf Coast activists Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey Jr., locked their necks to oil tanker trucks destined for Valero’s Houston Refinery in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Valero Energy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline that will terminate near the community of Manchester, located in the shadow of Valero’s refinery. Not only did Wilson and Lindsey blockaded the Valero refinery, the two lifelong friends have vowed to begin a sustained hunger strike demanding that Valero divest from Keystone XL and invest that money into the health and well-being of the people of Manchester.

http://ecowatch.org/2012/activists-arrested-launch-hunger-strike/

#12 polluter

backed prop 23 along w/ tesoro

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/prop-23-valero-global-warming-oil-refineries.html

In the most closely watched environmental election fight in the country, national conservation groups, Silicon Valley moguls, Hollywood celebrities and California politicians have waged a scorched-earth campaign againstValero Energy Corp., the nation's biggest independent oil refiner and the principal backer of Proposition 23, a Nov. 2 ballot measure to suspend California's ambitious global-warming law.

"The opposition has been able to characterize this issue as Texas oil companies … dirty companies

and dirty polluters," says Valero Chief Executive Bill Klesse.

Few major oil companies have joined Valero's ballot fight against California's effort to curb greenhouse gases, apart from Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries andTesoro Corp., which is based in San Antonio, as is Valero.

So what do refineries such as Valero have at stake when voters take to the polls on Tuesday? "It's really an anti-fossil fuel law," Klesse told Wall Street analysts on a recent conference call. And Valero's business is fossil fuels.

But lost in the uproar over the initiative, which has attracted more contributions for and against than any measure on the ballot, is a basic issue: What would it take for Valero to comply with AB 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act?

Would it cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars? Would it force the closure of California refineries? Would it mean passing huge costs onto the consumer? Would it mean shipping in gasoline to the West Coast from Asian refineries?

With the world's eighth-largest economy, California has an outsized impact. It has already begun adopting regulations under the act, including a mandate that one-third of the state's electricity come from solar, wind and other renewable sources within a decade and phasing out coal-fired electricity from out-of-state power plants.

Another rule would cut by 10% the carbon intensity of gasoline and other fuels. Carbon intensity is a measure of the amount of carbon emitted over a fuel's life cycle, including extraction, refining, transport and combustion. The new limit would discourage Valero and other refiners from using crude that comes from Canada's oil sands, extracted in an energy-intensive process, and ethanol that comes from plants using coal-fired power. Operating costs — and therefore gasoline prices — could increase.

"In a way, the low-carbon fuels [standard] is an electric-car mandate," Klesse said.

Regulators acknowledge as much: As gas prices rise, cars driven with electricity derived from renewable sources become more economical. The standard "invites electricity to go toe-to-toe with gasoline," said Stanley Young, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

And it creates powerful incentives for alternatives to the fuels Valero makes at its Wilmington plant. Shortly after California approved its low-carbon standard, Exxon Mobil Corp. announced that it would invest $600 million with a La Jolla biotech firm to create fuel from algae. Even Valero has purchased 10 corn ethanol plants in the Midwest.

AB 32's most expansive program is to be adopted in December: a cap on the emissions of large industrial facilities such as Valero's. As in Europe's cap-and-trade market, California would issue emission permits, which companies would then be free to buy and sell on the open market as a way to cut costs.

The design ofCalifornia's cap-and-trade system is still under debate, with various industries lobbying intensely over the details. But officials say it will likely begin by granting free permits and phase in auctioned permits over the next decade.

To cut their carbon footprint, "refiners will have to use less energy to make the same product," Young said.

In fighting AB 32, Valero officials had suggested in the past that the cost of complying with the law could total $170 million a year for itstwo California refineries, in Wilmington and Benicia. But in the conference call with analysts, Valero acknowledged that the annual cost might be closer to $80 million. "We don't have the rules or regulations or how it's all going to work," Klesse said.

Those estimates don't take into account California regulators' pledge to introduce new rules slowly in the early years, and give breaks to firms that face out-of-state competition from unregulated competitors, such as Asian oil refiners.

But whatever the cost, Klesse said, "it will all be passed through to the consumer. The companies aren't going to able to absorb this or they're going to go out of business."

In fact, a rise in the price of fossil fuels, leading to a drop in consumption and combustion, is exactly what the state's global warming law is designed to accomplish. But that won't necessarily mean higher bills for consumers, Young said.

If a slew of AB 32 regulations accomplish their goals, Californians will drive more fuel-efficient cars, live in greener homes, use more energy-efficient appliances, live closer to public transit and use more electricity from renewable sources. That would drive down the need for fuel, along with the greenhouse gas emissions from Valero's Wilmington plant.

It could also hammer Valero's profits. Unlike integrated oil companies such as Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon, which drill and distribute crude oil as well as refine it, independents such as Valero and Tesoro cannot spread costs across other operations.Through the first nine months of 2010, Valero has posted a profit of $762 million on revenue of $63.6 billion, after two calendar years of losses.

But with gasoline demand still in a slump because of the recession, "independent refiners are fighting for their lives," said Doug Leggate, a senior analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Valero owns 13 refineries outside the state, but "AB 32 puts companies with California refineries at a gross disadvantage," Leggate said. "They would have to incur additional costs."

Proposition 23 is trailing badly in the polls, and Klesse was pressed in his call with analysts to explain how his company would deal with the reality that California is getting tough on carbon emissions."How does Valero respond to the cap-and-trade and low-carbon fuel provisions of AB 32?" one caller asked. "And how do you see the situation playing out in the state?"

After all the drama of the Proposition 23 campaign, all the inflammatory TV spots on both sides, all the political consultants and news conferences, all the tens of millions of dollars poured into the fight, Klesse's response was notably matter-of-fact. "We'll let the voters vote," he said."We're in business in California and it'll just continue. And we'll see what the actual regs look like, and then we'll take actions around them."

So was Prop. 23 worth the trouble? Read more here on why Valero seeks to suspend AB 32

--Margot Roosevelt

RELATED: Support for Prop 23 drops sharply

                Obama: No on Prop 23 and Corporate Polluters

               Meg Whitman want to "fix" California's global warming law

-----

3/15

In August 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit distributed an intelligence bulletin [3] to all field offices warning that environmental extremism would likely become an increasing threat to the energy industry. The eight-page document argued that, even though the industry had encountered only low-level vandalism and trespassing, recent “criminal incidents” suggested that environmental extremism was on the rise. The FBI concluded: “Environmental extremism will become a greater threat to the energy industry owing to our historical understanding that some environmental extremists have progressed from committing low-level crimes against targets to more significant crimes over time in an effort to further the environmental extremism cause.”

Not long after the bulletin was distributed, a private security firm providing intelligence reports to the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security cited the FBI document in order to justify the surveillance of anti-fracking groups. The same security firm concluded that the “escalating conflict over natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania” could lead to an increase in “environmentalist activity or eco-terrorism.”

Since the 2010 FBI assessment was written, the specter of environmental extremism has been trotted out by both law enforcement and energy-industry security teams to describe a wide variety of grassroots groups opposed to the continued extraction of fossil fuels. In 2011, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP ) published a report [4] titled, “Environmental Criminal Extremism and Canada’s Energy Sector.” The RCMP warned that environmental extremism posed a “clear and present criminal threat” to the energy industry. While both the FBI and RCMP reports make an effort to distinguish between lawful protest and criminal activity, they often conflate the two – in the RCMP report the terms “violence” and “direct action” are used interchangeably – and suggest opposition to the energy industry will lead to extremism. (The FBI’s Counterterrorism Division declined to answer questions about the 2010 bulletin.)

Yet even as the resistance to “extreme energy projects” has grown in size and scope, there is little evidence to support the breathless warnings about “eco-terrorism.” There has been no upward spiral in criminality among environmental activists. To the contrary, arson, property destruction, and other acts of violence most closely associated with the radical animal rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s have become all but nonexistent. According to figures compiled by the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at the University of Maryland, there has been only a handful of incidents defined as eco-terrorism since 2010. In fact, between 2010 and 2013, the latest year for which the GTD has published figures, out of a total of 54 terror incidents in the United States, five were attributed to the Animal Liberation Front. The last recorded incident carried out by the Earth Liberation Front – the bulldozing of two radio transmission towers in Washington – was in 2009. Earth First! hasn’t appeared in the database since 1994.

Instead, environmentalists have largely relied on classic social change strategies such as choreographed nonviolent civil disobedience, carefully planned protests, and divestment from the fossil fuel industry. “Overall we’ve seen a decline in activity, in terms of violent criminal activity” among environmentalists, an FBI intelligence analyst told The Washington Post in 2012.

Nevertheless, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and many state law enforcement agencies continue to promote the idea that environmental extremism is on the rise. The oil and gas industry is spending more on security than it ever has. According to a 2013 report by Frost & Sullivan, a marketing research and consulting company, annual spending on global oil and gas infrastructure security is expected to top $30 billion in just a few years. (In comparison, $30 billion is roughly what South Korea spends on defense annually.) “Surveillance will continue to dominate the oil and gas infrastructure security market,” a summary of the report states.

At the same time, numerous intelligence-sharing networks between the private sector and law enforcement have been established at every level of government, giving rise to an unprecedented energy-intelligence complex. They range from project-specific and regional networks like the Nebraska Information Analysis Center’s Keystone Pipeline Portal community and the Marcellus Shale Operators’ Crime Committee, to federal programs like the FBI’s Oil and Natural Gas Crime Issues Special Interest Group and the Department of Homeland Security’s Oil and Natural Gas Sector Coordinating Council. These public-private partnerships, coupled with a revolving door between intelligence agencies and the more lucrative energy industry, have created a new kind of foe for the environmental movement. The fossil fuel industry is now an economic behemoth firmly hitched to the national security state.

It is true that environmentalists pose a threat to the energy industry – just not in the way the FBI or RCMP believe. The threat to the industry is existential and economic, not extremist. If the movement to end our reliance on fossil fuels prevails, the oil and gas industry will lose trillions of dollars in forecast profits. According to an estimate by the Carbon Tracker Initiative [5], if we hope to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, the energy sector would have to leave more than $20 trillion worth of fossil fuels in the ground. “The oil and gas industry is doing everything they can to ensure they’re in business for the next 30 to 50 years and doing so at a time when we should be, as a nation, collectively figuring out how to stop using those same fossil fuels over the next ten years,” says Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper [6].

Conflict between fossil fuel interests and environmentalists is inevitable. But as the contest becomes ever more stark, there seems to be little effort to distinguish between lawful political activism and illegal activities. The fossil fuel industry’s reasonable concerns about the strength of its political opponents have morphed into a kind of paranoia, one that threatens to criminalize constitutionally protected dissent.

In the years since the FBI and RCMP reports, unconventional oil and gas development has been met with sustained protest, from small scale tree sits and encampments to massive nationwide demonstrations. The opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline is only the most high-profile example of resistance to the fossil fuel industry. The term “Blockadia” has been used to describe the loose network of citizens seeking to disrupt the continued exploitation of fossil fuels. Tactics vary depending on the region and political backdrop, but the emphasis has been on nonviolent civil disobedience, legal action, and ballot measures to hamper pipeline projects, ban fracking, and prevent or slow down tar sands extraction. A handful of pipeline projects ­– including Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain and Williams Companies’ Constitution pipelines – have been stymied. In mid-December, after several years of intense organizing, lobbying, and direct action campaigns, New York became the first state with substantial shale gas reserves to ban fracking. Towns in Colorado, Texas, and Ohio have passed restrictions that limit oil and gas drilling.

Such successes have emboldened these groups and inspired action elsewhere. (Of course it should be noted that oil and gas development has hardly been halted; it continues apace throughout North America.) Rather than lead to an increase in criminal activity, as the FBI predicted, opposition to the oil and gas industry has, in some ways, become more mainstream. “Five years ago you would have never seen the faces of rural farmers and ranchers and tribal leaders on the front lines of climate actions,” says Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska [7], an environmental group opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline. “This unlikely Cowboy and Indian Alliance that is also working shoulder to shoulder with big green groups is changing the way America looks at the issue of land, water, and climate change.”

But the new face of the environmental movement seems not to have registered with an industry intent on steamrolling its critics. In 2011, in comments that have been widely cited, a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum described the anti-fracking movement as an “insurgency” and suggested that industry insiders download the US Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual as a guide to dealing with it. Less well known is the fact that Anadarko has built up a team of former intelligence operatives to combat what it views as an insurrection. The company’s southwest regional security manager was an officer with the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was involved in undercover work. Another Anadarko security manager, LC Wilson, was regional commander of the Texas Department of Public Safety from 2009 to 2011 and oversaw law enforcement statewide. Anadarko has also been involved in the creation of at least two Oilfield Crime Committees, one in Texas and one in Pennsylvania, both of which are headed by former law enforcement officials. The South Texas Oilfield Crime Committee and the Marcellus Shale Operators’ Crime Committee have gathered intelligence on environmental activists and routinely exchange information with law enforcement.

Anadarko is not alone. Most large energy companies have security teams run by former FBI, Secret Service, or law enforcement personnel. The director of corporate security at Devon Energy, for example, was a special agent with the Secret Service for 14 years. Chevron’s chief security officer was the former head of the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. And BP’s head of Government and Political Affairs from 2007 to 2012 worked for MI6, Britain’s top spy agency.

In most cases these security teams have been deployed to manage crises overseas. In Indonesia, for example, ExxonMobil ran its own intelligence operations and consulted regularly with the country’s military leaders as it sought to protect its assets amid destabilizing political conditions. In 2012 The Guardian reported that Shell Oil maintained a 1,200-person police force plus a network of undercover informants in Nigeria and spent tens of millions of dollars on security in the region.

As shale oil and gas development has expanded in North America, the frontlines of the energy wars are no longer overseas, but rather in places like Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Range Resources, one of the largest drillers in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, has admitted to hiring veterans of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with experience in psychological warfare – or Psyops – to engage with local communities.

Neither Anadarko nor ExxonMobil nor Range Resources responded to requests for comment.

Even as the energy industry has beefed up its own in-house intelligence operations, it has established increasingly close ties with law enforcement agencies. This is partly a result of the post-9/11 national security state and the premium placed on information sharing. The Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC), established by the Department of Homeland Security in 2006, holds quarterly meetings to facilitate information sharing between the private sector and government agencies. (Meetings are exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which means there is no public oversight. Indeed, the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 stipulates that information voluntarily submitted by industry to the DHS or DOE is protected from public disclosure.) Within CIPAC there is an Oil and Natural Gas Sector Coordinating Council and an Energy Government Coordinating Council. According to minutes from an August 2013 CIPAC meeting, the DHS has been working to provide more security clearances to the energy industry. “Currently DHS is working to enhance policies to share more classified information both cyber and non-cyber related,” the document states. Anadarko, Kinder Morgan, ExxonMobil, and the American Petroleum Institute are frequent participants and sponsors of CIPAC meetings.

In addition to CIPAC there is a Homeland Security Information Sharing Network for the Oil and Gas Industry (HSIN-ONG), a web-based platform that allows companies to communicate with each other and with law enforcement. It also gives them access to Suspicious Activity Reports and other intelligence related information. Around the same time that the information-sharing network was being created, the Department of Justice launched its National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative to “improve the sharing of suspicious activity reports among state, local, tribal, and federal law-enforcement organizations, as well as private sector entities.”

Intelligence-sharing systems also have been developed at the state level. The Nebraska Information Analysis Center (one of more than 70 Homeland Security “fusion centers”) has its own network that focuses on “possible unlawful tactics and techniques of individuals/groups opposed to Keystone XL pipeline.” According to documents obtained by Earth Island Journal through a public records request, oil infrastructure company TransCanada has its own page in the HSIN portal where suspicious activity reports can be posted. TransCanada representatives, FBI agents, county attorneys, local sheriffs, and the US assistant attorney general all have access to the Keystone pipeline network.

Despite the numerous federal, state, and regional information-sharing networks established during the past decade, the industry has been reluctant to participate in programs that might be subject to public oversight. Thus last summer the oil and gas industry announced the creation of its own information sharing and analysis center, or ISAC, which allows member companies to submit intelligence anonymously and is exempt from public disclosure.

The industry’s fear of transparency is part of a larger pattern. Oil and gas firms often express alarm about having their facilities photographed or filmed by citizen watchdogs, which can lead to official investigations. For example, in 2011 the Rocky Mountain Energy Security Group (yet another regional intelligence sharing network) issued a security report that described activists in Pavillion, Wyoming who had photographed a natural gas processing facility. The report, which was disseminated to law enforcement and security professionals in the industry, defined the behavior as “suspicious activity” and said that the information was being circulated in order to determine “whether the activity has any underlying criminal or terrorism nexus (or intent).”

In recent years the FBI has pursued environmental activists in Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho for little more than taking photographs of oil and gas industry installations.In 2011, after receiving an anonymous tip, the FBI went after Texas activist Ben Kessler, a member of the direct action environmental group Rising Tide North America [8]. In November 2013 and February 2014, a Pennsylvania state trooper and member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force visited anti-fracking activists at their homes in New York and Pennsylvania under the pretext that they had trespassed while taking photos of a gas compressor station. More recently, members of Rising Tide in the Pacific Northwest have been contacted or visited by FBI agents. (The energy companies’ fear of transparency is in some ways similar to the livestock industry’s exposé anxiety, which has led to the passage of so-called ag-gag laws that prohibit the filming of farms and ranches.)

The frontlines of the energy wars are no longer overseas, but rather in places like Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

But what happens when the private sector’s assumptions about criminal activity are wrong or misleading? In Pennsylvania the oil and gas industry has driven speculation that environmental organizations were behind several acts of vandalism at or near drilling sites, even though there’s no evidence of any link whatsoever. The unfounded assertion has spilled into the local press. In February 2014, The Williamsport Sun-Gazette in northeast Pennsylvania ran a story about the crimes headlined, “Ecoterror Target: Gas companies bolster security in response to threats.”

Jeff Monaghan, a PhD candidate in Sociology at Queen’s University in Ontario who writes on issues of surveillance, says the RCMP document reflects how deeply intertwined the suspicions of energy companies and intelligence agencies have become. “The broader context of this document is a very, very close working relationship between the Critical Infrastructure Protection team and the energy corporations. As the relationship develops the underlying belief is that environmentalists are first-and-foremost a threat to the economy. It’s really about protecting shared values of economic growth.”

Or, as the RCMP report put it, “Canada’s economic growth … and the objectives of environmentalists are in direct conflict.” Environmental activists wouldn’t disagree with that, especially given the aggressive pro-energy policies of the Harper government. What they take issue with is the highly provocative claim that their opposition to the energy industry will likely lead to criminal activity. As the interests of the state and energy sector become increasingly close, however, this perception is taking hold. Activists worry that it is shaping law enforcement’s approach to the movement and could lead to a crackdown on legal protest.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the industry is trying really hard to paint the environmental movement as fringe or dangerous, because it’s their last resort,” says Catskill Mountainkeeper’s Gillingham. “It’s behavior based on a losing argument.”

The conflict over the Keystone XL pipeline has reinforced the narrative that economic prosperity and environmental protection are mutually exclusive. Pipeline proponents like to paint the opposition as job killers and, yes, extremists. In April 2014, Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, described the pipeline as “a project that is being blocked purely by environmental extremism.” More recently, US Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, called anti-fracking activists campaigning for a moratorium “radical environmentalists.” A major Washington PR firm, Berman and Co., has launched an ad campaign bankrolled by the energy industry called “Big Green Radicals” that seeks to smear high-profile activists.

But the demonization of environmental advocates goes far beyond mere polemics. TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, has worked closely with law enforcement along the proposed pipeline route from the very early stages of its development. A certain amount of collaboration with law enforcement is to be expected with any major infrastructure project. But TransCanada has gone further. The company has pressured attorneys general to prosecute environmental activists under terrorism statutes. It has given local law enforcement advance notice of meetings with landowners whom the company describes as hostile. And the company has held workshops with local law enforcement and the FBI, including a daylong “strategy meeting” in Oklahoma with the FBI in 2012.

According to documents obtained by Earth Island Journal, the FBI distributed a bulletin in early 2013 “regarding threat concerns by environmental extremists against the Keystone Pipeline expansion project” to law enforcement across Nebraska. In its strategic plan for 2014-2017, South Dakota Homeland Security identifies what it considers to be extremist enclaves in the state, through which Keystone is proposed to pass. According to the document, “Uranium mining in the southwest part of the state and a proposed oil pipeline in the western part of the state garnered the attention of extremist environmental groups.” The report does not describe or name the groups, their intentions, or tactics. A public records request for additional documents or communication regarding “extremist environmental groups” in South Dakota was denied.

(Read the FBI bulletin here [3].)

In 2013 Earth Island Journal reported on the infiltration of a Tar Sands Resistance training camp [9] in Oklahoma. Two undercover officers from the Bryan County Sheriff’s office attended the weeklong event and shared intelligence with the Oklahoma Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center. Law enforcement was tipped off and a planned act of civil disobedience was preempted. During that same week TransCanada’s corporate security advisor was in frequent contact with the Oklahoma Fusion Center and made comments on a classified situational awareness bulletin.

In many ways Texas, where the Keystone pipeilne would terminate, is the heart of the American oil and gas industry. Not surprisingly, activists there are routinely harassed by law enforcement and corporate security for nothing more than keeping tabs on the industry. In East Houston, the city’s industrial hub and most polluted neighborhood (Houston itself is one of the most polluted cities in the country), environmental activist and community organizer Bryan Parras has been questioned by the police on several occasions and once was contacted by a Coast Guard special agent assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Houston. The organization he helps run with his father, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services [10] (or TEJAS), has been closely watched. Parras frequently takes activists and journalists on what he calls “toxic tours” – a survey of the neighborhood’s refineries, chemical plants, and shipping ports. He’s made a point of documenting the air pollution caused by the flaring at the refineries that flank the neighborhood. He says the images “compel people to action.”

They’ve also made Parras a subject of interest for industry and law enforcement. He is routinely questioned by the police or harassed by security representatives from Valero Energy, a major refining company and one of the industries Parras monitors. In 2013 Parras got a text from a friend, Tish Stringer, saying that an agent had visited her home and wanted to know about her relationship with him. The Coast Guard special agent, David Pileggi, told Stringer he’d been tipped off by Valero.

“It’s nothing new,” Parras says. “Since 9/11 we’ve been harassed repeatedly and pulled over for taking pictures or video of the facilities.”

In an emailed statement, Bill Day, vice president of communications at Valero, said the Houston refinery is designated by Homeland Security as “critical infrastructure” and therefore must meet enhanced security requirements. “One of those requirements,” he wrote, “is that when we see people taking photos or video of our facilities, we ascertain the purpose of that activity and then report it to DHS.” According to Shauna Dunlap, media coordinator for the FBI’s Houston Division, photographing and videotaping of critical infrastructures “can be a precursor of potential criminal activity.” The Joint Terrorism Task Force, she says, is “obligated to look into each and every suspicious activity report.”

This kind of surveillance and intimidation, Parras says, is particularly chilling in an area with a large number of undocumented residents. Not only are they vulnerable to threats of deportation, but also they’re quite literally at the crossroads of environmental destruction and the risks associated with climate change. East Houston is home to a disproportionate number of the city’s largest sources of industrial pollution, four major highways, and the shipping channel that feeds into the Port of Houston. If built, the Keystone XL pipeline would terminate in East Houston; Valero has a contract with TransCanada to receive most of the oil. “On the basis of location alone these neighborhoods appear far more vulnerable to health risks than others in Greater Houston,” a 2006 study commissioned by the mayor’s office concluded. In addition, rising sea levels threaten to inundate the heavily industrialized shoreline. “It puts us at even higher risk because we’re on the coast,” says Parras. “All these facilities are right on the water.”

In many ways, for activists like Parras the last line of defense lies in taking photos, documenting the impacts of industrial pollution, and simply bearing witness. TEJAS hasn’t even engaged in civil disobedience or direct action, he says. Still, his organization is on Valero’s watch list. TEJAS organizers have been followed and photographed or videoed by Valero security personnel. Local teachers who joined Parras on one of his toxic tours were bullied into deleting photos and video they had taken of the refinery. Journalists he has shown around have been threatened by Valero that they’ll be reported to the FBI.

In the eyes of the oil and gas industry this is the new environmental extremism. And that view is being shared with law enforcement at every level.

The intimidation and surveillance have had an impact. Parras says his advocacy has been compromised by Valero’s scrutiny of his organization and the refinery’s close relationship with law enforcement. “It’s difficult to get neighbors to want to engage and speak out,” he says.

Adam Federman, recipient of a Polk Grant for Investigative Reporting, is a contributing writer to Earth Island Journal. His work has appeared in Salon, among other outlets.

==

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/09/california-climate-law-proposition-23-ab32/#comment-284360

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) is a Fortune 500 is an international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power based in San Antonio, Texas, United States.^{[1]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-0) The company owns and operates 15 refineries throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 2.8 million barrels per day, 10 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.1 billion gallons per year, and a 50-megawatt wind farm. Valero is also one of the US's largest retail operators with approximately 5,800 retail and branded wholesale outlets in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean under the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar and Beacon brands.^{[2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-1)

 History

This section does not cite any references or sources.

Valero was created on January 1, 1980, as a spinoff from the Coastal States Gas Corporation. At the time, it was the largest corporate spin off in U.S. history. Valero took over the natural gas operations of the LoVaca Gathering Company, a defunct subsidiary of Coastal States Gas. The name Valero comes from Misión San Antonio de Valero, better known worldwide as The Alamo.

The company acquired a small oil refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1981, and began refining operations in 1984.

In 1997, Valero spun off its refining and retail divisions into a separate company, which kept the Valero name. At the same time, the remaining divisions, which consisted primarily of natural gas operations, were acquired by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Later that year, Valero acquired Basis Petroleum, which left it with four refineries in Texas and Louisiana. They then acquired a Paulsboro, New Jersey, refinery in 1998, the company's first refinery outside of the Gulf Coast area.

In 2000, Valero purchased ExxonMobil's Benicia, California, refinery and interests in 350 Exxon-branded service stations in California, mainly in the San Francisco Bay area. The company also began retailing gasoline under the Valero brand. In June 2001, the company acquired the Huntway Refining Company, along with two asphalt plants on the west coast.

On December 31, 2001, Valero completed its acquisition of Ultramar Diamond Shamrock. This merger left Valero with over 4,700 retail sites in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. With this acquisition, Valero also received ownership of Shamrock Logistics L.P., which was renamed Valero L.P. In 2006, this division was spun off as NuStar Energy. Starting in 2002, Valero has been expanding its marketing to the East Coast, specifically the Northeast and Florida, using the Valero brand.

On April 25, 2005, Valero agreed to buy Premcor, Inc., for 8 billion in cash and stock to become the largest U.S. refiner, as record prices for gasoline and other fuels boost profits, and on June 30 announced it was beginning a two-year process of converting Diamond Shamrock stations to the Valero brand. The next year, on May 5, 2008, the company agreed to buy 72 Albertson gas stations.

Valero laid off 500 employees at its Delaware City, Delaware refinery on November 20, 2009, due to profitability concerns. It is reported that the refinery had lost $1,000,000 per day since the beginning of the year.

[edit] Environmental record

The Political Economy Research Institute ranks Valero 28th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. The ranking is based on the quantity (3.4 million pounds in 2005) and toxicity of the emissions.^{[3]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-2)

Valero is one of the major financial backers of the 2010 California Proposition 23, contributing more than $4 million as of August 2010.^{[4]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-3) Proposition 23 would delay action on green house gas emissions in the state of California, by delaying current implementation of the California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 until the state has an unemployment rate of 5.5% for one full year.^{[5]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-4)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-5)^{6]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-5) Critics have argued that, because that has happened only three times over the last 40 years, the proposition would have the practical effect of repealing the law.^{[7]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-6)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-7)^{8]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-7)

Valero owns two oil refineries in California. The Benicia Refinery is located on the Carquinez Strait, a tributary of San Francisco Bay. ^{[9]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-8)The Wilmington Refinery is located 23 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. ^{[10]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-9) The top ten individual sources of California GHG emissions are either oil refineries or power plants. ^{[11]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-10)

[edit] Contracts

According to Robert Bryce,^{[12]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-11) author and managing editor of Energy Tribune, Valero Energy Corp. has been awarded multiple multi-million dollar contracts by the U.S. Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) to provide fuel to Israel .

Valero Energy has reached an agreement to sell the assets of its terminal operation and discontinued operations in Delaware City to the wholly owned subsidiaries of PBF Energy – Delaware City Refining and Delaware Pipeline – for approximately $220m.^{[13]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-12)

[edit] Retail

Valero retails gasoline branded as Valero, Shamrock, Diamond Shamrock,^{[14]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-13) Ultramar, Beacon, and Total, the last under license from Total S.A.. While this arm of the company is the most visible to the public, it is, according to CEO William R. Klesse, "a very small part of [Valero's] operations".^{[15]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-14)

Valero is attempting to shift its focus from being a discount gasoline brand to becoming a premium brand. As part of that shift, Valero has begun to rebrand its Ultramar, Beacon, Total and Diamond Shamrock stations to the Valero brand. The Beacon and Shamrock brands are used by retailers as a low cost alternative to the premium Valero brand. The Shamrock brand is based on the former Shamrock Oil and Gas Company, which merged with Diamond Alkali in 1967 to form Diamond Shamrock. The name Ultramar, while being eliminated in the U.S., will still be used as Valero's brand name in Canada. Valero introduced its updated "Corner Store" retail concept on December 28, 2007, opening the company's first 5,500-square-foot (510 m²) prototype in western San Antonio.

Valero issues its own private label credit cards for its stations through its credit card-only subsidiary, DSRM National Bank. The initials stand for "Diamond Shamrock Refining & Marketing", the unit of Diamond Shamrock which created it before being purchased by Valero.^{[16]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy_Corporation#cite_note-15)

[edit] See also

• List of automotive fuel brands
• Valero Alamo Bowl
• Valero Texas Open

[edit] References

1. **^** "[1]." Valero. Retrieved on October 15, 2010.
2. **^** "[2] Valero Press Release." Valero. Retrieved on October 15, 2010.
3. **^** (PERI) THE TOXIC 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters in the United State
4. **^** http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20100813,0,1163344.column
5. **^** http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20100727,0,1359956.column
6. **^** http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop-23-20100910,0,75571.story
7. **^** Galpern, Dan (2010-07-28). "Vote NO on Proposition 23: The proposition on the November ballot would essentially repeal California's landmark climate-protection law". New Times. http://www.newtimesslo.com/commentary/4744/vote-no-on-proposition-23/. Retrieved 2010-09-17. 
8. **^** Teresa Alvardo; Shellye Archambeau (2010-09-09). "Prop 23 is Bad for Business". Fox and Hounds. http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/teresa-alvardo-and-shellye-archambeau/7776-prop-23-bad-business. Retrieved 2010-09-17. 
9. **^** http://www.valero.com/OurBusiness/OurLocations/Refineries/Pages/Benicia.aspx
10. **^** http://www.valero.com/OurBusiness/OurLocations/Refineries/Pages/Wilmington.aspx
11. **^** http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/05/ab32%E2%80%99s-job-economics/
12. **^** http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/01/16/gaza_invasion/
13. **^** Valero Energy To Sell Delaware City Assets For $220m
14. **^** [3]
15. **^** http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B2EEF79CA%2D2302%2D4C16%2D8087%2D07A21B521581%7D
16. **^** DSRM National Bank CRA Performance Evaluation (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, June 7, 2004)

[edit] External links

	***Texas portal***
	***Companies portal***

• Media related to Valero Energy Corporation at Wikimedia Commons
• Valero website
• Velo Valero Cycling Team
• Robert Bryce article detailing DESC contract with Valero
• California Refineries California Air Resources Board, Emission Impacts of Refineries April 23, 2009

=-

home >> oil / gas >> valero >> corporate crimes

Valero Energy Corporation

www.valero.com

A Corporate Profile

By Corporate Watch UK

Completed September 2012

CORPORATE CRIMES

• Biofuels
• Environmental Racism
• Air Pollution
• Water Pollution
• Safety and Wrongful Deaths
• Anti-Competition
• Iraq
• Property Assessment Challenges
• CEO Pay

Valero has an appalling environmental record, being responsible for major air and water pollution from its refineries on numerous occasions. It has funded climate change deniers, fiercely opposed carbon reduction legislation and is one of the companies most heavily invested in the toxic Canadian tar sands. The company is also a major player in the biofuels business, owning 10 bio-ethanol plants across the US. For details of Valero's links to the tar sands industry see 'Valero and the tar sands' section.

In addition to environmental criticism of the company, Valero has been the centre of a host of other controversies, including safety issues, political influence, labour disputes, wrongful death lawsuits, excessive CEO pay and war profiteering.

Biofuels

Valero also produces ethanol from ten plants in the US by fermenting corn starch with yeast. Biofuels and bioenergy are associated with a host of problems, including deforestation, destroying indigenous communities, soil depletion, reducing biodiversity and land grabs, and are themselves a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Both corn and ethanol produced from corn are heavily subsidised in the US, and this, combined with financial incentives for biofuels, has had a dramatic impact on global grain prices and contributed to food shortages, famine and food riots.[21]

Valero is also investing in more advanced 'second generation' biofuels, such as those produced from cellulose. [22] However fundamental issues with fuel produced from biomass still apply. Even if land used to produce the biofuels (or agrofuels) does not compete directly with agricultural land, it can still have indirect effect on land prices, and indirect land use change can substantially increase overall carbon intensity of the fuel. Even so called 'waste' biomass is problematic as agricultural practices rarely waste biomass, it is usually used as animal feed or fertiliser, for example. Ultimately conversion from fossil fuels to agrofuels is not a sustainable solution to the worlds energy needs, it would require the transformation of vast tracks of land and could exacerbate climate change rather than mitigate against it.

Valero has invested in various companies aiming to commercialise emerging alternative biofuels such as “green” diesels from algae, from municipal-landfill solid waste and from animal-fat grease and used cooking oil.

Environmental Racism

In 1994, the state of Texas and the City of Corpus Christi were accused of environmental racism by two grassroots community groups in Texas' Nueces County. People Against Contaminated Environments ("PACE") and the American GI Forum of Texas ("AGIT") filed a Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1964) complaint alleging that, due to the existence of the Valero refinery, people of colour residents of Texas and Corpus Christi respectively were discriminated against by having their environmental protection and public health needs ignored. 

According to the Political Economy Research Institute, 59% of people exposed to Valero’s air pollutants, including ammonia, sulfuric acid, and benzene, are minorities. [23]

Air Pollution

In March 2010 Valero Energy was Ranked 12th in the Political Economy Research Institute list of the top 100 air polluters in the United States (based on quantity and toxicity of emissions), having released 4.13 million pounds (1.88 million kilos) of toxic air pollutants in 2006.[24]

In its relatively brief history, Valero has received huge fines on numerous occasions for violations of air pollution legislation. These are some the most significant incidents:

April 2008 – In a settlement with The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Valero agreed to pay a penalty of $905,796 and fund community projects worth $977,808. The settlement followed allegations of dozens of air pollution violations during 2005, 2006 and early 2007 at Valero’s refinery in Greenwich Township. The NJDEP cited Valero for exceeding overall emissions limits, violating stack-emission testing requirements, exceeding emission standards for pollutants during stack tests and various other violations.[25]

August 2007 - Valero agreed to a $4.25 million fine and additional expenditure of $147 million on pollution controls at its refineries in Port Arthur (TX), Memphis (TN), and Lima (Ohio). The settlement with EPA/DoJ required Valero to spend $1 million on support for a local health centre treating residents suffering respiratory illnesses who are not covered by health insurance. 

Days before the announcement, Valero was heavily criticised at a town hall gathering for two recent incidents: a release of toxic gas from its Port Arthur refinery on 28 July, which hospitalised some residents living near the plant, and a fire at the refinery on 8 August. [26]

June 2005 - Valero pledged to install $700 million in pollution controls and pay a $5.5 million penalty to settle a five-state/US EPA joint complaint following alleged violations of federal air-pollution law. The settlement was one of the largest the EPA reached since it started investigating the refining industry in 2000 due to widespread concerns over compliance and enforcement.[27]

April 2005 – In a settlement of alleged Clean Air Act violations between 2001 and 2004 at its Paulsboro (NJ) refinery, Valero was fined $793,000 by the New Jersey DEP. The company was ordered to pay a further $3.5 million to install emission controls, intended to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from its waste water treatment plant.[28]

2001 – Following repeated flaring of large volumes of sulfur dioxide between 1994 and 1998, Valero Refining was ordered to install a backup Sulfur Recovery Unit at their Corpus Christi refinery.[29]

2000 – Texas Natural Resources Commerce Commission forced Valero to pay a $174,455 penalty following alleged violations involving record keeping deficiencies and emissions exceedancies at its Texas City refinery.[30]

Water Pollution

A partial settlement between a dozen oil companies, including Valero Energy, and public water providers in 17 states was reached in December 2008. The litigation concerned groundwater contamination from the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), which had been used despite the fact that “No human health studies or long-term carcinogenicity studies on animals were conducted by the oil companies prior to adding MTBE to the nation’s gasoline supply”. The oil companies were required to Pay $422 million, and treat wells for MTBE over the next thirty years.[31]

In 2008 Valero Refining-Texas, L.P. agreed to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act following a spill of 3,400 barrels of oil into the Corpus Christi Ship Channel on June 1, 2006. Under the consent decree, Valero agreed to pay a $1.65 million civil penalty and perform a supplementary environmental project costing approximately $300,000.[32]

In January 2006 the New Jersey Department for Environment Protection announced an agreement made with Valero Refining Company that the company would preserve four properties totalling 615 acres as compensation to the public for ground water pollution at its oil refinery in Greenwich.[33]

Safety and Wrongful Deaths

In 2005 two workers suffocated while carrying out maintenance at Valero's Delaware refinery, resulting in wrongful death lawsuits against the company in February 2006. According to evidence used in the lawsuits, the two men working for contractor Matrix Service Co were asphyxiated while retrieving a roll of duct tape that had fallen into a refinery reactor. Valero blamed the deaths on the victims, saying they hadn't followed safety instructions. Others disputed this, asserting that a work permit gave no warning of suffocation hazards as required.

It was reported that Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Valero the previous year for failing to adequately oversee handling of work permits, and supervisors were unconcerned about discipline for violations. (Jeff Montgomery, "Valero staffing an issue in deaths," Wilmington News Journal, 5/17/07). In addition,the company was accused of neglecting safety while rushing the refining system back into service to take advantage of high fuel prices.

One of the cases, brought by survivors of John A. Lattanzi, was settled in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board concluded that the deaths were in part due to “inadequate” warnings and barriers around an opening in the tank where the men died, and that managers had failed to give the workers adequate written notice of the suffocation hazard. There were also claims of destruction of evidence against Valero and disputes over expert testimony.[34]

According to the Federal Contractor Misconduct database, it was reported that the case brought by the family of John Ferguson was settled in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.[35]

A previous wrongful death claim associated with the same refinery was settled for $36 million in 2003. (Jeff Montgomery, "Suit in worker's death: Valero put 'profits over safety'," Wilmington News Journal, 2/8/06). This followed a fatal explosion and fire in 2001, also at the same plant, which led to tough new laws on storage tanks and tens of millions of dollars in criminal and civil fines and penalties.Valero sold the plant in June 2010 to subsidiaries of PBF Energy Company LLC for $220 million.[36]

See here for a chronology of problems at the Delaware Refinery (Source: Wilmington News Journal, 11/7/05):

-March 2005: State regulators warn refinery managers about concerns over leaks, fires and risk of catastrophe. 

-January 2005: 12,500 pound propane leak. 

-September 2004: 20,000 and 9,000 pound butane leaks. 

-February 2004: 11,000 pound propylene/butane leak. 

-May 2003: Chemical reaction bursts a tank roof open, releasing 25,000 pounds of acid and 15,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, forcing employees to flee for their lives. (Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommended a $132,000 fine). 

-March 2002-August 2003: Excessive releases of carbon monoxide and other pollutants. (237,500 fine by Delaware). 

-July 17, 2001: Explosion and fire in a sulfuric acid tank kills one man, cripples several others and releases more than one million gallons of gasoline-laced acid. 

-April 2001: State regulators file criminal pollution charge accusing refinery managers of twice neglecting caustic chemical leaks that damaged the environment. 

-May 2000: Worker burned by pipe failure. 

-December 1997: Four workers injured when a tank explosion splashes them with a caustic chemical.

Valero has been involved in numerous other safety incidents and lawsuits, including:

-An accident involving the release of sulfur dioxide at Valero's refinery in east Houston in 2006, sending 28 workers to hospital for treatment of respiratory complaints.[37]

-A fire at the Valero McKee refinery in Sunray, Texas, in February 2007. Three workers were seriously burned, and the entire refinery was shut down and evacuated. In July 2008, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a final investigation report that concluded the refinery did not have an effective programme to identify and address the risk of pipe failure due to freezing and the hazards posed by fire exposure to neighbouring equipment. [38]

-In 2008 the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed penalties totalling $101,750 for various violations including 13 alleged serious violations at Valero’s Port Arthur, Texas.[39]

Anti-Competition

Valero acquired various other companies in the refining business, growing from the fourteenth-largest US refiner at the outset of 2000 to the largest in 2005 B2 with the $8billion acquisition of Premcor Inc. This raised concerns that the wave of mergers had reduced the number of refineries and companies in the wholesale market, resulting in increased market concentration, failure to build new capacity to relieve increased demand and therefore increased cost to the consumer.

The US Federal Trade Commission only agreed to Valero's $6 billion merger with Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 2001 after forcing Valero to shed Ultramar's Golden Eagle Refinery, bulk gasoline supply contracts, and 70 Ultramar retail service stations in Northern California.[40]

Iraq

Valero was one of the first companies to receive oil from Iraq after the US invasion. It was amongst ten other companies to win contracts to buy Iraq's new oil production of Basra Light crude, covering production from Mina Al-Bakr port in southern Iraq from August to December 2003.[41]

In 2004, Valero received a subpoena to give documents to the Iraq Food for Oil enquiry, investigating alleged improprieties in the programme.[42]

Property Assessment Challenges

Valero has a track record of aggressively pursuing property assessment lawsuits as a way of recovering money spent on property taxes. In 2006 Valero filed 150 lawsuits against 42 appraisal districts in 85 Texas courts.[43]

CEO Pay

Valero has come under sustained criticism for paying excessive CEO salaries. The total figure received by CEO's is often (deliberately made) difficult to calculate, as it can include basic salaries, bonuses, stocks and options and various other forms of compensation and calculations of stock values.

According to Forbes magazine, William R Klesse, who has been CEO of Valero Energy for five years, received total compensation of $8.07 million in 2011 and a total five year compensation of $53.39 million.[44]

Figures quoted elsewhere claim that, according to the company’s proxy, William R Klesse received $15 million in 2007: salary, $1.5 million; bonus, $3.7 million; stock awards, $5.5 million; options, $3 million; deferred pay of $1.1 million, plus other pay of $117,110.[45]

The Institute of Policy Studies quote a figure for previous CEO William Greehey's total compensation in 2005 as $95.2 million, adding that it would take the average energy company construction worker 4,279 years to equal what Greehey collected in a year.[46]

References

:{[1]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-21/use-of-corn-for-fuel-in-u-s-is-increasing-prices-globally-fao-chief-says.html 

[2]http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1937195/valero-pumps-usd50m-wood-biofuel-plant 

[3] http://data.rtknet.org/tox100/2010/index.php?search=yes&company1=25149&chemfac=chem&advbasic=bas&sortp=airrel 

[4]www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index/ 

[5]http://contractormisconduct.org/ass/contractors/94/cases/931/1226/valero-marketing-and-supply-greenwich-township_pr.pdf 

[6]www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/August/07_enrd_626.html 

[7]http://www.chron.com/news/article/Refiner-Valero-to-make-environmental-upgrades-1563672.php 

[8]www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2005/05_0043.htm 

[9]www.crocodyl.org/wiki/valero_energy 

[10]http://www.valero.com/Financial%20Documents/Form%2010-K%202006.pdf 

[11]http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080508005464/en/Water-Contamination-Suit-Results-Historic-Settlement 

[12]http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/dc57b08b5acd42bc852573c90044a9c4/b4a9cb157a51ec7d85257464007354dd!OpenDocument

[13]www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2006/06_0001.htm 

[14]http://www.jerebeasleyreport.com/2008/12/valero-settles-one-wrongful-death-lawsuit/ 

[15]http://contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm/1,73,222,html?CaseID=618 

[16]http://blog.chron.com/newswatchenergy/2010/06/valero-sells-delaware-city-refinery/ 

[17]www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2006_4204272/valero-leak-prompts-evacuation-sulfur-dioxide-gas.html 

[18]http://www.csb.gov/investigations/detail.aspx?SID=12 

[19]www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=15083 

[20]http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/12/valero.shtm 

[21]http://knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=To_the_Victors_Go_the_Spoils_of_War 

[22]http://agonist.org/20060303/valero_subpoenaed_for_records_in_iraq_oil_for_food_program

[23]www.crocodyl.org/wiki/valero_energy 

[24]www.forbes.com/lists/2011/12/ceo-compensation-11_William-R-Klesse_ZJO9.html 

[25]http://blog.mysanantonio.com/clockingin/2008/03/valeros-ceo-earned-15-million-in-2007/ 

[26]http://economiajusta.org/files/pdf/ExecutiveExcess2006.pdf}:

2014 (6/2)

House

Total to Democrats: $33,000

Total to Republicans: $182,000| Recipient | Total |

Senate

Total to Democrats: $9,500

Total to Republicans: $45,600| Recipient | Total |

Based on data released by the FEC on May 19, 2014.

==

2012

open secrets

House

Total to Democrats: $34,000

Total to Republicans: $484,000| Recipient | Total |

Senate

Total to Democrats: $8,500

Total to Republicans: $124,500| Recipient | Total |

Presidential

Total to Democrats: $0

Total to Republicans: $10,000| Recipient | Total |

Based on data released by the FEC on March 25, 2013.