©2019 Rob Rogers. Reprinted with permission. To support Rob’s cartoons go to https://www.patreon.com/robrogers Also, a second copyright line belatedly required (on 26 Aug 2019): ROGERS © 2019 Reprinted by permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.
[Editor: the new Supermajority survey covered in this article is amazing – a must-read eye-opener. My suggestion: read it first, then read the NY Times analysis below. And for a more hard-hitting analysis, see The Guardian’s “New poll shows what really interests ‘pro-lifers’: controlling women” – R.S.]
The New York Times, by By Lisa Lerer, Aug. 19, 2019
Throughout the Trump administration, there has been a fair amount of attention paid to the influx of women into politics. Historic numbers of women ran for, and won, political office last November. Six women are running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And from the Women’s March to voter turnout, it’s clear that women — particularly Democrats — are engaged in American politics as never before.
But there has been far less focus on what, exactly, all these female voters want.
Now, some new polling conducted for the women’s political action group Supermajority, and shared first with On Politics, gives us a unique look at how women are shaping the political landscape — and how politics is shaping women’s lives.
“Women’s equality is at the forefront of people’s minds in a way that it hasn’t been ever in my history of looking at research and polling,” said Cecile Richards, the former Planned Parenthood president. “How candidates talk about these issues and think about them is really going to be influential in the coming elections.”
Supermajority, a nonpartisan organization, aims to train two million women to organize around political issues related to women’s equality. Part of that effort means asking about topics that are rarely addressed in political surveys — issues including gender equity and recent restrictions on abortion.
Here’s some of what they found.
On gender equality:
• There is a big partisan split over whether gender equality has been achieved: While 88 percent of Democratic women believe there is “still work to be done,” just 46 percent of Republican women agree.
On the recent abortion laws:
• The passage of new abortion laws, which essentially banned the procedure in a number of states, was a mobilizing moment for many female voters. Fifty-five percent of women said the recent laws made them think about the state of women’s rights and equality; 57 percent said they talked to friends or family about them.
On President Trump:
• Nearly every segment of female voters is more likely to think President Trump has made things worse for women, rather than better: Democratic women, 81 percent to 5 percent; Latinx women, 57 to 21; independent women, 47 to 25. Only Republican women disagree — 5 percent said he had made things worse for them, while 62 percent said better.
On the 2020 election:
• The survey asked which issues are “extremely important” in the presidential election. Climate change was an answer for 65 percent of Democratic women, and 14 percent of Republican women. Conversely, illegal immigration was a response for 72 percent of Republicans, and 43 percent of Democrats.
Vistra Energy announced Wednesday it is closing its coal burning power plants in Canton, Havana, Hennepin and Coffeen.
The company said in a statement it will retire the four power plants in order to meet new revisions to the Multi-Pollutant Standard Rule introduced by the Illinois Pollution Control Board.
About 300 people will lose their jobs in the closures. The company is working to provide support services for those workers.
Vistra said it was closing the four power plants to save the other four plants it operates in Illinois. The company’s emissions in Illinois will be driven down 57 to 61 percent by the closures, getting it under the new cap, the company said.
“Even though today’s retirement announcements were inevitable due to the changing regulatory environment and unfavorable economic conditions in the MISO market, they are nonetheless difficult to make,” said Curt Morgan, Vistra’s president and chief executive officer in a statement. “By far, the hardest decisions we make in our business are those that significantly impact our people. As always, we will do right by those who are impacted by this announcement. Our employees take pride in the work they do, and we appreciate their decades of service providing reliable and affordable power to Illinois, particularly in years like this one with periods of extreme cold and heat.”
State Rep. Mike Unes (R-East Peoria), who represents the area where Canton’s Duck Creek Power Station is based, pinned the blame for the closures on former Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Future Energy Jobs Act he signed into law in 2016.
“It’s unfortunate that our former Governor and legislative leaders pushed a bill that causes the taxpayers of Illinois to subsidize other energy plants in Illinois while self-sufficient plants, like Duck Creek, are shuttered,” said Unes. “This is the outcome that I feared when this passed in 2016. The bill has now cost us head-of-household, IBEW union jobs at Duck Creek and also at nearby Havana Power Station.”
Unes said there is a group of “hard-core environmentalists” who won’t rest until every coal-burning power plant in Illinois has shuttered. He said that is costing his district desperately needed, well-paying jobs.
State Sen. Dave Koehler (D-Peoria) said he is “incredibly saddened” by the announcement and the hardships it will bring for Fulton County. He called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration to help those impacted.
“The fact is the current business market for coal-based energy is simply no longer sustainable. As we transition to an energy economy that focuses on limiting emissions, we must be proactive in helping those communities that this will adversely effect,” Koehler said.
“The governor’s primary concerns are to support workers at these locations and assist the impacted communities,” said Pritzker spokesperson Emily Bittner. “In particular, the governor directed agency heads to focus on developing potential short-term opportunities connected to work on the state’s major infrastructure investments, as well as addressing broader impacts and ripple effects in these communities.”
The governor’s office noted Vistra began signaling potential power plant closures as early as February 2018. The new rules were issued on Aug. 13.
Vistra said it plans to close all four plants by the end of the year if it is determined they aren’t needed to continue providing reliable power sources by federal regulators.
Duck Creek employs 60 people. 75 people work at Havana, and 60 at Hennepin. About 95 people work at the Coffeen plant.
Editor’s note: The photo above depicts the Newton Power Plant in southern Illinois, not the Duck Creek Power Station in Canton as originally labeled.
By Ted Goldberg, Aug 20, 2019
The industry group representing oil companies in California says if the state’s utilities shut off power to refineries during periods of high fire danger, the facilities could be knocked offline, resulting in major pollution releases and increased gasoline prices.
The Western States Petroleum Association asked California regulators in early May for exemptions from power shutoff plans that the state and electrical utilities have adopted to reduce the chances of power lines starting fires during extremely windy and hot conditions.
The industry group warned that an outage as short as a minute could result in refineries going off line for up to three weeks, triggering a series of ugly consequences.
“An uncontrolled shutdown of a refinery from a de-energization action would result in immediate emergency load shedding, flaring and a heightened risk of a catastrophic event,” the association wrote in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission.
The filing has prompted an angry reaction from a leading environmental group, which says it fears the oil companies will use a power shutdown as a justification for harmful emissions.
“It’s outrageous that action to protect against wildfire risk might result in dangerous pollution,” said Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Refineries shouldn’t be allowed to use this as an excuse to contaminate the air we breathe.”
When asked recently about the petroleum association’s concerns, a PG&E representative said the utility would work to restore power faster for refineries after the shutoffs.
“We are continually working to analyze our systems, refine our procedures and further assess how we can minimize the impacts of a public safety power shutoff. This includes working towards the ability to be able to prioritize the re-energization of critical infrastructure like oil refineries,” said Jeff Smith, a PG&E spokesman.
Two weeks after the association’s filing, the commission approved PG&E’s shutoff plans. Oil companies did not get the break they wanted.
But the association’s concerns have not faded. The head of the industry group continues to call on the state’s utilities to keep the power flowing to refineries even during periods of high fire danger.
“Unplanned shutdowns imposed by a utility can result in health, safety and environmental impacts,” Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the group’s president, said in a statement.
“If a utility’s actions disrupt the fuel supply chain, this could significantly impact affordable fuel costs for businesses and consumers in California,” Reheis-Boyd said. “Utilities need to make sure that they are investing adequate resources to protect critical facilities to ensure that any de-energization event is used as an absolute last resort and does not cause more harm to Californians.”
The industry’s concerns were highlighted last week when state lawmakers scrutinized PG&E’s shutoff plans. State Sen. Scott Wiener. D-San Francisco, mentioned the refineries while questioning a PG&E executive.
“We saw the oil industry, and I’m not usually aligned with the oil industry, but their letter was very compelling. That’s pretty problematic for that to happen,” Wiener said during a state Senate subcommittee hearing last Wednesday.
PG&E says it recently met with the industry to discuss its concerns, but it has not signaled an intention to alter its shutoff plans.
Sumeet Singh, the PG&E vice president overseeing the company’s wildfire safety program, told the panel that the transmission system serving refineries is built with redundancy in mind.
“When you look at our transmission system, by nature, especially the 100-kilovolt and above … there’s quite a lot of reliability that’s built into it,” Singh said. That means “if you lose a line, you have another” line as a backup, he added.
Singh also suggested that the oil industries can take PG&E to court “if they fundamentally believe that the decision that we made was inaccurate, inappropriate, targeted in some way, led to some harm.”
An oil company lawsuit against the utility would not be unprecedented. A May 2017 power failure at Valero’s Benicia plant triggered a major release of toxic sulfur dioxide and prompted emergency shelter-in-place orders.
The CPUC blamed PG&E for the outage, but declined to punish the company. Valero filed a lawsuit against the utility, seeking more than $75 million in damages. That lawsuit is currently on hold pending the outcome of PG&E’s bankruptcy proceedings.
The industry’s filing with the commission says the 2017 Valero outage proves the dangers an electricity failure poses to a refinery.
Currently, the Valero refinery is not in an area designated by PG&E as one at high risk for a public safety power shutoff. Solano County inspectors and Benicia fire officials note that the refinery gets power from two separate lines.
Terry Schmidtbauer, Solano County’s assistant director of resource management, which oversees the Benicia facility, says the likelihood of Valero losing power from a pre-emptive shutoff is low.
“That being said, we are all aware of the past events where Valero did lose all power and had to shut down rather quickly. Such an event is not impossible, even if highly unlikely,” Schmidtbauer said.
Both in 2017 and last March, when Valero shut down due to two refinery component malfunctions, the cost of gasoline in California increased.
Schmidtbauer said after the 2017 outage, county inspectors told Valero to set up a procedure by which it would rely more on fuel gas and steam to generate electricity at the plant to run the refinery if it were to lose power from PG&E.
A Valero spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
Contra Costa County’s refineries — the Chevron, Shell, Phillips 66 and Marathon plants — are expected to rely more on their cogeneration facilities and reduce refining in cases of power shutoffs, according to Randy Sawyer, the county’s chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer.
“I am expecting that they will cut back on their operations so they can continue to operate somewhat on their own,” Sawyer said.
Shell’s Martinez refinery has emergency backup systems, but they are not enough to power the entire plant, according to Shell spokeswoman Ann Notarangelo.
“We do not have enough onsite generation to sustain plant operations in the event of a complete loss of power from PG&E,” Notarangelo said.
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