All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Climate Change, Fossil fuel divestment, Sea level rise

Palo Alto passes fossil fuel divestment resolution

Press Release from Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action (PICA)

Interfaith Victory: Palo Alto Fossil Fuel Divestment Resolution Passed

PALO ALTO, CA — February 9, 2014.

The City of Palo Alto, responding to concerns from Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action (PICA), voted unanimously to send a message to CalPERS (California Statement Employee Retirement System), the national’s largest pension fund, to pull its investments out of fossil fuels.

Councilmembers Marc Berman, Patrick Burt, Karen Holman and Liz Kniss submitted the initial “Colleague’s Memo” in favor of divestment. “Climate change poses a top-tier threat to our future. Our obligation to address climate change through all avenues requires support from all sectors,” noted Council member Cory Wolbach. “I was inspired to see the passionate and effective work of these congregations collecting 152 signed letters on behalf of fossil fuel divestment.  Those letters, presented by a cross-denominational coalition, sent a very powerful moral statement.”

Eileen Altman is an associate minister at First Congregational Church in Palo Alto and a PICA member who spoke at the City Council meeting. “As Christians, we share a core set of values and concern for God’s gift of life, both human and all other life. Our investments should reflect our values.” said Rev. Altman. “This concern is not a liberal or conservative value, but is a Christian value. The US political system unproductively magnifies differences when Americans everywhere share 98% of the same values. Climate is about the future of our children and is especially about the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Climate is the biggest social justice issue of our time. From the pews in Palo Alto and throughout the United Church of Christ, the first denomination to pass a resolution to move toward divestment from fossil fuels (in 2013), we welcome the opportunity to respectfully dialogue about climate with churches in all regions of the country and across all party affiliations.”

While the call for fossil fuel divestment may have its strongest impact as a symbolic statement, it also has practical implications for the economic value of employee pensions, explained Debbie Mytels, convener of PICA, which comprises a dozen local congregations that submitted signed letters to the Council in favor of the divestment resolution.

“While we believe it’s a moral obligation to stop using the fossil fuels that are causing sea level rise, extreme weather events and drought-related crop losses,” Mytels said, “it’s also important to question how long investments in these companies will be financially valuable.”

“If we want to protect our employees’ pensions, we need to get CalPERS to pull out of dirty fuels before they become ‘stranded assets’.” said Mytels, citing a recent statement by Deutsche Bank in Germany that said  “to meet climate change targets, over half of identified fossil fuel reserves will have to stay in the ground.”

“While we are pleased with Palo Alto’s progress in becoming a city that supplies ‘carbon free’ electricity to its utility customers,” Mytels said, “we feel it’s time for our city to demonstrate further leadership by joining the call for divestment.”

“Thankfully, Palo Alto itself does not own any investment in fossil fuels of any sort — that’s all the more reason for the Council to consider the long-term safety of our employees’ CalPERS retirement assets,” she added.

Reverend Will Scott, from California Interfaith Power & Light (CIPL), noted that “CIPL and our growing statewide network of more than 640 congregations are grateful for the inspiring work of the Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action group, now a CIPL Regional Working Group. Their regular, committed, and personal engagement on the local level as people of diverse faiths concerned about the climate crisis, is a strong model for other regional working groups in our network. Indeed, they are exemplifying the sincere, collaborative, practical, rooted and creative community resiliency needed throughout the world to meet the seriousness of this global challenge. California Interfaith Power & Light is learning much from PICA’s practices and shared wisdom.”

Palo Alto now joins a growing group of California cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Brisbane, Richmond, Fairfax, and Santa Monica in calling for dropping fossil fuels from employee pension funds. Sunnyvale may be the next city. Other regional agencies, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which is mandated to protect Silicon Valley citizens from floods, have also passed similar resolutions due to concerns about sea level rise.

In advance of Global Divestment Day, Feb. 13, 2015, Norway announced last week that it would drop coal and tar sands companies from its national investment portfolio. Similarly, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has made such a decision, along with 50 other philanthropic organizations. The divestment movement is also growing significantly among national faith-based groups, and nearby Stanford University has agreed to eliminate its holdings in coal companies. Today, California State Senate President Kevin de Leon introduced SB 185, directing CalPERs to divest coal fossil fuel investments.

For more information about PICA, see http://www.interfaithpower.org/pica and http://pica.nationbuilder.com/

City of Palo Alto Fossil Fuel Divestment Resolution.

The Palo Alto City Council voted unanimously in favor of divestment:  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9dpI7FCQAAfghe.jpg

PICA members celebrate: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9dpI7JCIAAsuEF.jpg

For more information about the international fossil fuel divestment movement, see http://gofossilfree.org/

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California oil industry, California Regulation, Fracking, Natural gas, Water quality

California Pledges Changes in Protecting Underground Water

Repost from ABC News (AP)

California Pledges Changes in Protecting Underground Water

By Ellen Knickmeyer, AP, Feb 9, 2015

California has proposed closing by October up to 140 oilfield wells that state regulators had allowed to inject into federally protected drinking water aquifers, state officials said Monday.

The deadline is part of a broad plan the state sent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week for bringing state regulation of oil and gas operations back into compliance with federal safe-drinking water requirements. State authorities made the plan public Monday.

An ongoing state review mandated by the EPA found more than 2,500 oil and gas injection wells that the state authorized into aquifers that were supposed to be protected as current or potential sources of water for drinking and watering crops.

An Associated Press analysis found hundreds of the now-challenged state permits for oilfield injection into protected aquifers have been granted since 2011, despite the state’s drought and growing warnings from the EPA about lax state protection of water aquifers in areas of oil and gas operations.

Steve Bohlen, head of the state Department of Conservation’s oil and gas division, told reporters Monday that the proposed regulatory changes were “long overdue.”

EPA spokeswoman Nahal Mogharabi said Monday that federal authorities would review the new state plan over coming weeks. “EPA will then work with the State to ensure that the plan contains actions that will bring their program into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Mogharabi said. She referred to landmark 1974 legislation that sought to protect underground drinking-water sources from oil and gas operations.

Bohlen said 140 of those 2,500 injection wells were of primary concern to the state now because they were actively injecting oil-field fluids into aquifers with especially good water quality.

State water officials currently are reviewing those 140 oil-field wells to see which are near water wells and to assess any contamination of water aquifers from the oil and gas operations, Bohlen said.

Part of the state plan released Monday would set an Oct. 15 deadline to stop injection into those water aquifers deemed most vital to protect them from contamination. State officials also could shut down oil field wells sooner if they are deemed to jeopardize nearby water wells, authorities said. This summer, the state ordered oil companies to stop using at least nine oil field wells that altogether had more than 100 water wells nearby.

The U.S. EPA had given the state until Friday to detail how it would deal with current injection into protected water aquifers and stop future permitting of risky injection.

While some of the fluids and materials that oil companies inject underground as part of normal production is simply water, some can contain high levels of salt or other material that can render water unfit for drinking or irrigating crops.

California is the nation’s third-largest oil-producing state, and oil companies say the kind of injection wells under scrutiny are vital to the state’s oil production.

Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western State Petroleum Association, said the oil-industry group feared state regulators would not be able to meet all the deadlines they were setting for compliance with federal water standards.

If that happens, oil producers “would be put into the untenable position of having to shut in wells or reduce production,” Hull said.

Clean energy, Coal, Solar energy

The War On Solar Is Real, Unlike the “War on Coal”

Repost from DeSmogBlog

The War On Solar Is Real, Unlike the “War on Coal”

By Mike Gaworecki, 2015-02-05

You’ve most likely heard of the so-called “war on coal,” especially given how eagerly mainstream newspapers have helped conservatives in pushing this bogus meme. But there’s another war going on, one you probably haven’t heard of even though the outcome has major implications for the future of our planet.

That would be the “war on solar,” a concerted effort by vested fossil fuel interests and their political allies to hinder the progress of solar power, and more broadly attack all efforts to convert our society to run on clean, renewable energy sources.

Solar is a fast-growing clean energy industry that now employs 174,000 people, more than the coal industry. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the U.S. now has more than 20 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar capacity, enough to power four million American homes while contributing more than $15 billion to the American economy.

The aggressors in the war on the solar industry include some familiar names: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Tax Reform and the Koch Brothers’ own Americans for Prosperity, organizations that are intent on rolling back policies — including the solar investment tax credit — designed to encourage solar energy development. These front groups for fossil fuel interests are determined to restrict the growth of the clean tech industries in favor of the dirty energy interests they’re beholden to for funding.

As Karl Cates of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis writes, “the war on solar remains starkly underreported, and vastly deserving of much more and better coverage than it’s gotten so far.”

The goal of the war on solar, of course, is to kill a budding industry before it can get its legs. Much of its strategy is in a state-by-state campaign [that] employs two tactics: reducing state-government commitments to the percentage of energy acquired from renewables and repealing “net-metering” laws that fairly compensate homeowners and businesses for the solar energy they produce.

Net metering policies have been adopted in over 40 states and more than half a million homes and businesses in the U.S. have installed rooftop solar systems to generate their own energy. That pursuit of real energy independence rightfully scares the hell out of utility operators who, after years of fighting distributed solar, have resorted to trying to co-opt the business model instead.

Even the Walton Family, owners of Walmart, have used their billions to attack distributed solar, in part because it threatens the centralized, corporatist social structure that has made them filthy rich.

Coal, meanwhile, is responsible for 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector even though it fuels just 39% of electricity generation in the U.S.

A future in which we have averted runaway global warming is a future without coal and with way more solar, yet mentions of the phrase “war on coal” dwarf those of “war on solar” in the media, as Cates points out with this graphic:

“Judging by press coverage both mainstream and marginal, there’s one epic fight—and pretty much one epic fight only—going on in America’s utility-energy industry: The ‘war on coal,’” Cates writes.

He adds: “The stakes in the war on solar are not insignificant.”

Indeed, when it comes to solar versus coal and the future of how we power our society, we are fighting for our very lives.

Image Credit: Andrej Vodolazhskyi / Shutterstock.com

Crude By Rail, DEIR, Revised Draft EIR, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Editor: Reflections on Benicia’s Recirculation announcement

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, Feb. 6, 2015

Valero_Crude_by_Rail-Project_Description_March_2013_(cover_page)On Feb. 3, the City of Benicia released a significant announcement, further delaying Valero’s proposal to begin shipping North American (Bakken and tar sands) crude oil in railroad tank cars:

The City has reviewed all of the comments submitted on the Draft EIR and has determined that sections of the Draft EIR will need to be updated and recirculated.  The anticipated release of the Recirculated Draft EIR for public comment is June 30, 2015.  The Recirculated Draft EIR will have a 45-day comment period.  After the comment period on the Recirculated DEIR closes, the City will complete the Final EIR which will include responses to all comments on the original Draft EIR and the Recirculated Draft EIR.

This is a victory for those of us who have openly and passionately opposed Valero’s proposal – a vindication of what we have been advocating all along.  The local opposition group, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC), submitted a 132-page critique of the DEIR, disclosing multiple “fatal flaws” and calling for a revision and recirculation.  The City of Benicia seems to agree.

After the City’s failed attempt to rush the project’s approval in early 2013, it has been significantly slowed for critical analysis and public transparency.  The recirculation will further delay any possibility of approval.  Don’t hold your breath, but little “David” may just be winning a long and arduous battle with “Goliath.”

On the other hand, the decision to recirculate indicates that Valero and City staff are NOT backing off plans to seek a permit, as some had speculated they might.  The historic drop in crude oil prices; the resulting cutbacks in crude extraction in North Dakota; the uncertainty of impending new federal and state regulations and lawsuits surrounding those new regulations; vociferous local, regional and statewide opposition and severe critiques of the Draft EIR … none of these factors, nor all of them together seem enough to have backed Valero into a wait-and-see attitude.

Local conversation among Benicia residents following the recirculation announcement has been spirited with significant questions and concerns:

  • Many are questioning the City’s “selected” revision method–what sections of the DEIR are going to be revised, and what sections, if any, will go unchanged?  Is a “piecemeal” revision a wise approach?  Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC) and other government agencies & NGOs have found serious deficiencies in ALL sections of the DEIR (see highly critical reviews and the BSHC critique).  Surely the City should address ALL the concerns expressed by the California State Attorney General and the other government agencies and NGO’s.  The City must have a solid EIR with full, honest disclosure of impacts of this project.
  • Critics have raised serious concerns about the ability of the current consulting team to complete the task of revising a DEIR that can withstand legal scrutiny given the extremely poor original product.  Given the badly flawed analysis and obvious bias in favor of the project demonstrated by the consultants, it might be prudent for the City to hire a different consultant.
  • Many Benicians continue to believe that if the DEIR disclosed the true extent of the environmental impacts and safety risks of this project it could never be built.

So Benicians still have work to do.  Maybe take a bit of a break between now and June, but PLEASE don’t quit writing letters, gathering signatures, putting up yard signs, canvassing, petitioning, keeping informed, and supporting nearby Bay Area refinery communities and important uprail efforts.  Stay in touch!