TO : City Council FROM :City Manager SUBJECT : APPOINTMENT OF CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS TO AD HOC “ACT” TASK FORCE GROUPS IN RESPONSE TO POTENTIAL BENICIA VALERO REFINARY CLOSURE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: With the recent news by the Valero Energy Company to potentially cease operation at the Valero Benicia Refinery in April 2026, the City believes it is worthwhile for the City Council to spearhead task force groups to work with various stakeholders to understand potential economic impacts, develop strategies to mitigate those impacts and plan for the future. To that end, Mayor Young is proposing four (4) separate City Council Task Force Groups to understand the impacts of any closure will have on the community.
RECOMMENDATION: Move to adopt by motion the nomination of the respective members of the City Council to the proposed Ad Hoc Task Force Groups.
BUDGET INFORMATION: Staff does not anticipate any direct impact on the City’s budget due to the action of creating the proposed Task Force Groups.
BACKGROUND: To help facilitate engagement and information with impacted stakeholder groups, advocate for the protection of Benicia’s economy and imagine the possible transition of redeveloping 930 acres of the Valero Benicia Refinery, Mayor Young is proposing four (4) ad hoc City Council “ACT” Task Force Groups: Advocacy, Collaboration & Transition.
These proposed groups will be ad hoc in nature and not subject to the Brown Act or Open Government Ordinance. The respective member(s) of Council may solicit feedback and participation from stakeholders as they deem helpful to gather information germane to their purpose, including business owners, employees, labor leaders, community members and governmental and non-governmental organizations. The second City Council meeting of each month will serve as an opportunity for the members of Council to report on the progress of each ad hoc group.
Task Force 1: ADVOCATE for Benicia’s Economy: – Mayor Young
It is proposed that Mayor Young will serve as a point of contact and lead efforts to work with State Officials such as the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, The California Energy Commission, elected leaders, labor and business representatives to advocate on behalf of Benicia relating to the potential shutdown of the refinery. The purpose is to gather information and reports on the economic value of the refining operations to Benicia’s economy, county employment, the States economy as well as the importance the Benicia refinery is to Travis Air Force Base.
Task Force 2: COLLABORATE with Community: Non-Profit Organizations, Sports Groups, Benicia Unified School District, Restaurants & Hotels – Council Member Largaespada
The focus of this Task Force is to coordinate between the various community groups that receive contributions and support from Valero. Understand the economic impact to these groups and facilitate collaboration between groups to maximize resources where possible and generate plans on how to proceed with either less funding or new means of revenue. Similarly, with sports groups, the intent is to quantify the financial contribution made to sports groups and how reduced support from Valero could impact users. Additionally, this Task Force will coordinate with Benicia Unified School District to analyze the impact on property tax revenue to the District and any other direct revenue loss from Valero’s cessation of operations. Finally, this Task Force will seek to quantify the economic impact on hotels and restaurants with Valero’s exit. The work of Councilmember Largaespada is to coordinate information, facilitate cooperation of resources between groups where feasible, and develop a plan of action on how to overcome the loss of revenue with Valero’s departure.
Task Force 3: COLLABORATE with Benicia Industrial Park (BIP): Existing industrial park businesses, Rose Estates and Port of Benicia – Council Member Birdseye
This Task Force is designed to work with impacted BIP businesses; understanding the impact on jobs, lost revenue and impacts on the stream of commerce. Additionally, this Task Force shall coordinate the plans and actions of Rose Estates, the Priority Production Area plan of the Port with redevelopment efforts of the 930 acres of Valero’s property with any interested developers. There may be an opportunity to synchronize development activity and/or work to incentivize new business development into the BIP including offshore wind manufacturing.
Task Force 4: TRANSITION Prepare for Transition and Redevelopment of Valero’s 930 acres: Valero & Signature Development Group – Vice Mayor Macenski & Council Member Scott
This Task Force is to collaborate with Valero and Signature Development Group to imagine the possible reuse opportunities for the 930 acres of Valero’s property. This Task Force would help to facilitate stakeholder involvement to solicit public feedback and visioning. Identify the types of uses, be it residential commercial or industrial and those uses can be best incorporated into Benicia. Identify reports and information that would be helpful to forecast highest and best use for Benicia’s economic viability and environmental sustainability.
NEXT STEPS: If approved, the various Task Force groups can meet at their convenience with stakeholders of their choosing to help facilitate their mission.
ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS: None.
CEQA Analysis
The requested action is exempt from CEQA because it will not result in a direct or indirect physical change in the environment and therefore it is not a project as defined in CEQA Guidelines Section 15378.
ATTACHMENT: None.
For more information contact: Mario Giuliani, City Manager Phone: 707-746- 4289 E-mail: mgiuliani@ci.benicia.ca.us
…49 Afrikaners arrived in the United States on Monday May 12 as “refugees.” President Trump gave them priority status, which means they waited no more than three months for their resettlement. Many refugees from other countries are forced to wait 18 to 24 months, and sometimes even years, for their resettlement assignment. Trump banned virtually all other refugees on his first day in office, including people fleeing active war zones like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and others.
White South Africans have made unsubstantiated claims of reverse racism and genocide, which have been echoed by Trump.
Since taking office, Donald Trump’s administration has virtually shut down refugee admissions and blocked funding for resettlement groups, stranding thousands of people who were granted entry to the United States for humanitarian protections only to have those offers rescinded.
But the president has singled out one specific group of people who will be allowed entry into the United States and appear to be on a fast track to citizenship: white South Africans.
A group of 59 white South Africans admitted to the United States as “refugees” have been “essentially extended citizenship,” Trump said on Monday.
A group of South Africans are welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12 (Getty Images)
They were greeted by State Department officials on Monday after landing at Washington Dulles International Airport on a taxpayer-funded flight following their fast-tracked refugee vetting process under the administration’s radically reshaped admissions program.
The president claims white South Africans are victims of “genocide,” echoing a white supremacist conspiracy theory alleging immigration and forced assimilation threaten the existence of white people — a claim that has fueled racist hate and violence against minority groups as well as parallel conspiracy theories like the so-called “great replacement” theory.
Trump and his Republican allies have routinely amplified a bogus “great replacement” theory that claims Democratic officials are allowing immigrants into the country to manipulate elections. The idea is behind Trump’s anti-immigration agenda as well his executive orders and legislation in Congress taking aim at voter registration and election administration.
“When it comes to race and immigration issues, the Trump administration is about as subtle as an air raid,” America’s Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said in a statement to The Independent.
“While they single out white Afrikaners for special treatment and resettlement, they falsely slander Black and brown refugees and immigrants as dangerous threats and ‘invaders’ — including those who have been vetted with background checks — despite all of the statistical evidence to the contrary,” she added. “It’s inherently hypocritical and ugly, but unfortunately par for the course for this administration.”
The president has previously compared efforts from the South African government to combat racial inequalities from apartheid to anti-white discrimination, and South African officials have accused the administration of using claims from white Afrikaners to undermine the country’s genocide case against Israel now before the International Court of Justice.
White Afrikaners, descendants of Europeans who arrived in the country centuries ago, claim to have been denied jobs and become targets of violence for their race — claims that exploded with new legislation regulating property expropriation.
Viral misinformation claimed dozens of daily murders of white farmers. But it’s been estimated that roughly 50 farmers total, from all racial groups, were killed annually in a country that recorded more than 19,000 murders between January and September 2024.
Still, Trump announced in February he was cutting off funding to South Africa — most of which goes to efforts to combat HIV/AIDS — because the government was “confiscating land” and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”
Trump’s adviser Elon Musk — born to a wealthy family in Pretoria — called South Africa’s property law “openly racist” and accused a Black nationalist political party of “actively promoting white genocide.”
White farmers own roughly 70 percent of commercial farmland in the country despite white South Africans making up about 7 percent of the population. Fewer than 150 attacks involving farmers occurred during the entirety of 2023, according to the Afrikaaner political group AfriForum.
Trump claimed white South Africans are victims of ‘genocide’ as he defended his administration granting them refugee status while stripping refugee admissions for virtually all other groups (REUTERS)
Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration froze refugee admissions, blocking people fleeing famine and war from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Within just two days of Trump’s inauguration, resettlement groups were blindsided by the administration’s order to suspend all refugee entries and cancel all flights for incoming refugees — even for thousands of people who were already cleared for entry with U.S. sponsorships and support from families and aid groups.
In February, the administration also abruptly announced plans to terminate contracts with refugee resettlement and assistance groups 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the government to restore funding to aid organizations.
Brief messages from the State Department told refugee groups that their contracts were “terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive” from Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “alignment with agency priorities and the national interest.”
Other messages told aid groups that funding is “immediately terminated” because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” according to court filings and statements to The Independent.
Earlier this month, a federal court ordered the administration to put forward a plan for resettling roughly 12,000 refugees who had flights booked for the United States when Trump’s refugee ban was announced. The lead plaintiff in that case, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was approved for resettlement and scheduled to travel to the United States on January 22 with his wife and baby son.
“Refugee resettlement existed as a successful bipartisan humanitarian program for decades until President Trump suspended resettlement through a cruel and unlawful Executive Order on day one of his administration,” International Refugee Assistance Project senior supervising attorney Melissa Keaney said in a statement to The Independent.
“Refugees, including those who were already approved and scheduled to travel to the United States, had their dreams of a new beginning ripped from them, leaving them in an uncertain and unsafe limbo,” she added. “Admitting Afrikaners through a fast and efficient process while ignoring multiple court orders to process refugees who have been waiting for years to restart their lives in safety represents yet another attempt to politicize refugee resettlement by the Trump administration.”
The same day Trump announced the arrival of white South African refugees, the administration stripped temporary protected status for Afghans already in the United States, formally lifting a shield that protects them from being deported.
The administration argues that conditions in the Taliban-run country no longer merit protections for their stay in the United States.
Asked on Monday why white South Africans are the exception, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters that criteria for refugee admissions include whether they can be “assimilated easily into our country.”
“The president has recognized the dire situation for this particular group of people,” he said.
Tshishiku Henry, a former refugee and Washington State Delegate for the Refugee Congress, speaks during a rally outside a federal courthouse after a judge blocked Trump’s effort to halt the nation’s refugee admissions system in February (AP)
Asked why he carved out refugee admissions for a group of white South Africans while suspending resettlement for all other vulnerable groups, Trump told reporters: “Because they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people killed.”
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” he told reporters on Monday.
“Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they’re white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa,” according to Trump. “I don’t care who they are. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care about their race, their color, I don’t care about their height, their weight.”
Refugees typically cover the cost of their own travel to the United States through interest-free loans that must be paid back. But the State Department-chartered flight that brought a group of South Africans to the United States comes at taxpayers’ expense.
“Thousands of refugees have been thrust into limbo after clearing an extensive vetting process, including Afghan allies, religious minorities, and other families facing extreme persecution,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of national refugee settlement nonprofit group Global Refuge, said in a statement to The Independent.
“As we see the system restart, it’s imperative that the U.S. government act to welcome all refugees who meet longstanding legal standards, regardless of their nationality,” she said.
Extensive interviews with Benicia Mayor Steve Young and others
Benicia Mayor Steve Young drives by the Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia on May 8, 2025, which processes up to 170,000 barrels of oil a day, making gasoline, diesel and other fuels for California. The refinery accounts for nearly 20% of the city’s tax base, and its expected shutdown could have a catastrophic impact on the city’s financial health. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Benicia Mayor Steve Young poked at his shrimp Louie salad as he glanced wistfully out the window of a local seafood restaurant perched on the banks of an unusually serene stretch of the Carquinez Strait.
“I’ve had better months. Let’s put it that way,” he said.
Young, 73, looked grateful for the lunch break. He has been deep in damage control mode since last month, when Texas-based oil giant Valero, the city’s largest employer, announced plans to “idle, restructure or cease” operations at its Benicia refinery within a year.
In a recent earnings call, Valero CEO Lane Riggs cited California’s tough “regulatory and enforcement environment” as the main driver behind the company’s intent to close California’s sixth-largest refinery, accounting for about 9% of the state’s total production.
The refinery makes up nearly 20% of Benicia’s tax base, and shutting down the facility, which dominates much of the eastern side of this small, relatively affluent Solano County city, could have a catastrophic impact on the city’s financial well-being.
“We’re in a situation where we’re going to have $10 (million) to $12 million less than last year,” said Young, a tall, gray-haired man with a gravelly voice. “The hit on the community is going to be severe. My main job is to ease that transition as much as we can.”
Benicia is known as a “full-service city,” he said, “which means we do every conceivable municipal service there is.” That’s part of what makes this community of well-kept yards and century-old homes feel so safe and pleasant, with its abundance of parks, libraries and subsidized artists’ studios.
Benicia Mayor Steve Young sits in the City Hall offices in Benicia on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
But a decent portion of those amenities are funded, in part, by the property taxes Valero pays the city — leaving Young with the unenviable task of recommending which services to potentially cut, whether it’s the public pool, the summer concert series or even the dog poop bag dispensers in the parks.
“Anything we cut has a passionate base,” Young said, grimacing slightly in anticipation of the inevitable budgeting battles to come.
Shutting down the refinery, he added, would also be a major blow to the hundreds of residents who work there, not to mention the restaurants, hotels and businesses in the city’s industrial park that provide services to the facility and its workers, as well as the many local nonprofits that have long depended on Valero’s donations.
Valero didn’t respond to KQED’s multiple requests for comments for this story.
Young rose to local political prominence nearly a decade ago by pushing back against the company’s strong influence in a place many here consider a “refinery town.”
Months after Valero was hit with a record $82 million fine by air regulators, the company said it would ‘idle, restructure, or cease operations’ in Benicia by the end of April 2026. (Craig Miller/KQED)
In 2016, Young, a former local government administrator, stepped out of retirement to join the planning commission, where he successfully led the opposition against the company’s proposal to start bringing in crude oil by rail.
At the time, Valero was accustomed to being “the big dog in town,” and expected the City Council to rubber stamp the proposal, much like it had for many of the company’s other requests, Young said.
“They had been joined at the hip,” he said. “Valero was used to having things slide through.”
So it came as a shock to the company when the City Council voted down the proposal, citing major public safety and congestion concerns about having a constant flow of trains bringing volatile materials through town.
“That was a big deal. It kind of set the tone,” said Young, who went on to win a seat on the Council later that year. He successfully ran for mayor in 2020, despite intense opposition from Valero, which spent some $250,000 in attack ads and campaign mailers opposing him.
Two years later, voters elected two additional candidates to the five-member Council — Kari Birdseye and Terry Scott — who, like Young, pledged to stand up to Valero when its actions compromised public safety.
The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, on May 8, 2025, processes up to 170,000 barrels of oil a day, making gasoline, diesel and other fuels for California. Valero plans to shut down the Benicia refinery by April 2026, citing high costs and strict environmental rules. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
But Young and his allies now find themselves in the awkward position of beseeching the very company they’ve challenged to stick around — at least for a few more years — to buy the city more time to prepare.
“We need to get moving on this quickly, because 12 months is not a long time given the severity of the economic impact,” Young said, acknowledging that his bargaining chips are limited.
One option, he said, is appealing directly to the state to ease some of the regulations that Valero finds so burdensome. Young appreciates California’s efforts to address climate change, but he questions the practicality of the current approach, especially when it results in frontline communities like his losing their refineries and being forced to suddenly fend for themselves.
“I understand these are necessary steps going forward,” he said. “But the state passes many laws without any consequence or understanding of how they’re going to be implemented and who’s going to have to pay for it. That’s, I think, part of my frustration as a local official.”
Young said he intends to make the case that closing the refinery could pose a national security threat, as it’s currently the sole provider of jet fuel to nearby Travis Air Force Base, which is delivered via a direct pipeline.
“If that is stopped, what does that mean to the base?” Young said. “Travis uses an amazing amount of fuel to fly all their planes, much more than can be easily replaced and certainly not replaced within a year. So I think that this becomes a matter of real concern to the defense department.”
There’s also a possibility that the 900 total acres of land Valero owns, which has unobstructed views of the scenic bluffs and straits that funnel into the mouth of the Sacramento Delta, could be redeveloped into housing and commercial property. Oakland-based Signature Development Group recently announced it was in talks with the company.
Doing so, however, would require a costly remediation effort — one Valero is legally required to do — that would likely take a decade to complete before any development takes place, Young said.
“This would be a good long-term development — to have an outside entity pressing Valero to do the remediation,” Young said. “But in the meantime, we’re not going to have any money at all coming in.”
The city may ultimately need to ask for another tax increase, Young said — a request he believes voters in the city, many of whom have lived here for decades and pay low property taxes, will approve.
A mural depicts downtown Benicia in the city on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“It may come down to that,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to cut our way to $10 (million) or $12 million and maintain any level of similar services.”
Downtown Benicia has a quaint, small-town feel that belies its proximity to San Francisco, less than 40 miles south. Drivers turning off Interstate 780 are greeted by a sign for an American Legion rib cookoff before passing a large white gazebo in a small park on the edge of downtown. The main drag is filled with restaurants, cafes and galleries.
A monument in a nearby park reminds visitors that Benicia was once the state capital — though only for a year, in 1853.
From many vantage points in this charming city of some 27,000 residents on the outer edge of the Bay Area, it’s easy to forget the refinery is there at all, its stacks, holding tanks and billowing steam hidden from view.
Valero, which has operated the nearly 60-year-old Benicia refinery since buying it from Exxon in 2000, dropped its bombshell announcement on April 16, roughly six months after regional and state air regulators fined the company a record $82 million for secretly exceeding toxic emissions standards for more than 15 years.
Last month, city leaders unanimously approved modest rules to increase their oversight of the refinery, despite staunch opposition from the company.
“ If you keep poking that golden goose, one day it’s going to fly away,” Mark Hughes, a former council member, said during a packed Council meeting in March ahead of the vote. “And that’s not a threat, that’s not any inside information I have about Valero. It’s just the likely outcome of a company that constantly feels that it’s being pushed away.”
The timing of Valero’s closure announcement, less than two weeks later, sparked speculation that the industrial safety ordinance was the final straw for the company.
Attorney Terry Mollica stands outside his home in Benicia on May 8, 2025, near the Valero Benicia Refinery. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
According to Terry Mollica, who helped lead a group of residents that pushed for the city’s new safety rules, the ordinance is a significantly watered-down version of the original. It merely requires the company to conduct internal reviews following safety incidents and disclose findings to the city, which can then request upgrades if public safety is at risk.
“The ISO, at least the version that was adopted, couldn’t possibly require them to do that much that they would close down a $1.2 billion facility,” he said. “Now, it’s possible that that was part of the reason, but that scenario only makes sense if there was something very seriously wrong with the refinery that they didn’t want disclosed.”
There are serious risks that come from living with a refinery in your backyard, Mollica said, noting the exposure to toxic emissions.
“It’s a great little town and a great little community, and we love living here. But that is the one negative about being here,” he said.
That risk was underscored last week when a major fire ignited at the facility after part of a furnace stack broke off and struck other equipment in a gasoline production area, according to the company’s incident report. The fire sent black plumes of smoke into the air and prompted a brief shelter-in-place order for surrounding neighborhoods.
Attorney Terry Mollica holds a photo on his phone at his home in Benicia on May 8, 2025, of a flare at the Valero Benicia Refinery seen from his neighborhood. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
The incident followed a multi-day blaze in January at PBF Energy’s Martinez Refining Co., just across the strait.
“I spend a lot of time in the garden, and when these incidents occur, you’re not allowed to go outside. You just don’t know what you’re being exposed to. The history of it has been bad.”
But Danny Bernardini, business manager of the Napa-Solano Building & Construction Trades Council — a group of 15 unions that represent hundreds of boilermakers, laborers, plumbers and steamfitters, many of whom work intermittently at the refinery — thinks the company grew weary of the regulations “pile-on.”
“California is the toughest place to have a refinery. And so at some point they have to say, ‘Does this make business sense for us to stay in California or not?’” Bernardini said. “And I think their announcement was them saying, ‘We can’t do business like this.’”
The facility’s likely closure comes amid a growing exodus of traditional oil refiners in California, raising serious concerns about potential gas shortages and rising prices at the pump.
Apprentices work on a project at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. The training center teaches apprentices to install and maintain insulation systems that conserve energy and protect equipment, skills that are essential for safe and efficient operations in refineries and other industrial facilities. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Phillips 66’s refinery in Rodeo and Marathon’s facility in Martinez both recently converted operations to biofuel production. Phillips 66 also plans to close its Los Angeles-area refinery — the seventh largest in the state — later this year. And Valero executives recently hinted they may soon consider “strategic alternatives” for the company’s only other California refinery located near Los Angeles.
“Until there’s an alternative to refineries, we need to keep them,” Bernardini said. “And yes, they need to be safe. They need to not pollute. They need not have incidents. But at the same time, they’re a necessary thing right now because everybody drives in a car.”
He said the workers in his unions are highly skilled technicians who have relied on consistent jobs at the Valero refinery, but many of their skills don’t transfer to other industries.
“Refinery work is very specific to their trade,” he said.
That specialization is on full display at the Heat & Frost Insulators Local 16 apprenticeship facility in Benicia, just down the road from the refinery’s towering stacks.
Coordinator Jonathan Blaine stands in the workshop at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“For any pipe, duct or vessel that has to maintain a specific temperature, we’re going to insulate those to stay that temperature within the pipe,” said Jonathan Blaine, the apprenticeship coordinator, as about a dozen apprentices practiced on piping models in the classroom.
Apprentices, he said, have to train for 8,000 hours before contractors can hire them. It’s difficult, sometimes dangerous work, but it pays upward of $80 an hour.
“Everybody says, ‘Hey, you need to go to college. That’s the only way that you can afford to live.’ And then you find out about the union building trades,” he said. “It offers a really good career path. You just have to work hard for it.”
But much of that is dependent on the refineries staying open.
“There’s a lot of man-hours that are worked in refineries throughout the year,” he said. “There’s been a lot of questions, and at this point, we don’t really know exactly what’s going to happen.”
Christian Ochoa, an apprentice from Fairfield specializing in installation, said he chose the career path because it would allow him to provide for his two kids and “live a comfortable life” without having to hold down multiple jobs.
Tyler Fleming (left) and Levi Humphries, both 5th-year apprentices, work on a project at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Ochoa said he’s confident he’ll still be able to find work at power plants and other industrial facilities if the refinery closes. But he said the news is still disheartening.
“I can see this whole town collapsing, man. A lot of people from around this area work there,” he said. “Less work for us.”
Young is more optimistic, despite the severe budget shortfall that the city will likely soon be forced to confront. If Valero skips town, there will no doubt be some short-term pain, he acknowledged. But that may be worth the price of no longer having to live in the shadow of a refinery.
Losing the refinery would force Benicia to diversify its economy, which “would certainly be a healthier thing for the city,” Young said.
“We have the highest rate of asthma and the highest rate of cancer in Solano County, which is not something that you would typically expect in a city that also has the highest income and the highest education levels,” he said. “So I think from a health perspective, we would be better off.”
May 5 – The fire comes just weeks after Valero executives announced they were considering closing the sprawling refinery by next April. (Including quotes by Larnie Fox and Pat Toth-Smith of Benicia.)
Benicia Contends With Valero Refinery Closure
We talk about the possible closure of the Benicia Valero refinery and what it means for our region. (Guests include Benicia Mayor Steve Young)
‘Shocking News’: Valero Announces Plans to End Operations at Benicia Refinery
Apr 21 – Last week, the oil giant Valero announced that it will “idle, restructure, or cease operations” at its Benicia refinery that employs more than 400 workers. (Including comments of Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye.)
Oil Giant Valero Looks to Shutter Troubled Bay Area Refinery. It’s ‘a Big Surprise’
Months after Valero was hit with a record $82 million fine by air regulators, the company said it would ‘idle, restructure, or cease operations’ in Benicia by the end of April 2026. (Quotes by Benicia Mayor Steve Young and Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye.)
Benicia City Council gives preliminary approval to an ordinance that could create a citizen’s oversight panel and allow the city to issue fines for safety and air-quality violations. (Quotes by Benicia attorney-activist Terry Mollica, Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye and several other Benicians.)
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