Benicia CA, California Energy Commission, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Just transition, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Energy Corporation

Benicia’s Marilyn Bardet: ‘The state has its tail between its legs, wagging, suckered into deal-making with an oil giant.’

The Benicia Independent, by Marilyn Bardet, September 12, 2025

VALERO BENICIA REFINERY TO CLOSE? – BACK ROOM PRIVATE NEGOTIATIONS

On April 15th, Valero Energy Corp stunned our city making their “surprise” well-orchestrated announcement to the California Energy Commission [CEC] saying they intended to”idle, restructure or cease operations” at their Benicia refinery by next April. Evidently, the state was caught off guard, ill prepared for a second refinery closure, just after Phillips 66’s Wilmington refinery had announced last year that they’d be closing this year, (in fact, that closure is in progress).

Marilyn Bardet

So, I speculate in the dark, wondering about the state’s backroom private negotiations with the largest refiner in the USA whose profits please its investors. It’s well documented that Big Oil despises California’s extensive environmental regulations that they say impede doing business in this state. Valero tried to blame a restrictive regulatory environment including the City’s adoption of our Industrial Safety Ordinance for its reasons to opt out of refining in Benicia.

JUST A BARGAINING THREAT

But wait. Think about Valero’s position in negotiations. The law requiring refineries to report to the California Energy Commission [CEC] a year in advance of any proposed major change like closure gave Valero in particular a real advantage—a year after P66’s refinery closure that by itself wouldn’t strain the state’s gasoline supply. But if they were to threaten to end production in Benicia?

Surely Valero Corp knew the stats: stopping production at Benicia would cause a significant, though not bottomless, tanking of the state’s gasoline supply, such that consumers’ demand, while trending downward, could not be met without threatening the state’s economy: skyrocketing prices at the gas pumps, long lines for gas, empty stations—just what the all-powerful oil lobby, WSPA (“Whispa”– Western States Petroleum Association) wants us to understand.

Getting into negotiating position, Valero could demand capitulations on regulatory policy, and finesse a financial windfall to stay in business in California— with long-range implications for other oil giants’ maneuverings.

NEWSOM AND THE CEC FALLING FOR IT

After all, Valero Corp knew the governor would be very worried for his own political future as well as the state’s. He would have only four months to come up with tangible results before the end of the 2025 legislative session, which ends today, Sept 12. Newsom had quickly done his own gasoline-supply gap-math homework, and asked the CEC to advise about how to stabilize the state’s “petroleum market economy”. The CEC scrambled together an insider group of stakeholders, including environmental orgs, Benicia’s city manager, and industry reps, to put together recommendations to achieve “balance between available supply and current demand”. As it evidently turned out, the recommendations made public pivoted around the concessions that could be made to Valero to entice them to stay in business in Benicia.

In my view, Valero holds all the cards, keeping its 3 options open with no official mention of “closure”. So far, there’s no final resolution to adopt a budget that would have to incorporate the extraordinary expense of the Valero/state deal—what California tax dollars in the tens of millions will be paying so that prices at the pump will be stabilized.

IT’S ALL ABOUT A ‘JUST TRANSITION’

Think how Big Oil thinks: Valero knew their plays from the get-go: they knew the state has yet to pass “just transition” legislation; AND, the state has made clear it can’t (politically) afford to have any gap in the gas supply chain. . .

Whoever does the negotiating for the state, their hands are tied: the state had yet to adopt any clear, fair plans, policy guidance and requirements for closing refineries, for example, for ensuring thorough cleanups with full costs to be borne by the industry as Responsible Party. Right now, there are no such protections in place as called for by major environmental orgs who have worked hard to get the state to listen. The state has its tail between its legs, wagging, suckered into deal-making with an oil giant.

What does “just transitioning” mean to the Governor? What it should mean—and does mean to us—is adoption of concrete regulatory policy for moving away from fossil fuel extraction and production within the state; for health and safety protections for fenceline communities; for maintaining CEQA—the California Environmental Quality Act, the only defense of citizens’ right, within their jurisdictions, to be informed and comment on large-scale development proposals; compensating cities for fiscal and physical impacts of a refinery closure; for worker retraining within the energy sector; for the ultimate goal, namely, protecting the climate from catastrophic runaway global warming.

Big Oil very easily gambles, playing their extortionist game. Very Big Bucks will be siphoned out of state coffers to pay Valero what it considers its due as the poor victim of state regs, now under threat of evisceration by backroom deal concessions.

[See ‘California in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Valero to Stave Off Refinery Shutdown‘]

This is very ugly backroom politics indeed. What will be the time limit set for Valero’s “phase out” to closure—three years? Or…. ten? Or, will the state find another operator? And what kind of deal would that call for?

CITIZENS UNHEARD IN THE HEARING

This is what some of us from Benicia needed to hear about at the Aug 20th Assembly Oversight Committee hearing on “Transportation Fuels Transition Plan”. We needed to learn details of the state’s aim to keep the Benicia refinery operating and to voice our concerns for our own city and about state’s strategies to ensure a sufficient gas supply. There were 3-1/2 hours of presentations, mainly by the CEC, with Q&A. Benicia Mayor Young spoke for 10 minutes, speaking about the City’s estimated $8-$12 million loss of revenue should the refinery close, thus indicating his primary fear. Why was there no recommendation by the CEC to incentivize “demand destruction”— transport electrification? etc etc.

It was 5:15 p.m. by the time the public got to speak; there were only a handful of Assembly members or CEC staff left in the room. Over 40 people had lined up to testify, each given 1 minute to speak. Some had come up from Kern County to oppose more drilling near their neighborhoods. The day’s performance seemed like window dressing, all for show, with most of the assembled minds having been already made up, not apparently caring much about the fallout of negotiations for fenceline communities’ future health and safety, or how the state will ever meet its lofty climate goals.

Marilyn Bardet
Good Neighbor Steering Committee
BCAMP Board Member
BISHO Working Group
Valero Community Advisory Panel

See also:
Benicia CA, CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Energy Commission, California legislature, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Energy Corporation

California in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Valero to Stave Off Refinery Shutdown

Legislators discuss giving Valero millions to stay in Benicia

Bloomberg, September 9, 2025

California legislators are considering giving Valero Energy Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars to cover refinery maintenance costs in a bid to prevent the closure of a San Francisco-area fuel plant.

Under such a deal, the state would pay Valero to continue operating its Benicia refinery, according to people familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. The plant is slated to close by April, the latest in a string of recent California fuel-plant shutdowns.

Between $80 million and $200 million of state funds would likely be earmarked for routine maintenance work, although the terms of the arrangement could be subject to change, the people said. Maintenance is one of the biggest operating costs for refiners and the expense of major overhauls typically performed every four or five years can be a catalyst for closure. Discussions with lawmakers over keeping the Valero facility open were held as recently as this past weekend. Absent a deadline extension, legislators have until late Tuesday to submit bills for consideration.

Valero shares briefly dropped on news of the talks but have since recovered and were up 2.8% to $161.77 at 1:10 p.m. in New York, making it the day’s best-performing oil stock in the S&P 500.

Valero didn’t respond to requests for comment. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office declined to comment while representatives for state senate and assembly leaders didn’t respond to inquiries.

Newsom has in recent months taken a new tack with refiners and encouraged regulators to work with the industry to maintain fuel supplies in a state that often has the nation’s highest gasoline prices. The California Energy Commission has since walked back plans to impose a profit cap on refiners, a key factor in spurring recent plant closures.

Antioch CA, Benicia CA, CACTI, Co2 waste, Collinsville CA, Martinez CA, Montezuma LLC, Richmond CA

VIDEO! Call to Action by Benicia’s Kathy Kerridge and other Solano speakers

STOP the Montezuma Carbon Hub – NO CO2 PIPELINES IN THE BAY!


Video by Constance Beutel, Sep 9, 2025

Communities Against Carbon Transport and Injection – CACTI

On September 9, 2025, CACTI was launched. Montezuma LLC is proposing to inject carbon dioxide waste underground near the Montezuma Wetlands in Solano County. Known as the Montezuma Carbon Hub, the project would involve capturing CO2 from Bay Area refineries and power plants, transporting it via underwater pipeline or boat, and injecting it near a site of sensitive ecological restoration.

The pipeline network and injection site would be developed near Bay Area communities like Martinez, Benicia, Antioch, Richmond, and Collinsville. Carbon waste dumping projects like this one threaten the health and safety of local residents, especially because CO2 pipelines are dangerous and underregulated. Pipeline leaks can cause suffocation or even death to people and wildlife.

Video chapters:

LEARN MORE… about the proposed carbon dioxide waste dump near Solano County’s Montezuma Wetlands at cacticoalition.org.

Israel, Jewish diaspora, October 7

Traumatic invalidation in the Jewish community after October 7

‘Traumatic invalidation piles on to the epigenetic and generational trauma that Jews have…’

Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 1-28-2025, by Miri Bar-Halperna, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and Jaclyn Wolfman,  Village Psychology, Belmont, MA
Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License.
[NOTE that linked references in the following Benicia Independent text do not work. For linked references, see the original article in the Journal.]

Abstract
The October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization triggered profound trauma within the Jewish community, not only stemming from the events themselves but also from the response of others in the aftermath. Rather than being met with compassion and care, many individuals instead encountered emotional neglect, criticism, blame, and even outright denial of their pain. These responses occurred on individual, institutional, and societal levels. Drawing from Harned’s (2022) conceptualization of traumatic invalidation, this paper applies this framework to understand the psychological impact of the rise in antisemitism on the Jewish community. Traumatic invalidation, as defined by Linehan (2015), involves chronic or extreme denial of an individual’s significant private experiences, characteristics, or reactions, often by influential figures or groups upon whom the individual relies. Such invalidation can result in profound shifts in self-perception, emotional regulation, and worldview. This paper aims to shed light on the dynamics of traumatic invalidation within the Jewish community post October 7, provide recommendations for trauma-informed and culturally sensitive interventions, and discuss implications for future research.

Keywords
Traumatic invalidation, Jewish community, culturally sensitive therapy, trauma therapy, intergenerational trauma, minority trauma, war and terrorism, Antisemitism

Invalidating behaviors can take many forms but share a common feature of attacking the person’s sense of self and personal validity by communicating that they are bad, wrong, unacceptable, and unwanted. – Melanie Harned, Treating Trauma in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (2022)

As trauma therapists, our thoughts quickly turned to our clients and how they would be impacted after October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists murdered over 1,200 civilians in Israel and kidnapped 240 more. The terrorists slaughtered entire families, raped women, murdered babies and the elderly, and as of this writing continue to hold men, women, and children hostage in Gaza. This was the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas, which has led to destruction, death, and a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip (AFP & Times of Israel staff, 2023; Boxerman, 2023; Liebermann, 2023; Vinograd & Kershner, 2023).

Jewish communities around the world were grief-stricken, outraged, heartbroken, and afraid (Russell et al., 2023). It was the deadliest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust (Lee & Madhani, 2023). Some of our clients were mourning loved ones and some were hearing about friends of friends who were kidnapped, murdered, or survived. Some were seeing the young people in their families go off to war. Many who considered Israel to be the one place in the world where they could live safely had that belief shaken. Jews all over the world were reminded of the traumas of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (Abrams & Armeni, 2023).

What we found was that in addition to their responses to the clearly traumatic events of murder, rape, and kidnapping, our Jewish clients—and our Jewish colleagues—were talking about something else distressing that was happening that was sometimes difficult to name and understand. It had to do with the reactions after October 7 from friends, colleagues, and larger organizations. Rather than being met with compassion and care, many were instead met with a stunning mix of silence, blaming, excluding, and even outright denying the atrocities of October 7 along with any emotional pain stemming from them.

In trauma therapy, there is a term for this type of response from others-traumatic invalidation. “Traumatic invalidation is extreme or repetitive invalidation of individuals’ significant private experiences, characteristics identified as important aspects of themselves, or reactions to themselves or to the world … .Typically, traumatic invalidation comes from a very important person, group, or authority” and “leads to psychological exclusion or perception of the individual as an outsider” (Linehan, 2015, p. 304). According to Bohus et al. (2013), traumatic invalidation is a social trauma that can create an existential crisis, since human beings cannot survive without our group. This means that when someone is threatened with being rejected by the group, they might feel that it is a life and death situation. Social invalidation then means that the basic principle of social survival is questioned.

While minor forms of invalidation occur frequently within relationships and can usually be coped with adaptively, when invalidation is extreme and/or chronic, it can be a risk factor for the development of problems in emotional, interpersonal, and behavioral domains. Specifically, invalidation is a risk factor for emotion dysregulation, anxiety, depression, and interpersonal sensitivity and dysfunction (Selby et al., 2008; Yap et al., 2008). In some situations, the psychological consequences of chronic traumatic invalidation can be very painful and long-lasting. In fact, individuals who experience traumatic invalidation may develop symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTSD), including intrusion symptoms, avoidance, changes in cognition and mood, dissociation, and changes in emotional arousal and behavioral reactivity (Hong & Lishner, 2016; Hong et al., 2011; Ullman & Filipas, 2001). Research indicates that traumatic invalidation, such as emotional or psychological abuse, can have just as much—or even more—of a negative impact on mental health as other events that do meet the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for a traumatic event such as threat of death or serious injury (American Psychiatric Association, 2022; Mechanic et al., 2008; Spinazzola et al., 2014).

Furthermore, minority stressors, such as prejudice, discrimination, and rejection related to one’s identity, can be conceptualized not only as an invalidation of that individual’s social characteristics but also as an invalidation of their social and material needs. Research has demonstrated that minority stress may increase the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other emotional disorders (Cardona et al., 2022; Jeevanba et al., 2024; Pieterse et al., 2010; Sibrava et al., 2019). Harned (2022) discussed the different sources of identity-based traumatic invalidation such as family of origin, important relationships (peers, partners, coworkers), institutions (school, healthcare systems), and culture (systemic racism, media). Harned (2022) further noted that identity-based traumatic invalidation can be a single event (direct experience such as getting called a dirty Zionist or someone tearing down your mezuzah, a parchment inscribed with religious texts and attached in a case to the doorpost of a Jewish house as a sign of faith, from your dorm room), vicarious exposure (hearing about or witnessing acts of antisemitism toward other people), and cumulative direct exposure (microaggressions, being excluded at work/school, and regularly being discriminated against).

Jewish people are 0.2% of the world population (Jewish Agency for Israel, 2023) and have suffered from ongoing hate crimes and discrimination for generations (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.). While traumatic invalidation related to antisemitism has been happening long before October 7, we focus on these experiences due to the surge in antisemitic incidents that continue to impact the Jewish community following October 7. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a 140% increase in antisemitism cases in the USA from 2022 to 2023 with a massive spike after October 7 (Anti-Defamation League, 2024a).

In this paper, we are going to apply the traumatic invalidation framework as described by Melanie Harned (2022) to Jewish experiences since October 7. Harned applied the concept of traumatic invalidation to experiences of discrimination in racial and ethnic minorities but did not mention Jewish experiences specifically. We aim to introduce a conceptualization of Jewish-based traumatic invalidation and discuss related treatment implications and recommendations for future research.

…This excellent study is CONTINUED, WITH LINKS AND FOOTNOTES… in JOURNAL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT