Tag Archives: Benicia CA

The council supported passing an industrial safety ordinance, despite concerns about legal challenges from Valero.

The Valero Benicia refinery. Photo by Scott Morris.

By Natalie Hanson, The Vallejo Sun, Feb 06, 2025

BENICIA – Benicia officials expressed support for an ordinance that would regulate businesses like the Valero Refinery at a meeting Tuesday, despite concerns about possible legal challenges from Valero.

The latest draft of a proposed Industrial Health and Safety Ordinance that would monitor and audit “high hazard facilities” like the refinery was presented to Benicia City Council on Tuesday night.

Numerous public commenters expressed strong support for the ordinance, which the council expects to take up for a vote in a few weeks. The council made a few last tweaks to the ordinance that has been developed over more than a year.

Councilmember Kari Birdseye suggested that city staff make two revisions: to mention all agencies by name that the ordinance might affect, and add language requiring transparency of how much the city has paid using collected fines from all relevant businesses. Staff will bring the ordinance back at a future meeting.

While Valero was the major concern, the ordinance would apply to at least 12 facilities in the city, such as Interstate Batteries at 535 Getty Court and the Benicia Water Treatment Plant at 100 Water Way.

Public interest in better regulating Valero was particularly pronounced on the heels of an incident Saturday at the Martinez refinery in Contra Costa County, which is about 7 miles from Benicia. A hydrocarbon material leak at the Martinez Refining Company caused a fire that injured six people and triggered a health advisory.

However, Mayor Steve Young said he doesn’t consider Valero worse than other large oil refineries in the Bay Area.

“There are worse operators than Valero, as we just saw across the river,” Young said, referring to the Martinez Refining Company. “They are not the enemy, and they are not bad operators, but they obviously have some safety issues that we are trying to address.”

Benicia fire Chief Josh Chadwick said in a report to the council Tuesday that Benicia, as the only Bay Area city without an industrial safety ordinance, needs a program to better audit businesses producing potential health risks to nearby communities.

Chadwick said that recent incidents at “high-hazard facilities” showed the need for additional oversight. “Especially given what happened over the last weekend, it’s really essential for the public to understand that no regulation is going to completely eliminate the risk of industrial incidents,” Chadwick said.

The ordinance’s third draft specifically requires that, following an incident at one of these facilities, the city may audit and inspect the site, and the company must issue an Incident Notification Report within 72 hours. The city would then be able to publish the final investigation report on its website, with the ability to issue consequences such as fines or other penalties if a business refuses to comply.

But enacting the ordinance may jeopardize a revenue source for the cash-strapped city. Under a voluntary cooperation agreement, Valero currently pays $331,320 annually to the city. Under the new ordinance, that agreement would be moot, requiring an independent consultant to help the city create a new fee schedule. And Valero will likely sue over the ordinance if passed, Young said, which is why he’s concerned about passing it without an agreement in hand.

Councilmember Lionel Largaespada said he believes the city is entitled to strong regulations over industries working within its limits, but he advocated for tightening its language to be very specific about businesses and fees collected from them.

“Wherever we can be crystal clear about something, I think it only makes this ordinance better,” he said.

Councilmember Terry Scott disagreed, saying the city has spent more than a year on the ordinance draft and Valero has already responded to it in “a fairly threatening manner.”

“Local control matters. Many times we’ve asked them, ‘Come to the table,’” Scott said. “I think we can give them the opportunity in the next several weeks to send us another letter. Why do we have to go to them and establish another session to review the document with them?”

Birdseye also disagreed over whether to allow Valero to sit in on the independent auditing authority as a business owner given the potential conflict of interest. She opposed allowing Valero to have any influence, saying, “It is the fox in the henhouse.”

Benicia officials have already heard lots of feedback from the public about the matter, including from 178 people who responded to surveys between March 25 and May 19. Many people turned out Tuesday night, speaking for more than an hour, with most pleading with the city to pass the new version of the ordinance.

Some mentioned the potential for cancer and other health impacts which could result from toxic gas releases, while others pointed out how much stronger a safety ordinance can make local authorities seeking to protect and notify people as quickly as possible.

“This has been an issue that’s so important to Benicia,” resident Kathy Bennett said.

She added that the Martinez incident Saturday reflected the importance of having a safety ordinance in place.

“Because of there being an ISO in place in Contra Costa County, it did improve prevention and protection and responses, notifications and advisories to the community,” Bennett said. “And as we’ve also seen in the recent Los Angeles fires, an entire community can be destroyed in a single horrific event.”

“The big elephant in the room is Valero,” resident Diana Smith said. “But it’s been brought up that you have at least 12 facilities here that need that oversight. And Valero likes to come along and threaten us. How many millions of dollars would it take … to clean up that refinery?”

It is not yet clear when staff will bring the revised ordinance back to the council for a vote.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that no vote was scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting, which was for informational purposes and to correct Diana Smith’s name. 

Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO), Stephen Golub

Proud to Be a Benician: Our Community Comes Together, Birdseye Hits a Bullseye, and Great Scott!

February 13, 2025 Roger Straw

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, Feb 9, 2025

*Stephen Golub, A Promised Land – America as a Developing Country*

This past Tuesday’s City Council meeting considered for the first time a nearly final draft of an industrial safety ordinance (ISO) that will help protect our city against toxic emissions, fires and explosions from hazardous facilities here, particularly but not only the Valero refinery.

I’ve never been so proud to be a Benician. I’d guess 80-90 people packed the Council Chambers at City Hall, with about 29 others Zooming in. The large majority comprised folks whom I’d never seen or heard speak up on this issue. The entire crowd seemed to support the unanimous pro-ISO consensus among the 30-plus speakers who ranged from expert engineers to laypersons with kids to protect.

One such engineer, a Valero retiree, didn’t doubt refinery employees’ personal commitments to safety, but pointed out that refinery management is under extraordinary pressure to reduce costs. He emphasized that the ISO could actually help the current refinery engineers maintain safety. (I’ll again state my respect and affection for our Valero-employed friends and neighbors in Benicia, and distinguish them from the huge Texas-based corporation that owns the refinery and calls the shots.)

A parent who attended the meeting with his (I assume) wife and toddler, chimed in to favor the ordinance. Several persons prefaced their remarks by saying “I didn’t intend to speak,” then went on to describe their concerns and support. At least one speaker pointed out that if Valero had an accident like last weekend’s huge Martinez fire and if the wind were blowing the wrong way, our entire town could have been endangered.

All in all, our community came together in numbers and passion spread across a spectrum of perspectives, but united in an unprecedented way in support for the ISO.

Valero representatives did not attend the meeting.

The big news emerging from the meeting is that Mayor Steve Young declared his backing for the ISO for the first time. Vice Mayor Trevor Macenski and Council Member Lionel Largaespada hinted at similar support; Largaespada, whose election campaigns Valero had indirectly backed through political action committees in the past, voiced a belief in strong industrial regulation and oversight.

Kudos to Young for his endorsement of the measure; this would seem to ensure a Council majority for passage, though not counting our chickens before they hatch comes to mind. Let’s hope Macenski and Largaespada join him.

Speaking of kudos: pro-ISO Council Members Kari Birdseye and Terry Scott, who along with Fire Chief Josh Chadwick and other City staff had worked tirelessly to on the ISO for over a year, played particularly powerful roles in the Council meeting’s deliberations.

Birdseye hit the bullseye in a number of illuminating exchanges with fellow Council members. For instance, when Largaespada suggested instructing City staff to review certain administrative and other details (which could in effect delay a final vote on the ISO indefinitely), she pointed out that tremendous work had already gone into thrashing out details in the document and that it was time to move ahead. (As a former New York City government management analyst and international development policy analyst, I couldn’t agree more; you can work forever on tweaking a document and never reach closure.)

Birdseye similarly pushed back successfully and forcefully when it was suggested that the Council approve formal ex officio (non-voting) membership on the ISO’s citizen Oversight Commission for Valero or other regulated businesses. As she asserted, we don’t want “the fox in the henhouse.”

Scott had his own “Great Scott!” moments. Young suggested that Valero be consulted yet again to ascertain whether the ISO could be altered to address its concerns. In response, Scott pointed out the many, many times that the City had sought constructive Valero input over the course of over a year of ISO preparation, only to be met repeatedly by dozens of pages of legalistic criticism and unhelpful feedback. He also noted that Valero had not even attended Tuesday’s Council meeting.

There are miles to ago and at least two additional Council meetings to hold before it finally votes on the ISO – which, it should be noted, is the kind of ordinance every other Bay Area refinery community has. Lots could go wrong, but so much could go right. I’ll save that for another day.

For today, I’ll just say that if Texas-based Valero seeks to block the ISO, it will be taking on not just a city but a very motivated community. Last Tuesday’s Council meeting proved that.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

#BBLM, #BlackLivesMatter, Anti-racism, Benicia Black Lives Matter, Benicia CA, Police misconduct, Police reform, Racism

Confronting Benicia PD’s Bias: Black Community Stopped Almost 6x More Often than White

September 17, 2024 BenIndy

Breaking Down Benicia Police Stops

Benicia Police Department officers were 5.7 times more likely to stop Black people than white people based on stops per 10,000 residents. Officers stopped people 4,283 times in 2023.

SF Chronicle, by Emma Stiefe, September 16, 2024

Passed in 2015, the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) required California police agencies to submit detailed data on every stop their officers made to the California Department of Justice. The law was intended to end identity-based profiling. It also created the RIPA board, which releases an annual report analyzing the data law enforcement agencies submit.

RIPA requires law enforcement officers to document information on every person they stop, including the individual’s race, gender and other identity attributes. Because the data is based on officers’ perceptions, this demographic data may not reflect how a person actually identifies. The data includes all stops officers make, such as traffic stops (the majority) and pedestrian stops.

The Benicia Police Department has reported this detailed data to the state since 2022. The data below reveals significant disparities in stop rates and, crucially, in whether the stops lead to an enforcement action like an arrest. These differences have fueled a growing debate over whether to end a police practice known as pretextual stops, in which officers use relatively minor infractions — often traffic violations — to probe for guns, drugs and other larger crimes.

Racial disparities in traffic stops are likely the result of many factors, including differences across groups in driving frequency and behavior, the level of police presence in that group’s community, and racial profiling. The degree to which racial profiling causes disparities in stops is disputed, though most research suggests bias plays some role. In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, 44% of Black adults said they believed they had been unfairly stopped by police because of their race.

Benicia CA, Price gouging, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Energy Corporation

In Q3 2023, Valero raked in 70% more per gallon in California than in any other region

January 7, 2024 BenIndy

[Note from BenIndy: Today, we came across an article claiming that Valero commanded higher profits in California compared to other regions – in the third-quarter of 2023, at the very least. After looking for other articles from Q3 referencing Valero’s higher refining margins in California, we learned that Valero reported gross refining margins of 78 cents per gallon on the West Coast, vs. “41 cents for the Gulf Coast, 49 cents for the U.S. Mid-Continent, and 48 cents for the North Atlantic.” Consumer Watchdog, by the way, suggests that 50 cents is the ‘red line marker’ for price-gouging. Wow. While it’s a little old, the best analysis of the price-gouging allegations levied against Valero and other refining giants comes from this October 2023 Daily Kos post. The images in this post were added by BenIndy are are not original to the Daily Kos post.]

Valero Posts $2.6 Billion 3rd Quarter Profit On CA Gasoline Margins 70% Greater Than Other Regions

Image generated by DALL·E, OpenAI’s AI-driven image creation tool. Please note that this image’s text is gibberish and not connected to reality, a known flaw in AI image generators, but the big “78 cents” referencing Valero’s refining margins in Q3 2023 is certainly correct.

Daily Kos, by Dan Bacher, October 26, 2023

Los Angeles, CA—The third quarter report to shareholders by Valero Energy Corporation shows it made 70% more per gallon in California than in any other region of the U.S. or the globe that it operates in, according to a report from Consumer Watchdog today.

Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, the corporation operates 15 refineries in the U.S., Canada and U.K.

Consumer Watchdog called for the California Energy Commission to expedite the process for setting a price gouging penalty under a new law passed this year, SBx1 2.

“It is time for the California Energy Commission to put its foot on the gas and set a price-gouging penalty on big refiners ripping us off at the pump,” said Consumer Advocate Liza Tucker. “It is time for the state to prevent refiners from using us as one big ATM.”

Valero, one of the five big California refiners that control nearly the entire gasoline market, reported net profits of $2.6 billion this quarter, down a tick from $2.8 billion the year before, according to Tucker. Its refining sector reported third quarter operating income of $3.4 billion, down from $3.8 billion the year before: investorvalero.com/…

“Our refineries operated well and achieved 95 percent through put capacity utilization, which is a testament to our team’s relentless focus on operational excellence,” gushed Lane Riggs, Valero’s Chief Executive Officer and President in a press release. “Product demand remained strong in our U.S. wholesale system, which matched the second quarter record of over 1 million barrels per day of sales volume.”

Tucker had a quite different assessment of the corporation’s “relentless focus on operational excellence” than Valero CEO Riggs, describing the company’s profit margins on the West Coast, obtained through apparent price gouging, as “eye popping.”

Image from the California Energy Commission’s November 28, 2023 “SBX1-2 Workshop on Maximum Gross Gasoline Refining Margin and Penalty” presentation. To learn more about this workshop, click this link. You will be redirected to the workshop page on the CEC’s website.

“3rd quarter gross refining margins of 78 cents per gallon were eye-popping on the West Coast, far higher than in any other of Valero’s operating regions,” she stated. “Valero reported margins on Gulf Coast at 41 cents; at 49 cents for the U.S. Mid-Continent; and 48 cents for the North Atlantic.”

“The West Coast gross refining margin also blew past Valero’s 60 cents per gallon reported in the third quarter of 2022. Valero only has West Coast refineries in California,” Tucker pointed out.

She also said the gross refining margins reported to investors understate the gasoline profits as jet fuel and diesel are included,

Data reported by refiners to the California Energy Commission shows the average gross refining margin from all refiners in California just for gasoline was $1.29 per gallon in August, double the January margin of 66 cents, and has been over $1.00 per gallon since February, according to Tucker. See: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/california-oil-refinery-cost-disclosure

Senate Bill (SB) 1322 requires all refiners of gasoline products in the state to provide monthly data about various price and volume information. The California Energy Commission (CEC) must publish aggregated, volume weighted reports of this data, within 45 days of the end of each calendar month

Over the past two decades through 2021, shareholder reports reveal refiners did not exceed a gross refining margin of 50 cents per gallon—except three times by Chevron. See: https://seuc.senate.ca.gov/sites/seuc.senate.ca.gov/files/02-22-23_court_presentation.pdf

In 2022, all five refiners breached that 50-cent per gallon windfall profit barrier, noted Tucker. This data is corroborated by a recent report by the California Energy Commission looking back ten years based on OPIS data. See: https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Item_09_OIIP_Refiner_Margin_Penalty_ada.pdf

“Last year, legislation empowered the California Energy Commission to form a special division to investigate gas prices in California and to set a price-gouging penalty, which Governor Newsom has called for. Last week, the Commission voted to begin such a proceeding that first involves the gathering of accurate data from refiners. SB 1322 requires refiners to report their margins to the regulator that then posts them on its website,” concluded Tucker.

WSPA and Big Oil pump Big Money into influencing California regulators

As Valero made 70% more per gallon in California than in any other region of the U.S. or the globe that it operates in, the oil and gas regulators in“green” California, the seventh largest oil producing state in the nation, continue to issue new and reworked oil drilling permits. The Newsom administration has approved a total of 15,722 new and reworked oil wells since January 2019.

This year CalGEM, the state’s oil and gas regulator, “has gone rogue, approving hundreds of oil permits in vulnerable communities breathing poisonous emissions from both active and idle wells,” reported Consumer Watch and FracTracker Alliance. For a complete permit update, see: https://newsomwellwatch.com

Why do California regulators continue to approve hundreds of new and reworked oil drilling permits each quarter as oil companies like Valero gouge Californians at the pumps?

It’s all due to deep regulatory capture by Big Oil and Big Gas in the “green” and “progressive” state of California. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), Chevron and the oil companies exercise their influence and power through a very sophisticated public relations machine in California and the U.S.

WSPA describes itself as “non-profit trade association” that represents companies that account for the bulk of petroleum exploration, production, refining, transportation and marketing in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. WSPA’s headquarters is located right here on L Street in Sacramento.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President and CEO of WSPA, is the former chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast to create “marine protected areas” in the same region that she was lobbying for new offshore drilling.

Since 2009 I have documented how WSPA and the oil companies wield their power in 8 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) working in collaboration with media; (6) sponsoring awards ceremonies and dinners, including those for legislators and journalists; (7) contributing to non profit organizations; and (8) creating alliances with labor unions, mainly construction trades.

The oil and gas industry spent over $34.2 million in the 2021-22 Legislative Session lobbying against SB 1137, legislation to mandate 3200 foot buffer zones around oil and gas wells, and other bills they were opposed to: cal-access.sos.ca.gov/…

For the oil companies, this was just pocket change when you consider that combined profits of California oil refiners, including PBF Energy, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Valero, and Phillips 66, were $75.4 billion in 2022.

The two biggest spenders were WSPA and Chevron. WSPA spent $11.7 million in the 2021-22 session, while Chevron spent a total of $8.6 million lobbying California officials.

Lobbying disclosures from Quarter 2 of 2023 reveal that oil companies and trade associations spent more than $3 million lobbying and a grand total of $4,085,639.57 in just three months to shape policymaking efforts in its favor in California. That brings the total spent by Big Oil and WSPA to over $13.4 million total in the first six months of 2023, putting them on track to exceed the 2022 expenditure of $18 million.

Chevron topped the lobbying expenses with $1,139,130, while WSPA placed second with $716,824.

The latest disclosures follow the $9.4 million that Big Oil spent to influence the California Legislature, Governor’s Office and agencies in the first quarter of 2023. Chevron came in first with over $4.9 million spent in the first quarter, while the WSPA finished second with over $2.3 million and Aera Energy finished third with nearly $628,000.

WSPA sponsors media dinners and awards for journalists

This year Big Oil has sponsored a chilling and highly successful campaign to sponsor dinners, awards ceremonies and conferences for journalists and the media. WPSA sponsored a “media dinner” on Tuesday, February 28 in Sacramento as part of #BizFedSactoDays.

The flyer for the event stated, “Journalists who play an outsize role in shaping narratives about state politics and holding lawmakers accountable will join business leaders to pull back the curtain on how they select and tell stories about California policies, policy and power.”

Speakers at the program included Coleen Nelson of the Sacramento Bee, Laurel Rosenhall of the Los Angeles Times, Kaitlyn Schallhorn of the Orange County Register and Dan Walters of Cal Matters.

Then on March 16, the Sacramento Press Club announced in a tweet that WSPA was the new “Lede Sponsor” of the Sacramento Press Club’s Journalism Awards Reception that was held on March 29: “Thank you to our new Lede Sponsor @officialWSPA! WSPA is dedicated to guaranteeing that every American has access to reliable energy options through socially, economically and environmentally responsible policies and regulations. Learn more more at http://wspa.org.

In response to this tweet, investigative journalist Aaron Cantu tweeted back on March 20, “As the recipient of @SacPressClub ’s environmental award last year, it’s concerning to see fossil fuel industry talking points passed off uncritically here. WSPA becoming lede sponsor happened in the context of a global PR turn as the climate crisis worsens.”

Unfortunately, Cantu and this writer are the only journalists with the courage to publicly criticize the sponsorship of a “journalism awards reception” by WSPA.

In addition to sponsoring journalism events in California, the Western States Petroleum Association has expanded its campaign to influence journalists nationally. WSPA and the controversial waste management firm Veolia North America sponsored events at this year’s Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) conference in Boise, Idaho, according to a report from DeSmog: https://www.desmog.com/2023/04/11/industry-sponsors-dinner-society-environmental-journalists-veolia-wspa.

The agenda for the conference, hosted in Boise, Idaho, revealed that WSPA and the waste management company Veolia North America sponsored two of the “beat dinners” hosted on April 21, the article by Sam Bright reported.

When #BigOil teams up with journalists, columnists and editors at events and only a couple of writers thinks there’s something wrong with this, you know we must be in deep trouble. Of course, no mainstream media reported on this huge scandal because it unveils the deep links between Big Oil and Big Media.

Background: California Oil Refinery Cost Disclosure Act Monthly Report

Specifically, SB 1322 requires the CEC to publish the following information from the refinery operators’ monthly reports:

A volume weighted gross gasoline refining margin for the state.
The gross gasoline refining margin for each refinery with two or more refining facilities in the state.
Volume and price of domestic and imported crude oil.
The breakdown of five types of sales required to be reported by refiners and associated volumes, prices per gallon, and actual or estimated costs associated with the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and Cap and Trade programs.

SB X1-2, which took effect June 2023, expands the monthly reports to require refinery operators to provide net gasoline refining information. For more information, please visit Senate Bill X1-2 Implementation.

The data below complies with the CEC’s requirements to post the data as reported by the refiners. CEC continues to investigate the reported numbers. Additional findings, recalculations, further analysis, revised data, or other conclusions will be publicized here as we continue to verify the reported data.

Refiner Margin Data

Data last updated: October 18, 2023.

On October 3, 2023, the California Energy Commission published new petroleum market data showing the net gasoline refining information for California refiners. Volume-weighted average California gross refiner margin, net refiner margin, and numbers in the “Aggregated Data Reported” section are all calculated using information obtained from all six refinery companies. Gross and net margins reported by refinery company only reflect information from California refiners with two or more facilities which are Chevron, Valero, PBF, and Phillips 66.

The data show that in August, California refineries produced and sold 950,529,000 gallons of gasoline for a total estimated profit of $228,126,960.*

CEC staff will continue to collect and report refiner information on a monthly basis in order to analyze long-term trends as part of its assessment of setting a maximum gross refining margin and penalty for exceeding that maximum, as allowed by SB X1-2.

* Based on data reported by California refiners. The total profit estimate does not include spot pipeline transaction sales and may be considered a conservative estimate as a result.