Repost from ForestEthics [Editor: The link here will take you to ForestEthics’ excellent AND EASY sign-on page, where you can submit your thoughts, concerns and questions to the City of Benicia. This is critical NOW, as the Benicia Planning Commission considers whether to permit a new oil train facility in California. – RS]
Submit your comment: No oil trains in Benicia, no oil trains in California
Right now is a critical moment in the fight to stop oil trains in California. Oil giant Valero wants to build a massive oil trains terminal at its Benicia refinery.
Should Valero get its way, oil trains carrying explosive and toxic extreme crude will travel daily through Northern California – including right behind California’s state capitol building – en route to the Benicia refinery. The project’s environmental review even admits that impacts from “hazardous materials” will be “significant and unavoidable.” This risk is unacceptable.
Aside from the public health and safety dangers of oil trains, we know that this project is a disaster for the climate. Building a new oil train terminal now locks Benicia into decades of using some of the most carbon-intensive oil on the planet: Canadian tar sands and fracked North Dakota Bakken crude. At a time when wildfires are raging and the drought continues to worsen, our communities need to invest in safe, healthy, clean energy projects that build climate resilience.
Fired regulator: Governor pushed to waive oil safeguards
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Sep 4, 3:32 PM EDT
FILE – In this Wednesday May 27, 2015 file photo, California Gov. Jerry Brown addresses the California State Association of Counties Legislative Conference in Sacramento, Calif. California’s top oil and gas regulators repeatedly warned Gov. Jerry Brown’s senior aides in 2011 that the governor’s orders to override key safeguards in granting oil industry permits would violate state and federal laws protecting the state’s groundwater from contamination, one of the former officials has testified. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s top oil and gas regulators repeatedly warned Gov. Jerry Brown’s senior aides in 2011 that the governor’s orders to override key environmental safeguards in granting oil industry permits would violate state and federal laws protecting groundwater from contamination, one of the former officials has testified.
Brown fired the regulators on Nov. 3, 2011, one day after what the official says was a final order from the governor to bypass provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and grant permits for oilfield injection wells. Brown later boasted publicly that the dismissals led to a speed up of oilfield permitting.
In a newly filed court declaration, Derek Chernow, Brown’s former acting director of the state Department of Conservation, also alleged that former Gov. Gray Davis urged fellow Democrat Brown in a phone call to fire Chernow and Elena Miller, the state’s oil and gas supervisor.
Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, labeled the allegations “baseless.”
“The expectation – clearly communicated – was and always has been full compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Westrup said Thursday.
This year, however, the state acknowledged that hundreds of the oilfield operations approved after the firings are now polluting the state’s federally protected underground supplies of water for drinking and irrigation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the state until 2017 to resolve what state officials conceded were more than 2,000 permits improperly given to oil companies to inject oilfield production fluid and waste into protected water aquifers. An earlier AP analysis of the permits found state records showed more than 40 percent of those were granted in the four years since Brown took office.
Chernow’s declaration, obtained by The Associated Press, was contained in an Aug. 21 court filing in a lawsuit brought by a group of Central Valley farmers who allege that oil production approved by Brown’s administration has contaminated their water wells. The lawsuit also cites at least $750,000 in contributions that oil companies made within months of the firings to Brown’s campaign for a state income tax increase.
Westrup denied the oil companies’ support for Brown’s tax-increase campaign was related to the firings, saying, “the governor’s focus is doing what’s best for California, and that’s what informs his decisions.”
Robert Stern, former general counsel of the state’s ethics agency and the architect of a 1970s state political reform act, said there was nothing illegal about Brown receiving the oil industry contributions for his tax campaign unless they were explicitly in return for firing the oil regulators.
Chernow’s statement describes for the first time the alleged back story of the controversial permit approvals. He declined to comment to the AP and Miller did not respond to interview requests.
Brown’s boasting about the firings to speed up permitting is at odds with his image as a leading proponent of renewable energy and reduced fossil fuel consumption. That reputation led to a recent meeting with Pope Francis to discuss climate change.
Westrup said an ongoing effort by Brown to reduce consumption of fossil fuels in the state by up to 50 percent and the oil industry’s fight against elements of Brown’s climate-change campaign shows “where the administration stands and what it’s fighting for.”
The firings occurred as the governor was scrambling to drum up energy sources, jobs and business and to win support for the ultimately successful statewide vote on tax increases to tackle state budget woes.
Today, with the state in the fourth year of drought and a state of emergency declared by Brown, protecting the adequacy and purity of water supplies for farms and cities is a paramount priority.
In the declaration in the farmers’ case, Chernow said he and Miller were under intense pressure from the oil industry as well as the Brown administration to relax permitting standards for injection wells that oil companies use to pump production fluid and waste underground.
Chernow testified he was in the office of John Laird, Brown’s secretary of Natural Resources, in early October 2011 when Laird took a call from Brown. Laird told Chernow that Brown said he had just received a call from Davis, then acting as legal counsel for Occidental Petroleum, the country’s fourth-biggest oil Company.
Brown said Davis and Occidental had demanded Brown fire Chernow and Miller over what Occidental complained was the slow pace of issuing drilling permits, according to Chernow.
Davis declined to comment Thursday.
A few weeks later, on Nov. 2, 2011, Chernow and Miller received a call from Brown’s energy adviser, Cliff Rechtschaffen, who urged the regulators to “immediately fast-track” approval of new oilfield permits, according to Chernow’s filing.
Miller replied that what Brown aides and the oil industry were pressing for “violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, and that the EPA agreed” with that conclusion, Chernow said. In response, according to Chernow, Rechtschaffen told them “this was an order from Governor Brown, and must be obeyed.”
Chernow and Miller were fired the following day.
Memos sent to Department of Conservation staff the next month – obtained through state public records laws by lawyers for the farmers – allegedly detail some ways state oilfield regulators were told they could now bypass some federally mandated environmental reviews and approve permits.
The state, under increasing pressure from the EPA, this year and last ordered the shutdown of 23 improperly permitted oilfield wells posing the most immediate threat to nearby water wells.
Current officials in the Department of Conservation said they believe the actual number of flawed permits granted under Brown is lower than the 46 percent the state records show, but they have not provided alternate figures.
The state improperly issued permits, they said, because of misunderstandings and poor record-keeping, rather than willful decisions by Brown’s administration.
The safeguards at issue in the alleged permitting dispute were a “very fundamental” part of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s protections against oilfield contamination, said David Albright, manager of the EPA’s California groundwater office, this week.
California “has a huge amount of work to do” to bring its regulation of oilfield injection wells into compliance with federal law, said Jared Blumenfeld, the regional EPA administrator in California. Blumenfeld cited a “sea change” over the past year in state compliance efforts, however.
Executives of Occidental and Aera Energy at the time thanked Brown for his involvement in the oilfield permitting process, as Occidental CEO Steven Chazren noted in a January 2012 call with financial analysts, two months after top regulators were fired.
That month, Occidental became the first major oil company to come out in support of the Brown’s tax measure and donated the first of $500,000 to Brown’s campaign for the tax referendum. A month later, Aera donated $250,000.
Margita Thompson, a spokeswoman at what is now the independent California spin-off of Occidental, California Resources Council, said that all the farmers’ allegations were “wholly without merit.” Cindy Pollard, spokeswoman for Aera, said the company often donates to revenue-raising state campaigns. “Aera’s contributions were not quid pro quo,” she said.
This morning, I discovered that the City of Benicia posted 90 new documents on its website sometime AFTER the official August 31 release of the Recirculated Draft Environmental Report (RDEIR).
The City’s new page, “Revised Draft EIR Reference Documents” contains a variety of supporting documents, some of which are familiar and others which contain interesting new information.
Those who are carefully reading and reviewing the RDEIR should not rely on previous downloads or announcements that do not show the Reference docs.
As they have for most issues du jour in Benicia, the local chapter of the League of Women Voters will open the floor this month on the subject currently foremost on residents’ minds.
These days, that can only mean one subject: Valero’s proposed Crude-by-Rail Project.
The controversial project will be the subject of a LWV informational forum on Sept. 17.
In 2012, Valero applied for a permit to have crude oil delivered by rail car into its refinery. The move prompted an outcry from some residents over potential environmental and safety concerns.
The matter is currently before the city Planning Commission. Public input is being accepted until Oct. 15 on the latest environmental review of the project.
The goal of the forum, LWV Treasurer Judy Potter said, is to provide clarity in a nonpartisan way on a crucial, complicated topic.
“We’re not planning to present a pro-and-con argument on the crude-by-rail issue,” Potter said. “We’ll just be providing general information on what it is, where we are and what the planning process is.”
She said the forum will feature an overview by featured speaker Leslie Stewart, an energy and air quality reporter for the LWV Bay Area Monitor. Planning, policies and regulation related to the transportation of petroleum and other hazardous materials, particularly as it relates to Benicia, will also be discussed.
“People have lots of questions about how this project, if approved, will impact our community and surrounding communities,” Potter said. “It’s an issue that’s fraught with strong opinions from both sides, so it’s important for the community to get as much information as possible.”
The Sept. 17 forum will be from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Southampton Swim Club, 10 Chelsea Hills Drive. It is free and open to the public.
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