Category Archives: Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Benicia Strong: Understanding and Rising to the Challenge of Valero’s Decision

Valero Benicia Refinery to “idle, restructure, or cease refining operations” by next year

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

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, April 20, 2025

Valero’s Wednesday notification to the California Energy Commission “of its current intent to idle, restructure, or cease refining operations” at its Benicia refinery by the end of April 2026 hit the City and California like a ton of oil-laden bricks.

My heart goes out to the Valero workers and Benicia businesses whose livelihoods are at risk as a result of this decision. As Benicia Council Member Kari Birdseye put it so well in my interview with her, with sentiments echoed by Mayor Steve Young and Council Member Terry Scott,  “If people are going to lose their jobs and businesses their incomes as a result of this move, addressing this has  got to be a priority for the City’s leadership.”  All also strongly sympathize with the nonprofits who may be denied future Valero funding.

This is an unfolding story, to put it mildly. In an attempt to pierce the haze generated by the Valero statement, here is a very initial attempt at some questions and answers – subject to change down the line as all parties clear the air on this development.

Is the refinery closing?

Not necessarily. Again, the Valero notification offers three options:  “to idle, restructure, or cease refining operations.”  Only one of these is closure, though that could involve Valero taking on immense clean-up cost. “Idle” is inherently temporary. “Restructure” can potentially mean all sorts of things, including  sale to another company or  focusing on biofuels or plastics production. Note too that Valero frames the statement in terms of its “current intent,” which gives the Texas-based corporation  some wiggle room.

Why is Valero doing this?

It could be a negotiating tactic, aiming to extract concessions from California regarding regulations, legislation,  policies or costs that the corporation finds unduly burdensome. In a related vein, it could be geared toward avoiding expensive upgrades necessitated by environmental, health or safety requirements that would have protected Benicians. As UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Bornstein put it in a KQED interview:

“California is phasing out its gasoline consumption and refiners see that coming,” Borenstein said, noting that the Benicia refinery’s many production and emissions problems would likely require significant, costly upgrades to address.

“So I think they looked at that and said, ‘Is it worth making that investment?’ and decided it probably isn’t,” he said.

Ironically, the rationale could even include increasing profits in certain respects. As per that KQED interview:

“Borenstein suggested that the company, which owns another refinery in Southern California, may also have calculated that shuttering production at its Benicia facility would raise gasoline prices statewide, helping its other refinery make more money.”

Did Benicia’s recently adopted Industrial Safety Ordinance play a role in this move?

Not according to Valero’s own statement on its decision, which attributes the move to far broader concerns, such as “years of regulatory pressure, significant fines for air quality violations, and a recent lawsuit settlement related to environmental concerns.

Recall, too, that the ISO would cost Valero a few hundred thousand dollars per year, in contrast with the company making $11.6 billion in profits in 2023 and 2024, a good chunk of that from its Benicia refinery. For Valero to quit Benicia because of the ISO would be very roughly equivalent to someone quitting a $50,000 per year job because of, at most, a $10 annual tax, or a business clearing $250,000 per year deciding to close down because of a $50 fee.

There’s one alternative though hopefully unlikely explanation that would partly attribute Valero’s decision to the ISO: The corporation has something to hide from the slightly increased scrutiny the ISO would spur of its emissions, operations, incidents and accidents. Again, hopefully this is not the case, but if Valero is seeking to avoid such scrutiny because it would reveal health, safety or environmental threats to Benicians, that in and of itself should be of great concern to us.

Let’s also bear in mind that the ISO  is a necessary response to a plethora of Valero violations, incidents and accidents dating back over 20 years, both in Benicia and beyond. These include but are by no means limited to Valero pouring toxic emissions hundreds of times the legal limits into Benicia’s air for 15 years without informing us, as well as repeated violations in Texas that were so severe that even the very conservative Attorney General in that very oil-friendly state saw fit to sue the corporation several years ago.

Finally, note that in preparing the ordinance Benicia bent over backwards to try to compromise and address Valero’s legal and operational concerns, resulting in an ISO in some regards more accommodating than other Bay Area refinery-hosting communities have and that other Bay Area refineries manage to live with. It’s hard to believe that a Benicia move so mild could trigger a Valero decision so massive, particularly in view of the far larger California forces and policies at play. In any event, the Benicia City Council twice voted unanimously for  the ISO.

Where do we go from here?

A few tentative thoughts:

  1. As Council Member Scott, who has extensive experience and expertise with corporate transitions and planning explains, “We can’t just look in the rearview mirror toward what Valero’s done; we need to peer through the windshield toward current and emerging opportunities.”
  2. More specifically, for instance, Benicia has about $64 million coming to it by virtue of the Bay Area Air District’s settlement with Valero over those 15-plus years of pouring poisons into Benicia’s air. These extraordinary circumstances could call for extraordinary solutions, involving interpreting Air District rules broadly or amending them to allow Benicia to adapt to this situation by, for instance, allowing aid to affected individuals and businesses, budgetary support or planning for the inevitable post-refinery economy.
  3. As Mayor Young emphasizes, in moving forward we need to address “the real world impacts on Valero employees and Benicia residents and businesses…even as we realize that this Valero move is in response to state decisions and policies rather than Benicia’s ISO.”

Benicia is strong, smart and resilient. Over the past several years, we made it through Covid and earlier budget challenges together. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that the current challenge could well impose pain. But if we pull together rather than point fingers, and pay special heed to the needs of the persons and businesses most affected, we can emerge stronger than ever.

More on this next week.

[Note: As a member of the Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance working group, I was involved in efforts to get the ISO adopted.]


Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

CHECK OUT STEPHEN GOLUB’S BLOG, A PROMISED LAND

…and here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Stephen Golub: Yes we can!…But what is Valero afraid of?

Islands of Hope

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

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, April 6, 2025

The  waves of national bad news just keep on coming. But there are certain islands of sanity and hope in our political seas.

Some of it started on April 1 – no fooling! In Wisconsin, Democrat Susan Crawford beat her conservative opponent for the swing seat on the state’s Supreme Court by 10 points, despite Elon Musk and his minions pouring over $21 million into trying to defeat her. Also consider that day’s congressional  special election results in Florida: In two deep Red districts, the Republican margin of victory collapsed compared to November – from over 30 percent to less than half of that.

And of course, there were the April 5 pro-democracy/anti-Trump protests in over 1,200 U.S. cities, as well as across Europe.

Then there’s the island of waterside sanity and beauty otherwise known as Benicia. Capping a struggle that stretches back nearly a decade  and most recently entailed eighteen months of arduous efforts by Council Members Kari Birdseye and Terry Scott and Fire Chief Josh Chadwick, on April 1 the City Council unanimously approved an industrial safety ordinance (ISO).

By seeking greater accountability and transparency from the Valero Refinery and other local facilities handling hazardous materials, the ISO helps protect the health and safety of our kids, our seniors and all of us. It also ends Benicia’s odd situation as the only Bay Area refinery-hosting community that lacked such an ordinance.

The April 1 Council meeting featured dozens of ISO supporters in attendance and salient points highlighted by several of them. For instance, a Benicia-based doctor/medical professor noted the relatively high cancer and childhood asthma rates in Benicia and refinery-hosting communities elsewhere. He was careful to avoid blaming Valero in the absence of conclusive data, but voiced hope that an effective ISO could help protect Benicians’ health.

In addition, Birdseye passionately and persuasively pushed back on Mayor Steve Young’s suggestion that the Fire Chief’s examination of potential ISO fees for Valero and other covered facilities focus on recovering just 85 percent of costs. For his part, Scott eloquently articulated the reality that, even with the passage of the ISO, the fight isn’t necessarily over.

But for now, our small city’s struggle for an ISO – a fight that it once seemed we could not win – provides an invaluable lesson: Yes We Can.

So thanks to Birdseye, Scott, Young and in fact the entire Council for that unanimous pro-ISO vote. And thanks to current and former Valero employees, even if we disagree with them, for being good friends and neighbors; once again, the ISO fight is not with you, but with the Texas-based oil giant.

But speaking of that fight…

What is Valero Afraid of?

Over the past decade or so, Valero has dumped millions of dollars into political action committees and public relations efforts seeking to defeat City Council candidates who might support an ISO or otherwise stymy that kind of City oversight. Ironically, that  same money could have instead more constructively covered years of the refinery’s costs for abiding by an ISO, had one been adopted earlier.

Most recently, and to put the point mildly, Valero failed to constructively engage with the City’s efforts to seek its cooperation in crafting the ordinance. And it reportedly may pursue a lawsuit seeking to block the new law.

Why such strong opposition to such a modest measure?

After all, the ISO simply seeks to ensure that the City has the necessary information about Valero’s (and other covered facilities’) operations, incidents, violations and accidents, in order to help protect Benicians’ health and safety. This would be a distinct departure from the recent 15-year period during which the refinery spewed toxic emissions hundreds of times the legal limits into our air without notifying us.

Furthermore, over the past year the original draft ISO was modified in ways making it more amenable to Valero, so that the planned Oversight Commission facilitating the law’s implementation and public information does not have enforcement powers. And again, every other Bay Area refinery operates under the rubric of such an ordinance. So why can’t Valero?

I hope that Texas-based Valero will see fit to forego a lawsuit against the City, and instead strive  to be a good neighbor rather than in effect imposing punitive legal fees as we defend ourselves. But if it does launch litigation, I hope and expect that its current and former officials, managers and workers will be required to testify under oath about its operations, incidents, accidents and violations, not just in Benicia but across America. If it’s going to fight this common-sense measure so strenuously, we need to better understand what’s going on in the refinery to spark such ferocity and further necessitate the ISO.

I also hope that there’s no need to try to make Goliath suing David a national story, and that Benicia need not engage with other community, legal and environmental groups concerned about Valero’s violations and accidents across the country. In the absence of a lawsuit, I’d assume no one wants to pick such a fight.

As I’ve previously pointed out, even the very conservative Attorney General of Texas, one of the most oil-friendly states in the nation, saw fit to sue Valero in 2019 for years of serious, repeated violations – transgressions that had continued despite previous enforcement actions by Texas and federal authorities.

Though it would be naïve to consider the Texas AG a potential ally, even a quick perusal of the company’s track record turns up alarming Valero accidents spanning several U.S. locales. For instance, an  environmental/personal injury law firm is looking into fires at two separate Valero Texas refineries earlier this year. Similarly, in 2021 a massive fire at its Memphis refinery spewed oil onto the ground and into a stream, as well as thousands of pounds of toxic gas into the air. There could thus be ample room for joining forces with other concerned communities if necessary.

Though I’m a lawyer, I’m neither a litigator nor PR expert. But people who understand those fields far better than I do have explained that there are strong cases to be made in courtrooms and the court of public information if necessary.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Instead of suing, be a good neighbor, Valero. That’s basically all that Benicia’s new ISO asks.


Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

CHECK OUT STEPHEN GOLUB’S BLOG, A PROMISED LAND

…and here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Stephen Golub: Australians and others are worried about America

Down But Not Under: In “No Worries” Australia, Worries About America

They’re feeling jumpy.

Also in Zimbabwe, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia (yes, even Russia)…

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

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, Mar 23, 2025

My wife and I recently returned from a vacation in Australia, a land of beautiful beaches, other natural splendors, kangaroos galore and remarkably friendly people concerned about what America’s current course means for their country.

From Worries to Outrage to Sorrow

Chats with friends and other folks we met Down Under, along with glimpses of Australia’s national news, illuminated a lengthy list of worries in a land where “No worries” is a favorite catchphrase.

The lead TV news story one night was how Trump’s tariffs would hurt Australia’s crucial steel and aluminum exports. Arguments over how to handle him loom large in its national elections this spring.

His televised Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triggered considerable press coverage and doubts about America’s reliability: Australian “officials, politicians and diplomats woke up and watched, slack-jawed, as the spectacular theatre of the Trump-Zelenskyy confrontation played out in the Oval Office and on their screens.”

Many folks we met highlighted his erratic economic policies and statements as threats to the global economy, and more specifically to the Australian stock market and their retirement savings.

One couple understandably fretted over their daughter’s plan to visit the United States in August, even wondering whether there would be a civil war here by then.

Several individuals voiced fear about how an unstable individual with his finger on the nuclear button would manage tensions with China.

In view of Trump’s actions undermining Ukraine and his desire to make Canada the 51st state, others doubted his commitment to our equally loyal ally Australia, particularly in view of mounting Chinese economic and military pressure. (That pressure includes an unannounced, unprecedented live fire drill by Chinese warships in waters not far from Sydney and Melbourne last month, forcing dozens of commercial flight diversions.)

On our way out his door for our flight home, an outraged Aussie friend, by no means a political type, showed us a clip of Fox News host Jesse Watters somehow finding it “personally offensive” that Canadians don’t want “to be taken over by the United States of America” since “that’s what everyone else in the world wants.”

A few Aussies went as far as to share their sentiments on the state of the United States: “We feel sorry for you.”

The sorrow was certainly understandable. In fact, it was the way I sometimes felt during my international development career, when visiting societies repressed and ripped off by corrupt, autocratic regimes. Except the people in those societies typically did not vote such regimes into office.

Not Just Aussies

It wasn’t just Australians who were upset by what America is doing to itself and the world. We met others similarly alarmed. A white Zimbabwean mining executive, apparently no flaming liberal, was aghast at what Trump was doing to democracy and world order.

And then there was the diverse array of fellow travelers (so to speak) with whom we spent several days touring parts of Australia’s beautiful southeastern island of Tasmania. The thirteen participants hailed from America, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Russia and the United Kingdom. Except for the polite-to-the-point-of-reticence Japanese, they were troubled by Trump’s ascendance.

My wife and I hadn’t intended to indulge in so much discussion of American politics on a trip through a place about as far from America as you can get. But it kept popping up. And we couldn’t resist soliciting their thoughts.

The (anti-Putin) Russian warned that she saw the United States going down a path similar to what Russia experienced at the start of Putin’s reign. In a different chat, and despite my own confusion, I tried to explain to our new Irish friend why so much had gone so awry in our country.

The Lithuanian expressed trepidation over the fact that if Putin could get away with attacking Ukraine, her tiny nation was at great risk. She shared that right after Trump’s election Lithuanians held out hope that, just maybe, he might stand up to such potential aggression against their homeland (a NATO ally). But before long, they concluded that “He’s just an [expletive].”

If there was one comment that cut across the Aussies’ and the foreigners’ reactions to Trump’s election, it was, “How did this happen?”

Down, But Not Knuckling Under

My wife and I returned to America glad to be back home even as we knew home to be in crisis. But we also arrived to a blizzard of emails from friends and neighbors here, about matters local and national.

The local focus was the increasingly promising fight for Benicia (the small Bay Area city where we live) to enact an Industrial Safety Ordinance that would force Texas-based oil giant Valero to be more transparent and accountable regarding its Benicia refinery’s accidents and emissions. Things can change, but our City Council is barely a week away from the vote that will likely seal that deal.

The emails’ national focus comprised discussions of meetings, rallies, strategies and steps to save our freedom and survive Trump’s political onslaught. These initial signs of activism, admittedly in need of much refinement but repeated across the country, constitute seeds of hope in a bleak landscape.

Having just returned from abroad, I wish more than ever that Trump supporters in the United States could hear from folks in other nations, as a counterbalance to Jesse Watters’ jingoism. I wish they could appreciate why, halfway across the world and in many places in-between, so many foreigners fear that what’s happening in America harms not just us but them. I wish they could grasp why those foreigners so strongly back the fight against authoritarianism here.

While it’s ultimately up to Americans whether our democracy sinks or swims, we should take heart from such overseas sentiments. We’re down, but we’re not knuckling under. Our battle to save democracy is just starting.


Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

CHECK OUT STEPHEN GOLUB’S BLOG, A PROMISED LAND

…and here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

Benicia and Beyond: It Takes a Penguin

MY PENGUIN FRIEND | Official Trailer – YouTube

It takes a Penguin – Sometimes the silliest things inspire the strongest sentiments….

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, Mar 2, 2025

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

Perhaps like some of you, I’ve been despairing lately about what America’s current course means for the country and the world. That course includes the Trump Administration: siding with Russia regarding its mass-murdering war on Ukraine; backing a German Neo-Nazi party; letting the world’s richest man gut foreign aid, thus facilitating thousands of poor people’s deaths; and otherwise preaching and practicing cruelty as policy. Combined with other Far Right transgressions in other nations, it’s left me eager for something to recharge my faith in humanity.

And then I saw the penguin, or more specifically a penguin nicknamed Dindim, or even more specifically the movie “My Penguin Friend.” The dramatization is based on the true story of a small penguin that got separated from its colony and soaked by an oil spill during the colony’s annual 5,000-mile migration from southern Argentina to near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, only to be rescued on the verge of death by an elderly villager. The Brazilian, Joao Pereira de Souza, nursed the bird back to health, whereupon it stayed with him and his wife for months before undertaking the return trip south.

The element that converts a heartwarming tale into incredible inspiration, though, is the fact that Dindim returned annually to Joao’s seaside home for eight years, each time spending months in his fishing village before returning to Argentina. When a fellow villager refers to the bird as a pet, Joao says no, he’s his friend.

If you see the film, you see why. Years before Dindim’s arrival, a tragic death led to Joao living a life of grief. The penguin’s friendship filled a void, restoring Joao’s love for  life and community.

Which brings me back to America. I’m not hopeless by any means; I see sparks of pro-democracy resilience and resurgence. But when I also see so many developments here and abroad driven by lies, hate and retribution, I have flickers of doubt about not just where we are as a country, but where humanity is as a species.

In its small but heartwarming way,  “My Penguin Friend” counters all that. It portrays admirable qualities that we humans are capable  of, not least love for a stranded animal, considerable kindness and remarkable resilience. It testifies to the many wonderful, amazing things we don’t fully understand, including how a little creature decided each year to separate himself from the security of his colony’s migration to visit his friend.

The saga of Joao and Dindim reminds us that the best of humanity and the world is beautiful and that we can find that beauty in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

That being said, to call this film corny and sappy and a tearjerker would be a major understatement. It also takes some considerable (and unnecessary)  liberties in telling the tale of the penguin and his human friend. But the movie remains true to its remarkable core story.

As someone who could use tears of joy rather than tears of sorrow these days, I heartily recommend it. So many sayings highlight how overcoming tough times hinges on hope, heart, determination or a village. I’ll add one more variation: It takes a penguin.

I believe that “My Penguin Friend” is available via Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube TV and perhaps other streaming services, but since I saw it on a plane and am out of the country right now, I can’t vouch for that for sure. Regardless, it’s worth searching or waiting for. (Being out of the country, I regrettably won’t be preparing a column for the next two weeks.)

Another thing well worth doing is attending or zooming into the Tuesday, March 4 City Council meeting, starting at 6 pm, at which it will take the crucial vote that will help prevent toxic pollution (including the kind of oil spills that nearly killed Dindim), explosions and fires at the Valero refinery and other hazardous facilities in Benicia. If the Council passes the proposed Industrial Safety Ordinance, which Council Members Kari Birdseye and Terry Scott as well as Fire Chief Josh Chadwick and Management Analyst Della Ohm have labored over for well over a year, we’ll join all the other Bay Area refinery-hosting communities that already have such ordinances.


Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land