Category Archives: Valero Crude By Rail

Benicia City Council, Crude By Rail, Federal pre-emption, Local Regulation, Public Comment, Public Health, Public permitting, Public Safety, Surface Transportation Board, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AGENDA for Apr 18 includes pro-Valero Staff Report and 11 attachments

By Roger Straw, April 17, 2016

Council Agenda for Apr 18 – staff documents in support of Valero

Don’t fail to notice the significance of the Agenda for the Benicia City Council hearing on Monday, April 18. The Agenda was published on April 13 without any mention that there was a strongly worded staff report supporting Valero. The agenda has 11 attachments, linked below.

  • Crude By Rail Staff Report 4-18-2016 FINAL.pdf (This 19-page document includes 42 questions raised by Council members with staff responses, all supporting Valero’s proposal.  Staff concludes with “Staff’s recommendation for the Valero Crude by Rail Project FEIR and Use permit has not altered.”)
  • Attachment 1- Memo Surface Transportation Board Process (2-page memo by Benicia’s consulting attorney Brad Hogin, defining STB Declaratory Orders, and laying out procedures of the STB. Hogin points out that the STB does sometimes institute “declaratory order proceedings based on petitions filed by parties that are not rail carriers.”)
  • Attachment 3- MRS Response Letter to Fox Comments (8-page letter by the City’s consultant, Marine Research Specialists, defending its “Quantitative Risk Analysis” against criticism by Dr. Phyllis Fox.)
  • Attachment 2 – ESA Response Memo to Fox Comments (5-page letter by the City’s consultant, ESA, defending its against criticism by Dr. Phyllis Fox on air quality and flooding.)
  • Attachment 4 – Barkan Memo (4-page letter on crude by rail statistics by Christopher P.L. Barkan, professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is actually a very interesting document, with several tables of figures in response to questions about derailments, spills and explosions.)
  • Attachment 5- Andrew Chang Response Letter (4-page letter defending its report on fiscal and economic impacts.  Admits to no errors or overstatements.)
  • Attachment 6- SLO References to Preemption  (52 pages from the San Luis Obispo environmental report, concluding with the findings for denial.)
  • Attachment 7 -SEA-3, Inc. Surface Transportation Board Decision (7-page STB denial of a declaratory order petition, with guidance.)
  • Attachment 8 – Project Train Valero Property Diagram (1 page with two drawings showing the length of a 50-car crude oil train and the proposed unloading rack on Valero’s property.)
  • Attachment 9 – October 1, 2013 Council Report for Hogin’s Contract (2 page amendment providing for additional funds beyond $50,000 for consulting attorney Hogin to work on Valero Crude by Rail.  Glowing statements are made about his qualifications.  An attached Statement of Qualifications is not included in this PDF.)
  • Attachment 10- Public Comments Submitted April 7-12 2016 (Index on p. 1 shows letters from the City of Berkeley, Communities for a Better Environment, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community and 15 individuals, every one of which oppose Valero’s proposal.  In addition, the document shows a sample of an “identical letter” and lists several individuals there with no indication whether they submitted such an identical letter or some other letter.)
  • Attachment 11 – Speakers List for April 18 (This is the City’s  lists of individuals who filled out a comment card, including those who have not had an opportunity to speak and will be called on during the April 18, 2016 meeting, and those who already had a turn to speak during the April 4th or April 6th meetings, and will not be eligible to speak again.
Crude By Rail, Property values, Public Comment, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Realtors Advisory: Disclosure of Valero Crude by Rail prior to a sale

From an email to Benicia City Planners by Andrés Soto, for Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community
[Editor:  There has been much talk of the likelihood of falling property values if Valero begins shipping volatile and toxic crude oil on trains.  This would seem to strengthen the argument.  – RS]

Solano County Realtors Advisory: Disclosure of Valero Refinery and Crude by Rail prior to a sale

SolanoRealtors-disclosures_bFrom: Andres Soto
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 11:12 AM
To: Christina Ratcliff, Amy Million
Cc: Elizabeth Patterson, Mark Hughes, Alan Schwartzman, Tom Campbell, Christina Strawbridge
Subject: For the Valero CBR record: Solano County Realtors Association Disclosures and Disclaimers Advisory

Dear Ms. Ratcliffe:

Please add the attached document, Solano County Disclosures and Disclaimers Advisory 4-1-2015 to the official record for the Valero Benicia Crude By Rail project.

This document advises both the Valero Refinery and the Valero Crude By Rail project be disclosed prior to a property sale. This document is dated since it refers to December 2014 as the most current information on the project.  [Editor: note however that the document is dated April 1, 2015.  – RS]

Perhaps there is an updated version. Certainly, approval of the appeal by Valero on the project will ensure these disclosures will continue.

These disclosures will certainly cause some prospective property purchasers to reconsider or choose not moving to Benicia due to the risks associated with such a dangerous activity and the possible negative impact on property values.

Paz,

Andrés Soto
Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community

Bakken Crude, Benicia City Council, Benicia city staff, Benicia Planning Commission, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Climate Change, Crude By Rail, Federal pre-emption, Fossil fuels, Global warming, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE EDITORIAL: Benicia – stop the oil trains

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

Stopping oil trains is right thing for Benicia and planet

San Francisco Chronicle EDITORIAL, April 15, 2016

California’s efforts to lead on global climate change will come down to a local decision next week. Will the Benicia City Council allow 100-car oil tanker trains a day to roll into the Valero Refinery? The council should vote no to keep the state — and the world — on track toward reducing climate-warming fossil fuels.

Like the battle in Oakland to keep a port developer from shipping trainloads of Utah coal to China, the Benicia battle is emotional, divisive and very, very local. Since discussions between the city and refinery began in 2013, townspeople have packed the City Council chambers for each crucial vote in the permitting process.

Stop Crude By Rail yardsignValero’s refinery, its stacks and cooling towers visible for miles, spreads across the northern edge of Benicia, a riverside town of 28,000 in Solano County. Valero is the source of jobs and a significant portion of the city’s tax base. Yet, drive through the streets and you will see “Stop Crude by Rail” signs everywhere.

This local decision counts because Benicia is a link in the global oil market. Oil trains would transport crude from the Bakken oil shale in North Dakota, as there are no pipelines from that region to deliver petroleum to refineries. Currently, Valero brings in most of the crude it refines via oceangoing tanker, which will continue regardless of the vote on the permit to retrofit the refinery for rail delivery.

Because of the small city’s important role in addressing global climate change, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has interceded twice in the permitting process. In 2014, at the urging of mayors of California cities along the rail lines, she required the city to redraft the environmental impact report to address rail safety and environmental impacts.

Last week, in a letter to the city, she disagreed with Valero’s view (also held by city consultants and staff) that Benicia was legally prohibited from denying the permit because federal rail transport law preempts local authority. Not so, the AG said: Federal law applies to railroads, not refineries. “Under federal law, the City retains its authority to take discretionary action to approve or deny Valero’s Project.”

The City Council must use its legal authority to do the right thing for Benicia — and the planet. Deny the permit.

Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, Benicia City Council, Benicia city staff, Crude By Rail, Federal pre-emption, Local Regulation, Public permitting, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

EAST BAY EXPRESS: Attorney General Harris: Benicia Has Power to Reject Oil Facility

Repost from the East Bay Express

Attorney General Harris: Benicia Has Power to Reject Oil Facility

By Jean Tepperman, April 15, 2016
Kamala Harris
California Attorney General Kamala Harris

In a strongly-worded letter sent Thursday to City of Benicia officials, California Deputy Attorney General Scott J. Lichtig wrote that Valero, the City of Benicia’s planning staff, and an outside attorney advising the city have all incorrectly interpreted the law, and that Benicia has the duty to regulate land use, and must weigh in on a proposal to expand a controversial Valero oil facility.

As the Express reported earlier this week, Valero’s original proposal was presented in 2013 as a simple plan to build a couple of rail spurs from the main railroad line to its refinery, and the city announced its intention to approve the plan without doing an environmental impact review. A torrent of opposition greeted this announcement, however. As a result, the city was forced to conduct three environmental impact reviews and hold public hearings. Then, last February, Benicia’s planning commission unanimously reversed approval for the project. Now the oil facility is pending a final decision by the city council.

But Valero and Bradley Hogin, a contract attorney advising the city, have claimed that the federal government’s authority over railroads means that local governments are not allowed to make regulations that affect rail traffic — even indirectly. And when they’re deciding on a local project, cities are not allowed to consider the impact of anything that happens on a rail line. The legal doctrine Hogin is referring to is called federal preemption. Assuming the city is preempted from blocking it’s oil-by-rail project, Valero has asked the Benicia City Council to delay consideration of the project while it seeks an opinion from the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates railroads.

The Attorney General’s letter sent yesterday included a simple response to this interpretation of the law: “we disagree.”

The letter from Harris’s office not only disagreed with Valero and Hogin’s legal opinions, but also stated that to the contrary, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) actually requires the city to consider indirect impacts of the project.

“A failure to include all of a project’s potential environmental impacts . . . or to disregard that information in making a decision like the one regarding Valero’s [project], not only would defeat the purpose of CEQA, but would be an abuse of discretion,” Lichtig wrote.

Harris’ letter explained at some length that federal authority over railroads applies only to railroads. The Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates railroads, “preempts state or local regulation only if the activity at issue is performed by a rail carrier,” the letter said.

Because Valero is proposing to build the project on its own land — rail spurs and related equipment to connect its refinery to the main railroad line — the Surface Transportation Board has no jurisdiction, Harris concluded.

The attorney general’s letter “clearly shows that Valero’s request for a delay was a distraction, designed to delay the inevitable vote to deny this project,” commented Andres Soto of Benicians for a Safe and Healthly Community.

The city council is planning to reconsider the Valero project on April 18 and 19. Opponents expect the letter to strengthen their case that the council should immediately vote to deny project approval, rather than wait on the federal Surface Transportation Board to weigh in, as Valero has requested.

“This letter has immense implications for similar oil-train fights in San Luis Obispo and around the country, where the issue of federal preemption has been at the forefront of local permitting battles,” wrote Ethan Buckner of STAND.earth, another organization that is opposing the Valero crude-by-rail project.