Blog Post
We’ve reported about what’s wrong in the secrecy around BP’s payments to Kenneth Feinberg and his law firm, which is doling out compensation for BP’s devastating oil spill in the Gulf. Monday, though, the Center for Justice and Democracy got deep into the guts of the matter.
Blog Post
The wee island nation of Fiji managed Wednesday to back down a California-owned company and extract a fee of 8 US cents per liter on Fiji Water. The state of California can’t even manage to back down Big Oil and charge a few cents a gallon on oil pumped out of its public lands. Jerry Brown, are you listening?
News Clipping
The panel named by President Obama to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on Tuesday rejected a call by a consumer activist group for the resignation of its chief counsel, Fred H. Bartlit Jr. The group, Consumer Watchdog, said that the panel should dismiss Mr. Bartlit because his law firm, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, once represented Halliburton, one of the companies involved in drilling the BP well.
Blog Post
The Texas oil money behind Proposition 23 is widely known by now. But there’s been less publicity about Big Oil–specifically Chevron–putting $4 million into passing Propostion 26, according to a nifty interactive chart just released by OilChange International.
Press Release
Washington, DC — Consumer Watchdog asked President Obama to force BP Fund Administrator Kenneth Feinberg to withdraw from a keynote address Wednesday at a Chamber of Commerce group dedicated to eviscerating spill victims’ legal rights, and to fire Feinberg if he refuses.
Press Release
Consumer Group Calls On Pension Funds to Divest From Prop 23 Backers Tesoro, Valero
Santa Monica, CA – Consumer advocates revealed an investor slide presentation by Texas-based oil company Tesoro explaining that oil refiners keep gasoline supplies especially tight on the West Coast to keep profits high through higher pump prices. The slides were included in a letter from Consumer Watchdog to California’s large public pension funds, known as CalPERS and CalSTRS, calling on the funds to divest from Tesoro and another refiner, Valero, which are the chief sponsors of Proposition 23 on the November ballot. The Investment Committee of CalPERS is meeting in Long Beach today.
Press Release
New York, NY — A national consumer group is running a 30 second commercial on a Times Square Superscreen that challenges Koch Industries, “the largest oil company you’ve never heard of,” for its record of environmental degradation, political influence, Tea Party funding and climate change denial.
Press Release
Top Prop 23 Funder Doesn’t Want Greentech Competition To Get in Way of Profiteering
Santa Monica, CA – A new report by Consumer Watchdog’s OilWatchdog.org project finds that Valero Energy reaped over $4.5 billion in refining profit while gouging California motorists since it bought its second California refinery in 2002. The oil refining giant, which is also the largest funder of Proposition 23, averaged 37% higher margins on each barrel of oil it refined in California than at refineries it owns elsewhere in the country, according to data published in company financial reports.
Blog Post
It’s amazing how oil companies stay so completely on message. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry mouthpiece, is pushing the same deceptive “jobs, jobs, jobs” message as the Texas oil companies backing Proposition 23…
The way natural gas promoters talk about their pet fuel, you’d think it was green as clover and safe as baby oil. After the deadly San Bruno, California, gas line explosion, however, hawkers like natural…
Blog Post
The new oil platform fire or explosion in the Gulf of Mexico looks minor in comparison to the BP spill, but there are sure some loud echoes in how it’s being handled. When word first…
Right: Valero’s Amarillo refinery blast in February The chief funders of California’s anti-regulation Proposition 23 on the November ballot are a pair of Texas-based refiners, Valero and Tesoro. Each of them has two refineries in…
Blog Post
Big Coal is planning an anonymous campaign blitz against elected officials (in Kentucky in this case) who dare to favor any restrictions on coal. That’s according to an internal coal company memo obtained by Kentucky’s Lexington Herald newspaper. This is only a tiny piece of the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to let corporations pour unlimited anonymous money into political campaigns. How many of these memos do we not know about?
