Blog Post
We’ve been watching the refining company Valero since it spent $5 million last year attempting to kill California’s landmark global warming law. Ads for the ballot measure pounded on the idea that killing pollution controls would protect jobs. So does Valero really believe in protecting jobs? Ask the nearly 1,000 contract workers summarily dismissed from Valero’s Aruba plant (pictured) 16 months ago.
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
There’s a name that’s becoming as ubiquitous in dirty oil politics as Coke cans are in greasy spoons. And it’s pronounced like the soft drink, but spelled Koch. Koch-heads now on the radar include Carly Fiorina, the Tea Party and Proposition 23.
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…
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…
