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.
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
“When he abruptly resigned as chief executive of BP PLC [he] left the company in disarray. The giant energy producer was struggling with
a legacy of accidents and spills in the U.S.” Nope, that’s not about the swift booting of Tony Hayward by the BP board on Tuesday. It’s from a 2007 Bloomberg story on the last crisis change in leadership at BP.
Blog Post
04-5-2010 by dugan Flash back to two years ago. Oil prices were nearing $120 a barrel and jamming up the price of food, gasoline, travel, almost everything we buy. In April 2008, energy analysts…
Blog Post
3-5-10 by dugan I guess its’s fitting that it took a New York newspaper to inform Californians that a couple of giant Texas oil refining companies are bankrolling a ballot initiative to kill the…
Blog Post
10-21-08 by dugan With oil prices going through the roof again (near $82 a barrel today), the economy is deeply at risk. But oil refineries are looking like better investments, because gasoline prices will…
Blog Post
10-16-09 by dugan Oil prices hit another record for the year today, at over $78 dollars for each 42-gallon barrel in futures markets. That’s well over double the late 2008 low of 32 dollars…
Blog Post
09-10-09 by dugan Who knew that investment giant Goldman Sachs was in the oil business? I’m picturing top execs earning their tens-of-millions bonuses in hard hats and oil-streaked yellow overalls. The news is part…
Report
08-28-09 by dugan Did you hear the one about how the Bush administration used the wrong calculations last year when it declared that it wasn’t financial speculation causing the huge oil spike price? It’s…
