Right about now, oil executives in Texas are boarding a plane bound for the Northwest. Their goal? To steam roll opposition to the monster oil train terminal that Tesoro wants to construct on the downtown waterfront of Vancouver, Washington.
Hot on the heels of learning that the local city council is narrowly opposed to the project, the oil refining giant is going on a full court press lobbying mission in Vancouver, Washington. The company’s leadership, including senior VPs and CEO Greg Goff, will be meeting behind closed doors with members of the city council and the Port of Vancouver. Then on Tuesday, March 25 from 1:00 to 2:00, they are holding a private meeting with 40 business leaders at the Heathman Lodge.
As a public service to the community of Vancouver, it’s worth explaining what Tesoro is—and why their oil train terminal has no place on the Columbia River.
Tesoro’s plan for Vancouver, Washington
- Tesoro’s oil-by-rail terminal would handle up to 360,000 barrels of oil every day. That’s more oil than even the biggest pipeline in the region can handle and it would require moving 5 loaded oil trains (plus 5 unloaded ones) in and out of Vancouver every single day, on average.
- Tesoro claims that its facilities will use rail tank cars safer than the obviously dangerous models that have exploded catastrophically in communities around North America. (Note that those newer cars also have clear safety flaws.) But as the Vancouver Columbian points out, many other companies would be able to use railways to ship oil to Tesoro’s Port of Vancouver site, and the company won’t guarantee anything about those tank cars.
Tesoro’s deadly Anacortes fire
- In April 2010, an explosion at Tesoro’s Anacortes, Washington refinery killed seven workers, leading state regulators to cite the company for 39 “willful” and 5 “serious” violations of health and safety regulations, and slapping the firm with a $2.4 million fine—the largest penalty in state history. In fact, the state’s Department of Labor & Industries called it the “worst industrial disaster in the 37 years that L&I has been enforcing the state’s workplace safety law.”
- The US Chemical Safety Board investigation and others found that the company’s lax safety culture led to a “complacent” attitude towards flammable leaks and occasional fires; that Tesoro did not correct a history of recurring leaks and placed workers in dangerous conditions; that Tesoro did not adequately maintain equipment before the lethal blast; and that the accident was rooted in “a deficient refinery safety culture, weak industry standards for safeguarding equipment, and a regulatory system that too often emphasizes activities rather than outcomes.”
- Tesoro, along with former refinery owner, Shell Oil, settled a wrongful death suit filed by families of six of the workers who died for $39 million. And the US Environmental Protection Agency has opened a criminal investigation into Tesoro’s role in the fatal explosion.
Tesoro’s pollution
- In addition to the deadly Anacortes fire, at least two other Tesoro petroleum-handling facilities have caught on fire in the last decade, including one in Salt Lake City and another in Martinez, California.
- Tesoro has been cited for numerous safety and health violations, including more than one hundred air quality violations at a facility in the Bay Area, with fines totaling nearly $3 million dollars. In fact, a 2010 study by researchers at California universities found Tesoro “rank(s) worst in health impacts among all companies with refining operations in the state.”
- Tesoro is one of the top 100 toxic air polluters in the US, has been sued by the EPA for failing to test its products for harmful contaminants. In May of 2013, Tesoro paid a $1.1 million EPA fine to settle a suit over the company’s failure to follow Clean Air Act requirements at its refineries in Alaska, North Dakota, Utah, and Washington. The suit filed covered thousands of violations.
Tesoro’s hostility to workers
- In 2011, the year after seven workers were killed in Tesoro’s refinery, the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO asked shareholders of several oil companies to allow the firms to disclose more information on their safety practices and accident risks. Tesoro actively discouraged its shareholders from approving these measures, making it more difficult for their investors and oversight agencies to get a full picture of working conditions and hazards.
- Tesoro has a track record of replacing union labor with non-union workers in Los Angeles. And in the Bay Area, after two refinery workers were burned by acid spewing from a broken pipe, Tesoro actually barred federal safety inspectors from the site to prevent them from investigating the accident. This was in spite of strong objections by the United Steelworkers, the union that represents Tesoro’s workers there. Less than a month later, a second “serious sulfuric acid release” sent two more workers to the hospital.
- Today, at the Port of Vancouver, local longshoreman are opposing Tesoro and its oil terminal.
Tesoro’s pipeline spill
- Tesoro CEO Greg Goff said recently, “Protection and care of the environment are fundamental to our core values.” Unfortunately, that was in a prepared statement issued after a burst Tesoro pipeline was responsible for one of the largest spills ever recorded in North Dakota—a spill that the company didn’t even bother to tell the affected landowner about. Not until wheat farmer Steve Jensen had been smelling crude for days, and the tires of his combine were coated with oil, did it become public news. He told a local paper that the oil was “spewing and bubbling 6 inches high.”
Tesoro’s politics
- Tesoro tried to hijack Washington policy by contributing $90,000 to a Tim Eyman initiative to give a one-third minority of state legislators the ability to block legislation. Tesoro was the initiative’s second-biggest funder.
- In California, Tesoro spent $1.5 million in 2010 to fund a campaign to weaken the state’s environmental protection laws, and the firm worked to recruit other oil companies to join this effort. As then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the time, “Today, Valero and Tesoro are in a conspiracy. Not in a criminal conspiracy, but a cynical one about self-serving greed.”
- In March 2011, Tesoro CEO Greg Goff went on record opposing any effort by the US EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change.
- Tesoro has sought to benefit from the revolving door between government and industry. Jamie Moore, Tesoro’s Director of Federal Government Affairs, worked as senior policy adviser to former Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for eight years. During that period, he assisted with formulating the Energy Policy Act of 2005, that exempted oil and gas companies from certain requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and gave $2.8 billion in tax breaks to the fossil fuels industry. Hutchison was one of the biggest beneficiaries of campaign contributions from Tesoro’s PAC in the 2010 election cycle, even though she had already announced her retirement. Hutchison retired in 2012 and joined a lobbying firm in 2013 that has represented Tesoro.
If you guys feel this way about the oil and refining industry, why don’t you give up your cars and airplains? Walk miles to work in the rain and snow. Carry you purchases on your back or on a horse.
Refining is a risky business simply because if something goes wrong it deals with volatiles only. The ones we all use EVERY DAY. We have had these in great numbers in Texas and Lousiana and yes, there have been some deadly accidents. There seems to be a feeling that companies don’t care if they kill someone. I betcha they would rather there were no deaths or injuries because I assure you they didn’t want to paying out $36 million dollars.
Society demands these fuels, they are intwined in everthing you do or buy. You enjoy the benefits of these products. Why should you not share in the risks? Think about it instead of belly aching all the time.
What? You haven’t given up your cars and planes? I’ve only climbed into a vehicle twice this year, and my totaly transportation budget for 2013 was $60: new shoes. The air quality was quite grim when I walked to South Lake Union to pick them up. They even had some poor cop standing out in the carfug directing the bread-lined traffic, a most sorry sight to behold. The sidewalks were wide open, though. I can’t remember the last time I was stuck in traffic. Maybe on the Burke-Gilman on a 4th of July a few years ago? No, it was last when I was in a car. I find it hilarious how the cars just get stuck in traffic, the glum drivers bent over the wheelwell, or when the are moving, jolt over the unmaintained roads. Will Americans up their taxes to try to maintain the roads, or fold, or bluff? I’m betting on a bluff, what with the Micawberism and financial shenanigans from being the world reserve currency. Too bad the legacy oil peak was back in 2005, might have been nice to have done something useful with it while we had it…oh well, back to more important things: I’m cloning some rosemary sprigs, and the preserved lemons should be about ready by now.
Tom,
Your logic is impeccable. If I don’t want massive expansions of oil transport on the Columbia River — or if I call attention to the facts about an oil company’s track record of health and safety violations — then I should use a horse for transportation. That makes complete sense.
Right on! The days of citizen complacency about industrial pollution and hazards are over. Big Oil has “tweaked the tail of the elephant” with its insatiable greed, disregard for public safety, and rampant pollution of our air, land and water. After a string of oil train explosions and oil spills—contaminating our environment with toxins and carcinogensWe the People are alert and vigilant now. I get emails every day about citizens joining forces with strangers to fight against organizations (1) treating our environment like a sewer, (2) threatening public safety, or (3) stealing citizens’ rights to clean air, land, water and outdoor recreational opportunities. Ridicule us all you want, Tom, but We the People demand that corporations operate in a way that does not pose significant risk of major loss of life, property damage, or adverse environmental consequences…no matter how much money it costs them. If Big Oil wishes to expand into uncharted territory, they’d better wise up fast and start spending a fraction of their profits on safety and risk management. Let me remind you: 47 innocent human beings were incinerated in Quebec last July because of Big Oil. It was a tipping point for me. I will now fight every day to make sure that doesn’t happen in my community.
You don’t get it?
Well, I think you don’t want to get it.
Renewable energy would have us travel just as fine but would be a loss to you guys, that is the reason for your ignorant talk.
You’re a master of understatement. The Texas Gulf Coast has seen an endless string of disasters, deadly ones. As for the $36 million that’s chump change, the cost of doing business.
The notion that this is somehow about locals “giving up their cars” is the sort of hogwash that floats in Galveston Bay. It’s about making as much money as possible for your Texas friends and their investors, the ones they keep in the dark.
The oil isn’t going anywhere but Asia. You know that and all of us do also. Why should we let those cowboy boots walk all over us to get there?
Oh, and next time you’re in Oregon, do bring your bike.
This is another proposed project to transport fossil fuel through Washington with little benefit to Washington residents (150 jobs!) and the people of Washington bearing the impacts (air pollution, noise, traffic jams at crossings} These 10 trains will add to the 20+ trains already proposed for the Gorge! In addition, Oregon proposes the transport of fossil fuel by barge down the Gorge. In my career as an environmental consultant I have never seen a situation with so many projects that definitely required a Programmatic EIS.
You lose me when you start referring to the opposition (the ones advocating for the right to export oil) as being right wing. This isn’t a right wing/left wing issue. The two people who have done more to create this problem than anyone else are Warren Buffet and his buddy President Obama.
You should really try to frame this issue properly as a issue that goes beyond politics.
Unfortunately, politics is at the very root of this issue. When laws are enacted and/or changed to benefit and protect the polluters, how can it be otherwise?
Unsafe working conditions, union-busting, and fouling of the Earth are the legacy of greed.
Barry, I fully agree with you that President Obama and some Democrats are a huge part of the problem. But, overall, the politics of Big Oil have tended to be conservative, in the sense that the money gets funneled mostly to Republican, anti-tax, and anti-regulation efforts.
does not go beyond politics, since politicians are bought by those companies; both sides.
Re: The companies leadership, including senior VPs and CEO Greg Goff, will be meeting behind closed doors with members of the city council and the Port of Vancouver.
Are the members of the City Council and Port of Vancouver Commission familiar with the Open Meetings Act?
RCW 42.30.030
Meetings declared open and public.
All meetings of the governing body of a public agency shall be open and public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the governing body of a public agency, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.
[1971 ex.s. c 250 § 3.]
If you doubt that this RCW applies, check with the City of Olympia and the current kerfuffle over their Planning Commission attending secret meetings with developers.
Apparently they are using the “daisy chain tactic” to avoid obeying the Washington State open meeting laws. I really hope some attorney steps up to the plate on this one and prosecutes the %%## out of these folks. We are supposed to live in a world of transparent democracy here in the good old US of A. I believe that daisy chaining in an attempt to evade obeying open meeting laws has already been found unconstitutional by an appeals judge and I also believe it is a federal criminal offense. These tesoro execs believe themselves above the law, well there are many of us watching them with a microscope, just saying!
I have not been able to find any real information of how much tax revenue each county benefits from these trains of oils. I have found that no, I repeat no monies or trainings have come to the emergency response units, though much has been promised. Does anybody know how much the state collects in property tax per mile of track or personal property tax per rail car per trip? I can find the formulas on the state website but not the actual dollars collected or allocated per year.
I don’t know of any oil company who can state that they are not for profit. Tesoro certainly is no exception and believe me, profit is the only concern and the bottom line driving Tesoro in their involvement with this or any other venture that they are directly associated with or potentially affect by. Safety and environmental concerns are only a cost of doing business or “necessary evil” associated with doing business within the oil industry in this country. Having been previously in the petroleum business, specifically and unfortunately associated with Tesoro, has certainly provided me with an enlightened view to the mentality of this company. Believe me when I say that environmental, safety and general ethical concerns are distant concerns behind the insatiable bottom-line focus with these guys. Check their track record for yourself and beware when you do business with these southern gentlemen!!