Texas oil looks to influence California law

California environmental laws are some of the toughest in the nation, and are often copied by other states, much to the consternation of energy and automobile companies.

Former LA Times reporter Robert Salladay reports that two Texas oil firms appear to be funneling money into California for an initiative that would undo the state's landmark greenhouse gas legislation, known as AB 32.

From California Watch:

Two Texas oil companies have been evasive about whether they are backing a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state's landmark global warming law, signed with fanfare by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

But it wouldn't be surprising if Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. were behind the initiative to delay AB 32.

The Texas companies – which operate refineries in Benicia and Wilmington, Martinez and Los Angeles, and hundreds of gas stations throughout California – have been well-known players in the fight to weaken global warming legislation at the federal level, and they are major donors to state politicians working for the same goals.

Read the rest of the story here.

Guardian lets Twitter do the talking

A British law firm today agreed to drop a gag order that had prevented the Guardian newspaper from reporting that a member of the British Parliament had raised questions about a secret report on toxic dumping off the Ivory Coast. The law firm of Carter-Ruck, which represent oil-trading giant Trafigura, had earlier won a secret injunction to stop the paper from exposing a report - possibly this report - that some say addresses whether Trafigura knew about the dumping.

Time magazine and others cited the use of social media tools, most notably Twitter, to sidestep the gag order and make public that Trafigura was likely behind the injunction. But I don't understand why the Guardian agreed to abide by the gag order in the first place. As Stephen Shotnes, a media-law expert with the London firm Simons Muirhead & Burton, told Time magazine: "It's been enshrined in our law for 300 years that there's freedom of reporting of parliamentary proceedings." Shouldn't the paper have broken the gag itself?

Whittier striken with oil fever

Struggling with the loss of tax-producing auto malls and retail outlets, the city of Whittier wants to turn back the clock to an old way of striking it rich. From the Wall Street Journal:

The five biggest car dealerships here went belly up in the space of a year. The Mervyns department store was liquidated. And the city is so strapped for cash it has pulled the plug on its Fourth of July fireworks.

But now this Los Angeles suburb thinks it has found the answer to its troubles: It's going to drill, baby, drill.

It's not unusual to see working oil derricks in the midst of L.A.'s suburban sprawl. A century ago, Whittier was dotted with oil wells, but that came to an end in 1993, the WSJ reports, when Chevron turned its field over to the city. Hard times and high oil prices provided Mayor Bob Henderson with a revelation:

"I was sitting at home, just idly thinking about this possibility of oil drilling and suddenly thought: 'Oh, my God, when I purchased the old Chevron property, we demanded they give us the oil rights.'"

The demand was made so Whittier could convert the area into a wilderness preserve. Says Mr. Henderson: "It's home to an awful lot of animals -- bobcats, coyotes, hundreds of birds."

The Whittier Daily News reported yesterday that a Santa Barbara company filed for permission to drill in the city. Officials think they can earn about $5 million a year from the operations.

Drill, baby, drill!

From the New York Times:

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

Read the rest here.