Protest Chevron’s Tax Grab

651 Pine Street, Martinez

Thursday December 15, 2011

11:30 AM – Gather and Leaflet Area

12 Noon Rally

RPA says:

“The Chevron Corporation is currently appealing its property tax assessment and trying to get the county to pay them a refund of $150 million dollars at hearings in Martinez. If ordered to pay these refunds, County, City, and school districts would have to slash vital health, education and public services and lay off employees.”

“Chevron, which has long had reduced property taxes thanks to loop holes in Proposition 13, is able to hire an army of expensive lawyers to try to bully the county into accepting a settlement. Community groups, unions, and everyone who cares about justice say it is time to stop the 1% from bleeding the rest of us. We are the 99%, Chevron is the 1%!”

The Richmond City Council Resolution asking Chevron to drop its property tax appeals notes the following:

• Chevron Corporation. (formerly Standard Oil) has successfully operated an oil refinery in Richmond since 1904, thus contributing to the corporation’s high profitability for over 100 years

• Chevron declares that it wants to be a good neighbor to Richmond and Contra Costa County residents

• Chevron has posted record profits in each of the last five years, and its profits of $7,830,000,000 ($7.83 billion) for the third quarter of 2011 are double its profits for the third quarter of 2010

•  Chevron’s charitable contributions to worthy local organizations in 2010 amounted to $3.7 million, which represents a mere 0.047% of the profit it made in just three months

• These cuts would inevitably result in the layoffs of city, county, school district, fire and water, etc. workers at a time when we are already experiencing record unemployment and the worst recession since the 1930’s Depression

• These layoffs would result in less income available to purchase goods and services contributing to a downward economic spiral damaging our business community

• Chevron has stated it wants to maintain good a good relationship with Richmond and that it specifically wants to help ameliorate the very problems that the cuts triggered by its potential refunds would exacerbate

• If Chevron were to withdraw all of its property tax appeals it would remain a highly successful and profitable corporation and would experience no negative consequences

• The Richmond City Council respectfully asks Chevron Corporation. to withdraw and dismiss all of its property tax appeals on past years’ assessments and pay the full amount due on current and future property tax assessments for the Richmond refinery.

Read the full resolution by the Richmond City Council

Get the flyer for the protest and rally

You may remember there was a multiyear dispute between residents who live near the Richmond refinery and Chevron which wanted to expand its expand its facility to refine heavier dirtier crude oil, which would further pollute an area where the local community already suffers disproportionately high rates of asthma, cancer and other illnesses. Eventually, the local residents and the community groups that support them won their case when two judges sided with them. However, while the dispute was still raging, Mechanics Bank sent its clients a letter in support of Chevron, which it also published as an open letter. We’re posting the contents and linking to a copy of it here so that you can make a fully informed decision when you think about moving your money in the Bay Area.

August 5, 2009

~ Mechanics Bank
Commitment That Lasts Generations
An Open Letter to Chevron and the City of Richmond
From Mechanics Bank

For almost 100 years, Mechanics Bank has proudly called Richmond its home. As an organization that is committed to helping build prosperous communities as their trusted financial partner, we have always supported Richmond’s businesses, non-profits, and provide employment to many of its residents. In the spirit of that commitment, we add our voice today to the growing chorus of those calling for an end to the impasse over Chevron’s refinery upgrade project. Richmond, which calls itself the “City of Pride and Purpose,” is in danger of losing both if it cannot find a way to reach a swift and equitable agreement that allows it to move forward.

With the city’s unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression – estimated to exceed 17% -and the state’s financial difficulties about to lead to a loss of millions from its redevelopment funds, Richmond is facing one of its greatest challenges. By bringing the refinery project to a halt, Communities for a Better Environment and its allies may think they have won the day, but from our viewpoint, it appears to be a hollow victory. A century of serving this community has taught us that opportunities such as that posed by the Chevron plant upgrade don’t come along very often–and they are especially rare in a time of recession. A failure to find a compromise that is fair to all would squander a chance to revive Richmond’s struggling economy, and likely would eliminate future jobs and prosperity, too. Because no agreement was reached, more than 1100 local workers have lost their jobs. Their families have lost healthcare and other benefits. The city itself stands to lose over $61 million in promised community benefits to support a variety of much-needed programs. From job training for low-skill workers to funding that bolsters desperately needed police and fire services, from support for free and subsidized health services to construction of the missing link of the Bay Trail, and much, much more, Richmond comes out a loser.

Worst of all, the reason given for opposing Chevron’s plant upgrade doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Despite opponents’ claims of environmental degradation, the City of Richmond, the State Attorney General’s office, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District concluded after four years of review that the refinery upgrade would actually reduce emissions!

We did not speak with Chevron prior to preparing this letter, nor did they request that we take a position on the dispute. But given our deep roots in this community we felt it was imperative to speak out. Richmond has been a big part of the growth and success of Mechanics Bank, for which we will always be grateful. Together, we’ve survived the Great Depression and a dozen other boom-and-bust cycles. We have always believed in a bright future for this city, but if the naysayers kill this opportunity, it may well be decades before Richmond makes up what it will have lost.

It is imperative for our community that all parties reach a swift, reasonable resolution so that Richmond and its citizens can get back to work quickly.

Sincerely
Steven K. Buster
President and Chief Executive Office

cc:
Mike Coyle
Manager
Chevron Richmond Refinery
Chevron Corporation
P. O. Box 6076
San Ramon
CA 94583

Gayle McLaughlin
Mayor
City of Richmond
450 Civic Center
Richmond
CA 94804

Judy Morgan
President
Richmond Chamber
of Commerce
3925 Macdonald Ave.
Richmond
CA 94805

Bill Gallegos, Executive Director
Nile Malloy, NorCal Program Director
Communities for a Better Environment
Oakland Office
1440 Broadway, Suite 701
Oakland, CA 94612

Hilltop Office
3170 Hilltop Mati Road• Richmond, (A 94806
1.800.797.6324 PHONE’ www.mechbank.com

PDF of scanned letter

Reuters posting of letter

Find a credit union

Re-posted from the Richmond Confidential

Chevron’s Richmond refinery, seen from Nichol Hill. The company argues that it has paid too much in property taxes on the facility. (photo by: Robert Rogers)

Chevron will present its case for a $58 million tax refund before an appeals board on Monday, as the company seeks to prove that it overpaid property taxes on its Richmond refinery between 2007 and 2009.

The hearing before the County’s Assessment Appeals Board – which listens to the cases of property owners who believe that the county has overvalued their land and thus charged too much in taxes — represents the next step in a four-year battle. Chevron believes the county has overvalued its Richmond refinery by nearly $2 billion per year, a company spokesperson said in an email.

If the company succeeds in its appeal, it would create a “brutal situation” for the county and cities, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said.

“The city of Richmond stands to lose millions of dollars if this appeal is approved,” McLaughlin said, adding that the city would have to cut services to pay back the money.

County Assessor Gus Kramer, who has held the position since 1995, called the case a “phenomenon.”

“It is record setting,” he said. “It’s the largest appeal we’ve ever had.”

Full article

Photograph caption: Chronicle 2009 Chevron Refinery;  photo credit: Liz Hafalia
image source: http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-03-05/bay-area/18376605_1_chevron-and-other-oil-business-license-tax-richmond-refinery

Re-posted from Deutsche Welle

 Nnimmo Bassey (right) with Johannes Beck, DW’s head of the Portuguese for Africa department

10/12/11

International head of Friends of the Earth, Nnimmo Bassey, is a special guest at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. The Nigerian campaigner spoke to DW about the link between literacy and environmental protection.

For years, Nnimmo Bassey has been fighting against the oil industry’s pollution in the Nile Delta. Broken pipelines, illegal small refineries and the burning of excess gas have caused an ecological disaster. According to Bassey’s organization “Environmental Rights Action,” the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth, a proper cleanup would cost $100 million.

Bassey, a laureate of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), spoke to the head of DW’s Portuguese for Africa department, Johannes Beck, at the Frankfurt Book Fair’s LitCam conference. This year’s focus is on how education can contribute to sustainable economic growth. To hear the full interview, click the link below.

Deutsche Welle: Today we’ve heard how literacy can contribute to climate protection. Yet if we look at industrialized countries, we see that many have a high literacy level – for example Germany – but we still cause a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. What do we need?

Nnimmo Bassey: The industrialized world has to a large extent – and I say this with due respect – lost the connection with nature. I mean, when was the last time you looked at a night sky to see the stars? If you are in a city with so much electric light everywhere you almost don’t know what a beautiful night sky looks like. And this is [just] a small thing.

We actually require taking this literacy to the popular level. Our scientists have to be retrained to communicate their work in a popular way, to speak the language that the people on the street can understand. Because when you keep on producing statistics and things that sound like flying above people’s heads, this is okay as a scientific finding, but is has nothing to do with me. People want what they can relate to, what they can understand.

You said industrialized countries have lost their connection to nature. But when I travel to Latin America, Africa or Asia, I feel that at least in the big cities of the developing world, people also have a very fragile connection to nature. Is it really only a problem for industrialized countries?

I would agree with this. We need a worldwide reconnection, but we must also not forget the historical basis of the conflict and challenge we are facing. When scientists tell us that 80 percent of the atmospheric space for carbon has been taken, this was not done by the developing countries.

We know some really rich polluting entities of the world, which have taken off and colonized the atmosphere by themselves. They don’t want to negotiate how the remaining 20 percent can be shared.

They don’t really care what happens the day after, because they have better resilience and better capability to withstand the storms of life that most inevitably will confront all of us.

But again, when we make some broad statements, we have to look at details. We have the global north in the south; we have the global south in the north. Because there are very rich people in poor countries who live very wasteful lives and who are creating as much damage as anybody else.

I’m personally engaged and committed to engage in joining people across the world to confront power, because corporate power has captured public structures across the world.

Full text interview

Full audio interview

By Mira Oberman | AFP – Thu, Oct 20, 2011

Re-posted from AFP

A Nigerian tribal king filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking $1 billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands, his lawyer said.

The suit was filed a day after the US Supreme Court said it will consider a lawsuit accusing Shell of human rights abuses in Nigeria in a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

That case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 that scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The latest case alleges that Shell’s Nigerian operations are “well below internationally recognized standards to prevent and control pipeline oil spills” because the Anglo-Dutch company “has not employed the best available technology and practices that they use elsewhere in the world.”

It cited a recent United Nations report that found that contamination was widespread in the Nigerian Delta after 50 years of oil extraction left groundwater badly contaminated and the soil soaked with hydrocarbons to depths of five meters.

The suit was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area, where the UN team found the most serious groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization guidelines.

Scientists found an eight centimeter layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater that served the wells. The oil was linked to a spill that had occurred six years earlier and was not properly cleaned up.

Full article

photo credit: © Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR

From the website of Amnesty International: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/business/shell-accused-over-misleading-figures-on-nigeria-oil-spills/

20 September 2011

A US court has overturned a block on Ecuadoreans collecting damages totalling $18.2bn (£11.5bn) from Chevron over Amazon oil pollution.

The order reversed a previous judge’s ruling that froze enforcement of the fine outside Ecuador.

But it is not the end of the legal saga, which is also going through the courts in Ecuador.

Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

In February, an Ecuadorean court ruled that Chevron should pay to clean up pollution, awarding damages of more than $9bn as well as punitive damages of more than $8bn.

But Chevron, which argues that this judgement was fraudulent, successfully appealed to a New York judge to have collection of the fine blocked.

That decision was overturned on Monday, when the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York lifted the injunction.

Full article

Image: Humberto Piguaje, Tribal Leader, Secoya of the Ecuadorian Amazon, after the Chevron Shareholders meeting May 2011. Photo credit: Todd Sanchioni

By Emma Amaize & Akpokona Omafuaire

Re-posted from Vanguard Media

WARRI-HUNDREDS of placard-carrying women, from about 10 Gbaramatu communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, yesterday, laid siege to the project site of Chevron Nigeria Limited at Chanomi Creek and disrupted the laying of pipelines for the multi-billon dollars Escravos Gas to Liquid project.

The workers of an indigenous service company, Fenog Nigeria Limited, handling the project were helpless as the women refused to vacate the site, while soldiers guarding them looked on.

The women, from Okerenkoko, Oporoza, Benikrukru, Kurutie, Kunukunuma, Azama, Igoba, Pepe-Ama, Tebizon, Kokodiagbene communities, led by Mrs. Comfort Oguma, said both the Federal Government and Chevron deceived them and demanded that all pre-contract agreements be fulfilled.

Full article

Image: Oporoza, Niger Delta, Image source: Sweet Crude

by David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, and Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International – 08/02/11

Reposted from The Hill

Noticeably absent from this week’s debt ceiling deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans were the billions in taxpayer subsidies Congress continues to dole out to Big Oil, despite overwhelming support among Americans to end these handouts and in the face of staggering oil company profits released last week. When it came to taking on Big Oil, Congress and the Obama administration blinked.

Cutting Medicare for low and middle-income seniors? On the table. Closing loopholes for profitable, multinational corporations? Not under discussion.

The world’s largest oil companies announced another round of billion dollar profits last week. BP made $5.6 billion. Shell got even more, with over $8 billion. And ExxonMobil’s profits were $10.7 billion – an astounding $117 million a day from April to June. Gas prices are still at record levels and everyday taxpayers are footing the bill for billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies these companies get every year. Big Oil is making big profits—and the American people are paying the price. In fact, we’re paying it twice – once when we fill up our tanks and once when we pay taxes.

And while the 12-member “Super Congress” that will be appointed as part of the deal would technically put cuts to these subsidies on the table, you can bet oil companies will harness their significant political clout to keep their free money. With just 12 members to focus on—instead of 535–that pressure might be even stronger.

Why do these oil companies have so much sway? Just follow the money. A recent report from Public Campaign Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters found that 93.5 percent (159 of 170) of U.S. House members who received campaign contributions from the political action committees (PACs) of the largest oil companies in the first half of the year voted to maintain these wasteful subsidies. And the three top Republicans in the House – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) – received a combined $96,000 in dirty energy money from these PACs in the first six months of the year alone.

Full article

photo – Washington DC – Capitol Hill: United States Capitol, by wallyg  Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. 

Reposted from Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

INTRODUCTION:

Four communities where Shell Petroleum Development Company [SPDC] operates in recently issued a 14 days ultimatum to the company, demanding for implementation of agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi; all Ogbia speaking Ijaw communities in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, few kilometres to President Goodluck Jonathan’s community, Otueke.

Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest to the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base.

ERA’s field monitor witnessed the protest that took place on the 7th of July 2011 and some of the protesters spoke with him.

TESTIMONIES:

We are here for a peaceful protest but if the JTF handles this matter in a violent way we shall only retreat and return in full force. Then it will be too bad for Shell because Shell has cheated us for too long. The Kolo Creek communities have been known to be very peaceful but if the soldiers and Shell take undue advantage of our peaceful disposition today to intimidate us, we shall not take it. If we hear any gun shot or if any of our members is injured here today by the soldiers, the rest of the state and the country will hear our action. All we are demanding for is that Shell should respect the agreement it reached long ago with our people; these four communities. They agreed to extend electricity to our communities but they are not doing so; while benefiting heavily from our oil wells. This is not a fresh demand, it is an agreement reached with us that we are trying to enforce.  — Amakiri Joseph, Vice-Chairman of the Community Development Committee [CDC] of Oruma

Full article

On behalf of nineteen Nigerian plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., ERI filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court today asking the court to hear the case.  Specifically, the petition requests that the Supreme Court overturn the decision in the case by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that corporations such as Chevron cannot be sued for torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA).

The litigation against Chevron arises out of an incident in 1998 in which Nigerian villagers occupied a Chevron offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta in order to protest environmental devastation and economic disruption caused by oil production.  After several days of peaceful protest, Chevron called in brutal Nigerian military and police forces to attack the protestors.  The security forces shot several protestors and killed two, including Arolika Irowarinun, whose family is among the plaintiffs in the case.

In December 2008, a San Francisco jury ruled against the Nigerian plaintiffs.  But the jury never heard the claim that Arolika Irowarinun was subjected to extrajudicial killing, because the court had ruled that Chevron could not be sued under the TVPA.  The only claim for Arolika’s death was a wrongful death claim which, due to idiosyncracies of Nigerian law, required a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Ninth Circuit rejected the plaintiffs’ appeal in September 2010, agreeing with the trial court that corporations could not be sued for torture or exttrajudicial killing under the TVPA; the court further rejected plaintiffs’ petition for rehearing in February 2011.  This ruling is in conflict with cases decided by another federal court of appeals, the Eleventh Circuit, which has repeatedly ruled that corporations can be sued under the TVPA.

We do not expect a decision from the Supreme Court on whether it will hear the case until September or October.

Documents:
Petition for Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court