As the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico intensifies, the rest of the oil industry is sitting on the sidelines. Instead of helping clean up the Gulf, many of them are busy spending their money trying to pollute California.

15 oil companies have combined to spend about $2 million to undermine our anti-pollution laws by trying to place a repeal of AB 32 on the November ballot. Led by Valero, Tesoro, and Occidental, they prefer undermining California's effort at creating clean energy and green jobs to helping clean up after what their industry has done in the Gulf.

The Courage Campaign - where I work as Public Policy Director - doesn't think that's right. We are today launching a campaign to demand that instead of spending $2 million to the attack on California's anti-pollution laws, the CEOs of Valero, Tesoro, and Occidental instead pledge to spend $2 million on Gulf cleanup and restoration. You can add your name to our letter and show these oil CEOs that we're not going to stand for their attack on our environment.

During Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart helped fund relief and recovery efforts, so there is precedent for other industries getting involved. Yes, this is BP's responsibility. But the oil industry as a whole helped undermine the regulations and enabled the Deepwater Horizon disaster to occur.

In fact, while entire industries are being destroyed, thousands made jobless, and unknown numbers of animal and plant life are being killed, Valero and Tesoro gave another $400,000 to the Dirty Energy Proposition on May 19.

It's time California stood up to these big oil companies and told them to get their priorities straight. Click here to sign our letter, which we will deliver to the CEOs of Valero, Tesoro and Occidental.

Below is the email we sent to our members today.   Read More »

Valero CEO Bill Klesse, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and the other right-wingers and oil companies trying to destroy California's economy and environmental future by "suspending" AB 32 indefinitely. They've gone around peddling debunked studies claiming AB 32 would hurt jobs (actually, it helps create new, green jobs that are harder to offshore).

And yet for all their efforts, they haven't been able to change the fact that large majorities of Californians support the global warming law and its methods, as the Field Poll found:

In 2006 California passed a new law that requires the state to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming by about 17 percent over the next ten years. Generally speaking, do you favor or oppose this new law?

Favor: 58%
Oppose: 38%

One way to achieve this goal is to charge a fee to those companies that release greenhouse gases over their permitted level. The state would then return most of the money collected from this fee back to all state residents either directly or through a reduction in taxes. Generally speaking, do you favor or oppose this proposal?

Favor: 64%
Oppose: 31%

Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with the following statement: "I believe California can reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and expand jobs and economic prosperity at the same time."

Agree: 69%
Disagree: 29%

I'd have liked Next10/Field to ask about using money generated from cap-and-trade fees to fund things like high speed rail, local mass transit operations, and solar panels, but this is still a pretty solid sign that the public is all in favor of the carbon reduction rules AB 32 set up.

In that latter question, "agree" was at 74% in 2008 and 83% in 2007, but 69% is still an enormous amount of support for creating jobs through green technology. There's no way the right-wingers can spin that as anything but a huge rejection of their attack on California's green jobs and global warming action.

Of course, they'll try. That's why Courage Campaign and CREDO are committed to Boycott Valero. Valero CEO Bill Klesse has responded to at least one Courage Campaign member so far - send him a message yourself and remind him that Californians don't want a Texas oil company telling them what to do.

Plus, it's good to see statewide Democratic candidates like Kamala Harris stand up for AB 32 as well.