{"id":11459,"date":"2010-04-05T22:34:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T22:34:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-04-05T22:34:31","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T22:34:31","slug":"boycott-valero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/05\/boycott-valero\/","title":{"rendered":"Boycott Valero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><I>Note: I&#8217;m the Public Policy Director for the Courage Campaign<\/I><\/p>\n<p>Two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, are the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.sfgate.com\/2010-03-10\/opinion\/18383356_1_valero-signature-gatherers-emissions\">primary funders behind a drive to suspend AB 32<\/a>, California&#8217;s landmark global warming solutions and carbon reduction law. Valero and Tesoro have spent over $500,000 on signature gathering to put this on the ballot &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/11259\/cosponsor-of-antiab-32-initiative-now-opposes-it\">alienating one of the wingnut authors of the repeal<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n<p>As Californians who support taking action to reduce our carbon emissions and stop global warming, Courage Campaign and CREDO Action think it&#8217;s time to do something to stop Valero&#8217;s attack on AB 32 in its tracks.<\/p>\n<p>That &#8220;something&#8221; is launching a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/BoycottValero\">boycott of Valero gas<\/a>. There&#8217;s no reason Californians should be supporting with their own money the effort to destroy our environment or our green jobs. The best way to get Valero&#8217;s attention is to show them that they will pay a price for their support of AB 32 repeal.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t going to take off in a day. But progressive Californians can start fighting back against the repeal of AB 32 by pledging to stop buying Valero gas as long as they&#8217;re funding the repeal.<\/p>\n<p>Below the fold is the email we sent to our members this morning.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Robert &#8212;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/BoycottValero\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/page\/-\/boycott_valero_160.gif\" align=right><\/a>It&#8217;s outrageous. Texas oil companies like Valero Energy are going to spend millions on this November&#8217;s election to destroy California&#8217;s environment. We&#8217;re not buying it &#8212; their campaign or their gas.<\/p>\n<p>When we launched our campaign in December to protect AB 32 &#8212; California&#8217;s &#8220;Global Warming Solutions Act&#8221; &#8212; from attacks by Meg Whitman and other oil company supporters, we knew they would say some appalling things to defend themselves. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But check out what Valero Energy CEO Bill Klesse &#8212; one of the two main funders of the initiative to repeal AB 32 &#8212; said in response to our friend Adam Quinn of CREDO Action. Adam had emailed Klesse requesting Valero stop attacking the landmark legislation and was shocked to get the following response:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>From: Klesse, Bill<br \/>\n<br \/>Date: Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 12:02 PM<br \/>\n<br \/>Subject: Re: Stop Attacking CA AB 32<br \/>\n<br \/>To: Adam Quinn<\/p>\n<p>I assume you realize that we are discussing CO2. Many people do not realize this is a CO2 law. We are not willing to ruin our economy, our business, your life style and our country over AB-32.<\/p>\n<p>Sent from my iPhone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As you can imagine, Adam was outraged by Klesse&#8217;s open hostility to the environmental values that most Californians share. So he asked if we would join CREDO Action and help them organize progressives to reject Valero&#8217;s attack on California&#8217;s global warming law. <\/p>\n<p>We said &#8220;absolutely!&#8221; Now Courage Campaign and CREDO Action are coming together to send a message to Valero&#8217;s CEO: <\/p>\n<p>We will boycott Valero gas stations as long as he continues to fund his Texas oil company&#8217;s attack on California&#8217;s environment.<\/p>\n<p>Will you join the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action in boycotting Valero gas? Just click here to let Valero CEO Bill Klesse know by sending a short letter to him with CREDO&#8217;s easy-to-use tool. Maybe he&#8217;ll personally respond to you, too:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/BoycottValero\">http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2006, California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), making California a global leader in reducing the greenhouse gases &#8212; including CO2 &#8212; that cause global warming. That law is now under attack from right-wingers like Meg Whitman and oil companies like Valero that are determined to continue polluting our environment.<\/p>\n<p>Valero and another Texas-based oil company, Tesoro, have already spent half a million dollars gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative that would suspend the climate solutions law and destroy green jobs. We can stop them in their tracks and hit Valero CEO Bill Klesse where it hurts &#8212; his company&#8217;s bottom line &#8212; by boycotting their gas and showing there&#8217;s a price for wantonly destroying our environment.<\/p>\n<p>Join the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action to tell Valero CEO Bill Klesse that attacking California&#8217;s global warming law is bad for business. We&#8217;ll deliver your message in support of the boycott immediately. Click here to send your message now:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/BoycottValero\">http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is just the start of our campaign to hold oil companies accountable. Thank you for standing up for green jobs, clean air, and meaningful action on the climate crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Jacobs<br \/>\n<br \/>Chair, Courage Campaign<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><I>Note: I&#8217;m the Public Policy Director for the Courage Campaign<\/I><\/p>\n<p>Two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, are the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.sfgate.com\/2010-03-10\/opinion\/18383356_1_valero-signature-gatherers-emissions\">primary funders behind a drive to suspend AB 32<\/a>, California&#8217;s landmark global warming solutions and carbon reduction law. Valero and Tesoro have spent over $500,000 on signature gathering to put this on the ballot &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/11259\/cosponsor-of-antiab-32-initiative-now-opposes-it\">alienating one of the wingnut authors of the repeal<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n<p>As Californians who support taking action to reduce our carbon emissions and stop global warming, Courage Campaign and CREDO Action think it&#8217;s time to do something to stop Valero&#8217;s attack on AB 32 in its tracks.<\/p>\n<p>That &#8220;something&#8221; is launching a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.couragecampaign.org\/BoycottValero\">boycott of Valero gas<\/a>. There&#8217;s no reason Californians should be supporting with their own money the effort to destroy our environment or our green jobs. The best way to get Valero&#8217;s attention is to show them that they will pay a price for their support of AB 32 repeal.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t going to take off in a day. But progressive Californians can start fighting back against the repeal of AB 32 by pledging to stop buying Valero gas as long as they&#8217;re funding the repeal.<\/p>\n<p>Below the fold is the email we sent to our members this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-86"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2YP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}