AB 26 Opens Public Funds to Big Oil

* Big Oil raked-in $118 billion by the end of 2012.

Proposed Assembly Bill 26 (Bonilla) claims to advance climate protection and worker rights, but it would do just opposite.

Recently amended on June 25th, AB 26 still prioritizes refineries for Greenhouse Gas Reduction funds, threatening to give oil companies billions in public money to keep oil refineries running. This massive new subsidy would come at the expense of clean energy funding, undercutting climate protection.

And the amended bill still threatens workers’ rights. It could block many existing refinery workers from keeping their jobs. That would undermine workers’ ability to stand up to corporate risk-taking, making refineries even less safe for workers and communities.

CBE and other community-based groups continue to stand alone among environmental non-profits in challenging this ‘climate destroyer’ bill publicly. We need your help now.

We joined the United Steelworkers (USW), the refinery operators union, to blow the whistle on AB 26 in our exposé published in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 18th and in our June 19th testimony before the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality.

On July 10th the Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations postponed it’s hearing on AB 26. We need you to maintain pressure on legislators. Call and fax the senators on the Committee NOW. No fax machine? Email your letter to Steven Low at CBE and we’ll fax it for you.

Sample opposition letter here.

Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations contact information:

* Photo credit: Rauf Ashrafov, Flickr