City Says Coal Terminal Lease Is Dead; Tagami Threatens New Suit
In a dramatic new challenge to developer Phil Tagami’s plan to build a marine coal terminal in West Oakland, the City of Oakland has given notice that he will soon lose his 66-year lease on the West Gateway for failure to meet critical milestones for beginning construction. Although Tagami’s lawyer asserts that the lease has not been terminated, City Attorney Barbara Parker notified Tagami that the lease will automatically terminate on November 22, 2018 without any further notice.
In response, Tagami is threatening a new lawsuit against the City demanding $26 ...
Barbara Lee refuses support from coal developer Tagami
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, representing California's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, including northern and western Alameda County, recently joined No Coal in Oakland's pledge to refuse any support from coal developer Phil Tagami until he makes a legally binding commitment not to use Oakland's proposed marine terminal for coal.
Congresswoman Lee is the most prominent candidate and elected official to endorse NCIO's campaign so far. The pledges are intended to demonstrate to Phil Tagami that he is politically isolated as long as he ...
No Coal in Vallejo launches
No Coal in Vallejo launched on Saturday, October 6, 2018, when more than two dozen people crowded into the VStudio community space to hear about the campaigns against coal in Oakland and Richmond, ask questions, and think about how to move a campaign against coal forward in Vallejo.
Many of the people who attended on Saturday are activists in Fresh Air Vallejo, a group that has been fighting for 3-1/2 years to prevent the construction of a cement factory on the Napa River. The cement factory poses serious environmental hazards. Cement dust is toxic, linked to asthma and ...
Spirited demo exposes Bank of Montreal’s role in deceptive coal terminal financing
No Coal activists and supporters held a spirited demonstration in San Francisco on September 12, outside a meeting of Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an organization that promotes socially-responsible investment. We demonstrated to alert investors that the Bank of Montreal (BMO) may try to invite them to invest in waterfront "infrastructure" that is actually the proposed Oakland coal terminal. Also, BMO sent a representative to the conference, which was timed to coincide with the Global Climate Action Summit, and we wanted to make sure he registered the ...
NCIO Rises for Climate, Jobs, and Justice in San Francisco
On September 8th, 2018, No Coal in Oakland joined 30,000 marchers from around the Bay Area, California, the U.S. and the globe "to demand our elected leaders commit to no new fossil fuels and a just and fair transition to 100% renewable energy" at the coming week's GCAS and beyond. The San Francisco march -- Rise for Climate Jobs + Justice -- lived up to expectations, and the 50+ panel street mural at Civic Center was awesome. See 350.org's press release & photo albums on Flickr for a rich chronicle of the day; the full-size aerial photo of the murals surrounding Civic ...
Street mural in miniature: banner making at NCIO art party
On Sunday afternoon a group of No Coal in Oakland activists and artists gathered in a West Oakland backyard to organize the many pieces of next weekend's RISE March for Climate, Jobs, and Justice in San Francisco. To rehearse the layout and painting of NCIO's 35' street mural -- one of as many as fifty that will be chalked and painted at SF Civic Center on Saturday Sept 8th, at the endpoint of the RISE March -- artists painted the planned street mural in miniature onto cloth that will be carried as a banner from the meetup point at the Embarcadero to NCIO's place in the ...
Join NCIO for historic Sept march & coal-funding protest
September 2018 is going to loom large in the history of turning back climate change: the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) is coming to San Francisco, a coordinated climate mobilization will erupt in four hundred cities across the planet the weekend before GCAS, and a wide range of climate justice and environmental stewardship events are scheduled throughout the Bay Area.
No Coal in Oakland will be there. We hope you’ll join us as we tell our story; link Oakland’s struggle with others across our region, state, and world; and press our newest strategy in the fight ...
Oregon courts let Portland ban on fossil fuel infrastructure stand. For now.
In late 2016, the Portland, Oregon City Council unanimously approved two resolutions protecting residents from fossil fuel projects. They banned construction or expansion of infrastructure to transport or store fossil fuels in the city; and they voted to oppose rail projects planned to carry crude oil through the cities of Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. Subsequently, Oregon's Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) heard an appeal of these actions led by the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, Portland Business Alliance and Western States Petroleum Associatio...
Posturing and evasion from Bank of Montreal
Bank Vows Not to Disavow Financing of Coal Terminal
In response to NCIO's letter to Bank of Montreal’s ombudsperson Bindu Dhaliwal, the bank has responded. Sort of. Michael Torrance -- Chief Sustainability Officer and Associate General Counsel for the bank -- wrote to NCIO at length, but failed to substantively address any issue raised by NCIO's letters to Dhaliwal and to bank CEO Darryl White.
By acknowledging that “for confidentiality reasons we will not be discussing particular clients or transactions with third parties,” Mr. Torrance clearly implies that Bank ...
Open letter to Bank of Montreal Ombudsperson: no financing for coal!
No Coal in Oakland emailed this letter to staff at the Bank of Montreal, which has positioned itself to raise funds needed to build a coal terminal in West Oakland. The coal terminal project is locally fronted by would-be coal developer Phil Tagami, and is sponsored by coal giant Bowie Resources. The letter is part of No Coal in Oakland's ongoing Stop the Coal Money Initiative, which aims to block the capital to finance the terminal by stigmatizing would-be financiers and warning pension funds about toxic coal projects.
This letter, addressed to the Bank of Montreal's ...
