NCIO responds to Tagami profile in EB Express
In December 2019, the East Bay Express ran a cover-feature profile of would be coal-developer Phil Tagami ("Phil Tagami is Not Backing Down," East Bay Express, December 10, 2019). Over the signature of of No Coal in Oakland's coordinating committee member Ann Harvey, who identified her affiliation with our ongoing campaign, NCIO responded a few days after the article ran (the letter was drafted collaboratively by several members of NCIO's coordinating committee). Though a number of letters-to-the-editor were published by the paper in response to the profile, the EB ...
Oakland Coal Fires Up Local Press
In October, we called attention to an article by Darwin BondGraham in the UK’s The Guardian, in which the reporter analyzed documents filed in bankruptcy court by would-be coal terminal operator Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS), Phil Tagami’s latest tenant for the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT). What BondGraham discovered: fossil fuel executives have been lobbying hard and pouring thousands of dollars into spin-doctoring to revive their effort to ship toxic Utah coal through Oakland.
The lobbying and spin-doctoring has continued in the months since then, ...
No Coal Activists Voice Cautious Optimism After Ninth Circuit Hearing
After a packed Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing Tuesday, No Coal in Oakland activists are cautiously optimistic that the court will overturn District Court Judge Vince Chhabria’s May 2018 decision concluding that the City of Oakland breached its contract with developers.
So-called “Oakland Protocol”: a coal industry falsehood and farce
On Halloween, the Oakland Post published an alarming article about efforts by longtime coal industry executives to revive plans for a coal terminal in West Oakland. No Coal in Oakland contacted the newspaper’s publisher, and was given an opportunity to respond to misstatements of fact and omissions in the article that appear to be part of a concerted plan to lobby key community leaders to overturn the city’s coal ban, as reported by Darwin BondGraham in a Guardian article just a week before.
In the October 31 Post article, Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS), would-be ...
NCIO & San Diego 350: beware fossil fuel contamination in “black box” pension fund investments
No Coal in Oakland's warning against infrastructure investment proposals that conceal fossil fuel projects reached hundreds of pension fund investors in San Diego last weekend. It couldn't have happened without the vital support of activists in San Diego 350 who mobilized to leaflet that city's convention center.
On October 19 through 21, thousands attended the opening days of the 65th Annual Employee Benefits Conference in San Diego. NCIO composed and financed a leaflet warning against “black box” investments similar to the “teaser” that the Bank of Montreal ...
Fossil Fuel Execs lobbying to overturn Oakland coal ban
As reported by Darwin BondGraham in the UK's The Guardian this morning, fossil fuel executives have been lobbying hard and pouring thousands of dollars into spin-doctoring their attempts to ship toxic Utah coal to Asia via the proposed, but now leaseless, Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal on the city's waterfront, near the foot of the Bay Bridge.
From BondGraham's article, "How fossil fuel execs lobbied black leaders to overturn a California city’s coal ban":
Last spring, an unusual meeting took place in Oakland, California, between the NFL star Marshawn Lynch and ...
Climate Justice activists demand closure of U.S. concentration camps for migrants and refugees
August 2019 is a "Month of Momentum": thirty days of protest at the San Francisco office of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). On each day of the month, a different community of Bay Area residents and activists has committed to protest during the noon hour at the ICE office, at 630 Sansome St. in San Francisco. Climate Justice activists from throughout the Bay Area took our turn on Monday, August 5th.
Activists across the progressive spectrum are demanding that the U.S. government's concentration camps (a.k.a. "detention centers") be shuttered; insisting that ...
Planning Commission delays recommendation on Richmond Coal ordinance
The challenges of just transition played out dramatically at the Richmond Planning Commission on July 18. The commission was considering a proposal to recommend that the City Council adopt an ordinance phasing out the use of the Richmond Levin Terminal (RLT) for storage and handling of coal and petroleum coke (pet coke). The meeting chambers filled to overflowing, with environmental activists outnumbered by members of the building trades unions. Dozens of people spoke passionately about the health impacts of these commodities; and others, equally passionately, about ...
Coal Miner Pays Visit to East Bay: “Putting the ‘Just’ in the Just Energy Transition”
Nick Mullins, a former underground coal miner whose family has lived in Appalachia for generations, spoke in the East Bay about the desperate conditions in those communities, helping us understand their hostility toward environmentalists and their support for Trump. He emphasized the importance of respecting local experience and leadership and focused on the absolute priority of jobs in a mono-economy where life is tightly controlled by the coal industry.
Nick, who is on a seven-week tour of the United States, spoke at both the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center in ...
Court Puts Developers’ Quest for Damages on Hold
Second Lawsuit Stalls as Court of Appeal Weighs Anti-SLAPP Motion
An Alameda County Superior court judge has issued a stay of developer Phil Tagami’s lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages against the City of Oakland and a reinstatement of the terminal’s lease which Oakland terminated in November. The case will be on hold until the California Court of Appeal can decide whether the lawsuit is barred by California’s Anti-SLAPP Statute. The stay could last as long as two years as the Court of Appeal reviews the City’s argument that the lawsuit is a ...
