Ninth Circuit rules against Oakland, but the fight is far from finished
In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week against the City of Oakland in a breach of contract case brought by developers who claim they have a vested right to build a coal export terminal in West Oakland. The Oakland City Council passed a ban on storage and handling of coal in June 2016 in response to extensive evidence showing that coal poses substantial health and safety risks to workers and residents.
The two-judge majority held that the developers’ contractual rights trumped the City of Oakland’s right to protect its residents from ...
Japan’s Kiko Network: a new ally in opposition to an Oakland coal terminal
No Coal in Oakland has recently begun working with Japan’s Kiko Network, following discovery earlier this year that Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS) was pursuing a commitment from Japan’s largest energy company, JERA, to purchase 4 million tons of Utah coal per year. ITS, as we learned from the company’s bankruptcy court filings, is also pursuing financing from a Japanese bank, SMBC, for construction of a coal terminal in Oakland through which coal would be shipped to Japan. The Kiko Network introduced NCIO to its community last month, in an article published in ...
NCIO challenges Japanese Bank: don’t fund Oakland coal terminal
In the last couple of days, two major Japanese banks have announced that they are limiting their investment in coal. This is of particular significance for No Coal in Oakland, as one of these banks, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), has been in discussion about providing financing for the construction of the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT) as a coal terminal to ship four million tons of Utah coal to the Japanese energy company JERA. Japan has been increasing its consumption of coal as it has retired nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster.
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Shareholder resolution calls for Bank of Montreal to stop financing fossil fuels
On Tuesday, March 31, the Bank of Montreal (BMO) shareholder meeting will include a shareholder resolution calling for the bank to make a commitment to exclude or phase out financing for fossil fuels--including coal--in view of the “incongruities” between such financing and BMO’s public positions supporting sustainability. The resolution comes from John Harrington of Harrington Investments (HII), a socially responsible financial manager and NCIO supporter. For several years, NCIO waged a campaign to persuade the bank to drop its efforts to attract investment in an ...
How Phil Tagami Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Coal
Phil Tagami assured City officials and the public in Decenber 2013 that he had no interest in coal; by April 2014, he was in bed with the coal industry where he has remained ever since. Did the prospect of financial ruin change his mind?
Victory for No Coal in Richmond: How It Happened
The scrappy industrial city of Richmond took a bold step toward a fossil fuel-free future on Tuesday night when its city council passed an historic land use ordinance banning the storage and handling of coal and petroleum coke in a three-year phaseout.
This means that Richmond will no longer be the source of one-fourth of West Coast coal exports to Asian markets, and its children will be able to breathe a little easier. The working class city of Richmond, home to the Chevron refinery and a host of other entrenched polluters, has begun at long last to transition ...
Would-be Oakland Coal Baron’s Bankruptcy Exposes Filthy Scheming
Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS) is the new corporate incarnation of the same five year old plot to ship millions of tons of toxic coal through Oakland's waterfront. But they've filed for bankruptcy. And in bankruptcy court, ITS is fighting off a hostile takeover by a hedge fund manager who wants to operate the coal terminal.
It's not the sort of bankruptcy that shutters a business … alas. Instead, it's the kind that gives a bankrupt business a second chance by supervising the reorganization of its finances. But to get that second chance, the business is required ...
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.
