IN AN OPED ON SUNDAY, Community Sustainability Commission member Kathy Kerridge attempted to “correct the record” but only revealed more problems with the process the CSC has used to award grants. I will only address some of those problems.
Attempting to justify the CSC’s accounting of water savings for their own proposed project, Ms. Kerridge claimed the 15 percent (first year) and 30 percent (second year) numbers are not water savings, but the fraction of residents who would participate. However, the 15 percent and 30 percent are found under “water and energy savings in one year” in the document she cites. The adjacent column gives the expected savings: 220,778,730 gallons for the first year, which is 15 percent of the water used by the city. Clearly, then, the numbers were meant to be water savings, not the percentage of participants. My assessment that the savings were exaggerated, and that the CSC review was deficient, is correct.
Ms. Kerridge is correct that the settlement agreement allows more criteria than just water savings to be used, and that the CSC rated projects on several criteria. But she neglects to mention that the Valero-Good Neighbor Steering Committee settlement agreement allows only one other criterion (greenhouse gas reduction), and only after finding that that is of greater value than water savings. The other criteria used go beyond the agreement. What the CSC should have done, and what they should do now to correct this process for the next round, is rigorously set forth the criteria they wish to use as well as the findings to support the criteria, and get City Council buy-in. Getting Council approval in advance would have avoided many of the issues that arose.
Most disturbing, though, is Ms. Kerridge’s statement that the CSC did not recommend Valero’s project for funding because Valero got a cost savings from the project. None of the CSC categories for rating projects was cost savings by the recipient. From her statement, it would appear that this criterion was only applied to Valero, though I cannot find in the CSC documents how (or even if) it was applied to any of the projects. Perhaps this was the reason the scoring seems so haphazard: commissioners applied criteria differently to different applicants. As I said before, to avoid the appearance doing that the CSC needs to carefully define the scoring criteria in advance and rigorously stick to it.
All grant recipients get cost savings for reducing water and energy use, just as all residents get the benefit of the water saved by projects funded to reduce water use. Though cost savings was not a category for evaluation, it should have been and should be in the future for the purpose of determining cost sharing. But it must be applied to all applicants uniformly, and the manner in which it will be applied must be set forth in advance. Ms. Kerridge claimed a one-year payback for Valero; I cannot find the evidence for that, but no matter. Valero should have had a cost share. Whether the payback period is two years, five years or 20 for replacing a toilet or for the Valero project, a cost share is in order and it should be a formal part of the next round of evaluation — but it must be applied uniformly.
I have outlined both here and previously the simple steps the CSC can take to correct their process and move forward. I hope they take them so they can make good progress and avoid unnecessary controversy.
Dr. Greg Gartrell has lived in Benicia since 1988. He retired in 2013 from his position as a water manager, and has over 40 years experience in water resources. He earned his doctorate in environmental engineering science at the California Institute of Technology.
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Greg, many of your comments seem reasonable, and I hope that the CSC will give them due consideration. However, I strongly disagree with your casual justification of Valero’s $800k award. Frankly, there was no justification whatsoever, and the council’s ham-fisted action was egregious and embarrassing. There’s no logic in allowing Valero to recover $800K from the CSC/VIP settlement. Basically, what the council did was arbitrarily reduce the settlement owed by Valero. Why in good conscious, would you, the city council, or any Benicia resident, want to give Valero back money they agreed to pay to the city to allow a huge plant expansion with its increased GHGs and subsequent damage to the environment and residents health? The U.S. taxpayer has been subsidizing the fossil fuel industry for a century, and it needs to stop. Fortunately, we are coming to the end of the Big Oil era, and the resultant bullying and shameful politics that goes along with the oil industry’s high profits.
Grant Cook stated:The U.S. taxpayer has been subsidizing the fossil fuel industry for a century, and it needs to stop.(emphasis added)
The US taxpayers subsidize all businesses, in various ways.
Subsidies are given to the Clean Energy to a far greater degree. Quoting from your previous piece:
”the U.S. federal government grants the oil industry, the world’s richest, with about $4 billion a year in tax subsidies”
From CNN Fact check: Green energy:
It is fair to say that the 2009 stimulus authorized $90 billion for green energy, as Romney asserted.
So you are against subsidizing the oil industry, but in favor of government subsidies of Green Businesses, which is part of your livelihood.
How do you justify that?
Is it the role of government to pick and choose which industries to favor? Should these favors be changed based on the whim of an incoming President or based on changes in control of Congress?
A deeper more detailed look at fossil fuel subsidies—
More on the true costs of fossil fuels for the community and our appointed and elected officials to comprehend …
“How much money does the U.S. government provide to support the oil, gas and coal industries”?
“In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually yet these don’t even include costs borne by taxpayers related to the climate, local environmental, and health impacts of the fossil fuel industry.”
How much money do governments provide to support the oil, gas, and coal industries internationally?
“Internationally, governments provide at least $775 billion to perhaps $1 trillion annually in subsidies. This figure varies each year, but it is consistently in the hundreds of billions. Greater transparency would allow for more precise figures.”
http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
Will stated:In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion
So the take away from that is:
1) Grant Cooke’s numbers are wrong.
2) Green energy subsides far surpass oil industry subsidies.
Of course for #1 to be true we have to conclude that Will’s info is better than Grant’s.
Not sure if I want to make that leap.
Actually I did not justify the $800,000 grant to Valero. As I stated, I think, because Valero does get a substantial payback, they should have been required to cost-share. As for the justification of any grant for the project: the city (and all of us as residents and water users) get a benefit: that water Valero no longer uses is available to all of us, and it is that much less that the city has to purchase. Hence a benefit to both Valero and the city, and a cost split is in order.
As an aside, most of the cost benefit to Valero is in energy savings (they don’t have to heat all that water they don’t use). The benefit of that today is a whole lot smaller than it was in June, so they payback period is now longer (thanks to the drop in oil prices). But the return is not zero and a cost share is still justified.
Maybe. If they did not provide all the donations every year and did not have a friendly relationship with the City Council; with the exception of the mayor and her own group the CSC.. Remember it was the City Council that OK’d the money not Valero or the CSC. If the CSC was not so anti Big Business then maybe also. They are anti big business and fossil fuel. That is their chice as it is the City Councils choice also. I do support giving the money to Valero without cost sharing. Valero is an outstanding addition to this city. Lets keep it that way.
Two quick comments:
It is clear that the old axiom remains true: statistics can be manipulated in anyway to justify a position. I trust the author and his credentials are impressive, but all data needs to be confirmed.
All corporations and industries should be free of subsidies. Period. If a company or industry cannot survive in a market place then it should go away. Subsidies create market bubbles and inefficiencies. Our country has an $18 trillion debt. Cut all subsidies to private sector entities.