US court revives lawsuit against private prison in Nevada

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal appeals court said Friday the nation’s largest private prison corporation can be held liable for negligence by a man who spent almost a year in solitary confinement at a southern Nevada facility without ever seeing a judge on marijuana-related charges.

The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a jury can hear Rudy Rivera’s lawsuit claiming that CoreCivic Inc. employees failed to tell the U.S. Marshals Service while Rivera languished in custody from November 2015 to October 2016 at the Nevada Southern Detention Center outside Las Vegas.

“A reasonable jury could find that CoreCivic caused plaintiff’s prolonged detention by failing to notify the Marshals of his continued detention without a hearing and by discouraging and preventing him from seeking outside help,” a panel of three judges said.

A CoreCivic official said the company is confident a jury will find CoreCivic wasn't responsible for Rivera's prolonged detention without a court appearance.

“CoreCivic does not have legal custody of detainees and is not responsible for the arraignment or tracking the arraignment of detainees,” Ryan Gustin, company public affairs manager, said in a statement.

Rivera had “numerous resources at his disposal to challenge his legal custody,” the statement said, including telephones that he used to call family members, mail, attorney visits and legal reference materials. Rivera also "never submitted any verbal or written grievance about this issue,” Gustin said.

The resurrected case now returns to U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, where a judge in 2017 dismissed it saying that because Rivera was in U.S. Marshals Service custody, the company wasn't responsible for Rivera’s 355-day detention.

“They were basically taking the position that, ‘Eh, what were we supposed to do? Not our fault,’” said Rivera’s attorney, Mitchell Bisson.

He said damages for negligence, intentional infliction emotional distress and civil and constitutional rights violations could amount to much more than $1 million.

Rivera, 42, lives in Stockton, California. He said the ruling gave him “reason to hope the broken system we are in now will be torn down and that no one else will have to go through what I did.”

“The year I spent in there trying to plead my way out was the hardest time of my life, and I’m still struggling with the effects it had on me and my family,” he said in an email through his attorney. “I hope CoreCivic now realizes that they can’t just point their finger in the other direction and avoid the consequences of their actions and inactions.”

Rivera was arrested in California in October 2015 and appeared before a federal judge there before he was transferred in custody to Nevada on an indictment charging him with marijuana-related offenses.

The charges were eventually dropped, after a deputy federal public defender, reached by letter, informed a judge who ordered Rivera brought to court the next business day.

The judge “declared Rivera's prolonged detention ‘extreme’ and ‘egregious’ and ordered his immediate release,” the appeals court order noted.

Rivera had been separated from other detainees and inmates at the 1,000-bed prison due to a previous gang affiliation, according to court documents. Jailers were nearly the only people he encountered.

“During his detention, Rivera repeatedly told CoreCivic employees ... that he had not been to court and did not have (a lawyer),” the judges said in Friday’s ruling. “But CoreCivic employees neither informed the Marshals of Rivera’s plight nor took any other steps to remedy the situation.”

Rivera testified he was told to “just sit there and wait.”

The court noted the Marshals Service contracts with state, local and private facilities to house about 85% of the 160,000 people in federal custody nationwide, and is the primary customer at eight of CoreCivic’s 47 facilities around the country.

CoreCivic, which is publicly traded and was formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, secured its first federal contract in 1983. Nearly $400 million worth of U.S. Marshals Service business accounted for 21% of company revenues in 2020, according to the company’s annual Securities and Exchange Commission report.

The appellate judges said the Marshals Service is the primary customer at the 1,000-bed prison. The medium-security facility opened in 2010, about 60 miles (96.56 kilometers) west of Las Vegas.

Ken Ritter, The Associated Press

Bard timing: Argentinian TV reports death of Shakespeare after Covid jab

Sam Jones in Madrid and Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires 
THE GUARDIAN 28/5/2021

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Hemis/Alamy

In what can only be described as a comedy of errors, an Argentinian TV news channel delivered a stunning, if slightly flawed, scoop on Thursday night when it reported that William Shakespeare, “one of the most important writers in the English language” had died after receiving the Covid vaccine.

The gaffe of well, Shakespearean, proportions happened after Noelia Novillo, a newsreader on Canal 26 mixed up the Bard with William “Bill” Shakespeare, an 81-year-old Warwickshire man who became the second person in the world to get the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

William Shakespeare died in 1616, while his namesake – an inpatient in the frailty ward at University hospital, Coventry, at the time of his first vaccination – died this week from a stroke unrelated to the jab.

Sadly, the distinction was lost on Novillo as she informed viewers of the playwright’s death during the 8pm-10pm slot on Thursday.

“We’ve got news that has stunned all of us given the greatness of this man,” she said. “We’re talking about William Shakespeare and his death. We’ll let you know how and why it happened.”

© Provided by The Guardian William ‘Bill’ Shakespeare, no relation, receives the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at University hospital, Coventry. He has died of an unrelated illness. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Over footage of Bill Shakespeare chatting as he received the vaccine, the newsreader added: “As we all know, he’s one of the most important writers in the English language – for me the master. Here he is. He was the first man to get the coronavirus vaccine. He’s died in England at the age of 81.”

With the inevitability of a tragic hero succumbing to his fatal flaw, the gaffe soon went viral.

“There were only a few years between them,” wrote one Twitter user.

“Let us not weep for William Shakespeare,” urged another. “He lived his life and enjoyed people’s affection for centuries.”

Another added: “Such a fuss over William Shakespeare’s death but they didn’t mention that he was in such a bad way that he hadn’t produced a hit in centuries. Over-rated.”

All fired up but nowhere to charge: Alberta's lack of infrastructure zaps electric vehicle enthusiasm
Scott Stevenson 1 day ago

© Submitted by Chandresh Patel Chandresh Patel and his wife Sneha stop to charge their Tesla. They hope to see more of these charging stations between Edmonton and their home in Fort McMurray.

The introduction of Ford's new all-electric F-150 Lightning truck has some Albertans looking at whether electric vehicles might work for them, but the lack of charging stations might continue to be a turn-off.

The F-150, set to hit the market in 2023, is one of several electric trucks and vans that could appeal to Canadians who use their vehicles for work or recreation.

Despite the hype, there are still concerns about whether there are enough public charging stations to keep the batteries going for extended travel.

Those who already own electric vehicles (EVs) are familiar with the challenges.

 

© Submitted by Chandresh Patel Chandresh Patel and his wife Sneha pose with their new Tesla in the showroom.

Chandresh Patel is a new Tesla Model Y owner who lives in Fort McMurray and works in the oil and gas industry. He loves his car and regularly uses it for daily commutes in and around the community.

"But I also have another vehicle for the longer travels down to the south," Patel said.

That vehicle has an internal combustion engine powered by the fuels Patel works to extract from the ground for a living. He'd like to ditch it and go full electric but that's not practical — yet.

"When I drive from Fort Mac to Edmonton, which I have done a couple of times, there is only one charger on the way, in Athabasca," he said.

That charger is off the main highway and it's not a fast one, meaning a recharging stop of up to three hours, he said.

"It would be a huge difference if there was a Tesla Supercharger or a DC fast charger," Patel said.

Those types of fast chargers, which would cut wait time to less than 30 minutes, are few and far between in Alberta

.

© CBC News/PlugShare The network of electric vehicle charging stations is quite robust in Alberta cities as well as along highways 1 and 2, but once you head north, east or west of Edmonton the options are limited.

On the highways north, east and west of Edmonton, there are only about two dozen chargers in total.

Andrew Batiuk with the Electric Vehicle Association of Alberta says it's a chicken-and-egg kind of problem.

"EV infrastructure is not inexpensive and it's not super-easy to deploy, so people don't want to invest in it until there's a reason to do so — and that reason is having EVs in the marketplace," Batiuk said.

"But then those owners of those potential EVs want to be able to travel, and they don't want to get that vehicle until they can travel. So you do get into this interesting situation of which comes first — the EV and the ownership of it or the charging network that supports it."

Companies that operate the charging stations appear to be taking notice of the increasing demand and interest in EVs.

FLO, the Quebec-based company that calls itself Canada's largest electric vehicle charging network, plans to expand, said Michael Pelsoci, the company's Western Canada sales director.

The company already has 114 public charging stations in its Alberta network, including 26 with fast chargers.

"FLO expects to have more DC fast chargers on the network in northern Alberta, working with Epcor, in addition to new stations along Highway 16," Pelsoci said. "The key for successful mass adoption of electric vehicles is to build a charging infrastructure that is always one step ahead in its development."

Atco, which has been involved in the design, construction and operation of more than two dozen stations in Alberta, said it doesn't have current expansion plans but continues to explore potential opportunities around the province.

Six Petro-Canada charging stations in Alberta are part of its coast-to-coast EV fast-charge network. A spokesperson for Suncor, which owns Petro-Canada, didn't provide specifics but said the company is looking at sites for future opportunities.

#NOTOKYOOLYMPICS

Scott Stinson: As calls to scrap Olympics grow, Tokyo presents safety plans with a very 2020 feel

If you find yourself believing that governments of all types have proven to be uniquely bad at learning from their mistakes over the course of a global pandemic, and of failing to make adjustments as new evidence is discovered, I give you the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.

 Provided by National Post Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games mascot Miraitowa poses with a display of the Olympic symbol after an unveiling ceremony of the symbol on Mt. Takao in Hachioji, west of Tokyo, Japan, April 14, 2021.

These are delicate times for the would-be Games of the XXXII Olympiad, with many of the conditions that were assumed to be achieved by punting them back a year having very much failed to materialize. Aggressive vaccination campaigns have allowed a small number of countries to wrestle COVID-19 under control, while others, Canada included, appear to be on a similar positive track. But positive cases have surged in much of South America, as well as parts of Africa and the Middle East, raising fears in Japan that they are poised to import a rash of infected people as travelling parties arrive for the Games. And Japan itself, which has largely avoided the various COVID surges that have been a public-health disaster in other parts of the world, is dealing with a recent rise in positive cases while rolling out a puzzlingly slow vaccination campaign. Those vaccination rates have increased in recent days, but Japan is now about where Canada was in mid-March in terms of percent of its population having received at least partial protection.

Perhaps not surprisingly, polling suggests a large majority of the Japanese public wants Tokyo 2020 to be scrapped, while medical groups, a leading newspaper (and Games sponsor) and some prominent citizens like billionaire businessman Masayoshi Son have called for a cancellation. The head of a doctors’ union said on Thursday that bringing thousands of people from around the world — the total number of visitors would be close to 25,000 — is not something that has been attempted since the pandemic began more than a year ago. “It’s very difficult to predict what this could lead to,” he said, according to The Associated Press. There were warnings of possible new mutant strains, which is a phrase that would cause many to tug nervously at their collars.

The response from Tokyo 2020, the IOC, and the government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has been to insist that the Olympic environment will be “safe and secure.” So, far two “playbooks”, documents that outlines the procedures for visiting athletes and support staff, and a separate one for travelling media, have been released, with final versions of each expected next month.

They are, at the least, puzzling. The media playbook has some expected countermeasures: visitors must have proof of negative tests upon arrival to Japan, they will be tested again at the airport, and then will quarantine for three days and be tested daily in that time. Media members must also submit a two-week “activity plan,” which is presumably for contact-tracing purposes in the event of a positive test. They are also encouraged to limit interactions to those within Olympic facilities and essentially live within a Tokyo 2020 bubble. It will enforce this, as far as I can tell, via the honour system. There will also be daily self-assessments in which you must declare yourself symptom-free.

Elsewhere, it explains that access to Games venues will require temperature checks, and that facilities will have the highest of sanitation standards. There will be physical distancing requirements in places like press boxes and the normally-bustling Main Press Centre, and masks will be required at all times. If that seems like a paragraph that might have been written for a Games that was actually going to be held in 2020, that’s because it might have been. Temperature checks? Surface cleaning? Spacing out desks even in an indoor facility? These are the infection-control measure of more than a year ago, before it was learned that asymptomatic carriers were a risk and before it was clear that aerosol transmission indoors meant that being six feet away from someone was still risky if they were sharing the same air for a sustained period of time. There is meanwhile no acknowledgement that outdoors is dramatically better than indoors and no suggestion of, for example, outdoor dining areas. The playbook simply advises that people eat alone.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some experts are issuing warnings about this. The New England Journal of Medicine said this week that the Tokyo playbooks “are not built on scientifically rigorous risk assessment” and that they “fail to consider the ways in which exposure occurs” and “the factors that contribute to exposure.” Those sound like considerable oversights. The Journal also notes that there is a lot of potential for holes in contract-tracing nets if they require human input. Other sports events have used things like wearable technology to track movements, as was the case in last year’s highly successful NBA bubble.

The most likely explanation for the Tokyo 2020’s less-than-ideal countermeasures is that an international event of its size requires some corners to be cut. Indoor facilities that were built with a hot Tokyo summer in mind, from athletes’ accommodation to venues to media facilities, can’t all be turned into outdoor tents. There is, meanwhile, no acknowledgement of vaccinations, or the fact that a considerable proportion of attendees will be inoculated by the time they arrive in Japan. Instead, the playbooks treat everyone the same, perhaps because as they were developed there was no guarantee that vaccinations would ramp up at the speed, at least in some countries, at which they have.

And while certain events over the course of the pandemic have created tight bubbles for participants, the sheer size of an Olympics that is taking place in the middle of a big city makes that impossible.

The best case for the organizers is that vaccination rates among visitors, and in Japan itself, are high enough by late July that the concerns of today will be much less of a problem. As it stands, implicit in the playbooks is the hope that all Olympic visitors will follow the rules and take responsibility for keeping themselves and others safe. A year-plus into this thing, it has not proven to be a winning strategy.

Postmedia News

sstinson@postmedia.com

#NOTOKYOOLYMPICS

Bob Costas,  Former Longtime NBC Host, Says Tokyo Olympics Should Be Pushed To 2022

By Dade Hayes

May 28, 2021 

Bob Costas, who was the lead host of 12 Olympic Games telecasts for NBC, believes the Tokyo Olympics should not go forward due to risks from Covid-19.

Appearing on Real Time with Bill Maher, Costas said the Games should be “postponed, not canceled. If they postponed it until the summer of 2022, then as a one-off it would go back to the way it was prior to the ’90s,” he said. Winter and summer Games used to be held in the same calendar year before shifting to an every-two-years, alternating cycle.

Already, the pandemic forced them from 2020 to 2021, with the July 23 opening ceremonies now under a dark cloud of doubt due to the dire Covid-19 situation in Japan. Just 4% of residents have been vaccinated and most oppose the idea of athletes from 200 countries coming in for the event, and doctors and other officials have voiced strong objections.

“You’ve got to understand, the International Olympic Committee holds all the cards,” Costas said. When Maher said he often sees the IOC name connected to “something shady” and asked Costas if that was wrong, his guest said, “It’s not wrong. They have an affinity for authoritarian regimes. They’ll be back in Beijing for the Winter Olympics. They were in Sochi (Russia) in 2014. They were in Beijing in 2008.”

Costas hosted Games on NBC from 1988 to 2016. He is still active as a sports TV personality but left the network in 2019 after four decades of service. The settings for many Olympics, he said, require “a particularly difficult tightrope walk for NBC.” NBCUniversal signed an extension in 2014 for $7.75 billion for U.S. rights to the Olympics through 2032.

“Unlike other entities that cover it, the network that carries the Olympics or any sports event has invested a lot of money in the rights,” Costas said. “And they want people to feel good about watching it. But my feeling always was, you have to at least acknowledge the elephants in the room. I tried as best I could to tug on the other end of that rope. But they were always very very touchy about offending the IOC.”

As far as Tokyo, Costas noted that polls have shown 70% of Japanese people are against the Games happening this year due to soaring infection rates in the country. The New England Journal of Medicine weighed in today for the opposition, as have other medical entities., However, “all of the contracts are written in favor of the IOC,” Costas said. “So, if the Olympics are held, all the losses, all the cost overruns, they fall on the Olympic organizing committee of Tokyo. None of that is borne by the IOC. Plus, if the Games take place and NBC televises them, the IOC collects every last penny of the broadcast rights. So you can’t expect them to have the same view as everyone else.”


Costas was appearing on Real Time to plug his forthcoming return to HBO in Back on the Record with Bob Costas.

Climate Change: Oil sands producer aims at net zero with carbon capture

Kieron O'Dea and Farah Nasser 

GLOBAL NEWS

28/5/2021

As the world economy accelerates in the long race to decarbonize, Canada is quietly becoming a leader in carbon capture — a technology increasingly seen as indispensable in bridging the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

© MEG Energy

The head of an Alberta oil sands company hopes that the end of the political impasse on the carbon tax will help realize its ambition of utilizing carbon capture as a means to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Derek Evans, CEO of MEG Energy, says that carbon capture and storage could effectively erase the emissions from its Christina Lake oil facility, south of Fort McMurray. While the timeline and projected costs of the plan have not been released, he says the project could sequester emissions from other oil facilities nearby as well.

Carbon capture and storage involves chemically isolating carbon dioxide (CO2) that's released when fossil fuels are burned. The captured CO2 is then sent via pipeline to be permanently stored deep underground.

Read more: Suncor and Atco working together on potential hydrogen project near Edmonton

While critics point to the high costs and long timelines of the technology, there's also a growing awareness that Canada, as an oil producing nation, has no realistic path to achieve its emissions targets without some form of carbon capture. Beyond the oil sector, there are the heavy-emitting industries of steel, cement and fertilizer production — all of which lack viable renewable energy options to power their operations and stand to benefit from carbon capture and storage infrastructure.

In recent years, some of the world's largest and most advanced carbon capture projects have been developed in Canada — projects like the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan, Shell's Quest facility near Edmonton and Alberta's Carbon Trunk line, which spans 200 km through central Alberta.

Read more: Canadian oil drilling contractor association changes name to reflect energy transition

As Canada continues to fall far short of its emissions targets under the Paris Accord, giant projects like these are leading a new wave of proposed developments attracting funding from the federal and provincial governments. This year's Federal Budget included new tax incentives for companies to pursue the technology. It's just a fraction of the $30 billion in carbon capture funding Alberta is seeking from Ottawa — funding that MEG Energy would seek to access for its project.

Derek Evans, president and CEO of MEG Energy, sat down with Global National's Farah Nasser to discuss his vision for the future of the sector in a decarbonizing world.

Farah Nasser: Why would an oil company CEO want to go net zero by 2050?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: That's a great question and probably the easiest one to answer because it's absolutely critical to get to net zero from from a number of perspectives — but most importantly, from a shareholder perspective — to ensure that we're going to continue to have the social license to continue to operate the resources and and do it in a way that is going to be environmentally acceptable and sensitive. So to me, it's a natural step in the evolution of the oil and gas business and one that you could argue is somewhat overdue.

Farah Nasser: Can you outline your vision to get there?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: MEG Energy has a very long history of reducing its intensity of carbon emissions. Since we've been in existence, we've got one of the lowest greenhouse gas or CO2 emissions intensities in the business — 20 per cent below everybody else's. And we've managed to be able to do that with advocating and using a bunch of different types of technologies. But a while ago, we realized you can only take the intensity reduction to so far. You're going to have to decarbonize... After some investigation, we determined the single easiest way to do that, the technology that had the biggest impact and could be put to work in in short order was really carbon capture and storage.

Carbon capture involves three different types of technologies. The first is the actual capture where you're taking the CO2 out of the flue gas, or the combustion products, and you're taking it and concentrating it up to a pure CO2 liquid form. You're taking that pure liquid CO2 liquid form, you're putting it into a pipeline and you're transporting it to a reservoir deep underground where you can sequester it or store it for eternity. So three different types of phases. The first phase, the capture phase is the most expensive. It's about 70 to 80 per cent of the total cost. And the pipeline phase is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent. And the sequestration phase is approximately 10 per cent as well.

Farah Nasser: So what are the biggest challenges and obstacles to this?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: So the biggest challenge is... What is the price of carbon going to be? Today, the price of carbon in various jurisdictions is probably about $40 a tonne. There's quite a distance between $120 or $170 per tonne and $40 a tonne. So one of the obstacles is the price of carbon. The second [challenge] would be who is going to provide the consistency on that price? We have had sort of political squabbles going on provincially and federally with respect to who is going to price carbon and what different prices of carbon could exist in different jurisdictions.

For anybody to undertake a carbon capture and storage project, they're going to want to know that there is going to be a contractually set price of carbon that they can take to the bank and say, look, we want to build this project. And the bank is going to say, 'well, do you have a contract?' And you're going to go, 'yes.' And then the next thing the bank is going to say is 'what price is it at?' And is that economic for you to undertake these activities and generate a rate of return? So you can't have a situation that we've had in the past where one government comes in — or one provincial government comes in — and changes the price of carbon or changes the method in which carbon prices are determined. That sort of uncertainty has been a big, big problem for people in the business that wanted to move forward on carbon capture and storage.

Farah: When we talk about the carbon tax, the oil and gas sector has been kind of sitting back while politicians duke it out over the carbon tax. What has that done to the sector?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: It's been particularly frustrating. I mean, we get painted as being slow to adopt the reality of the new carbon economy... We are all about bringing our carbon intensity down. And we'd like nothing more than to have the appropriate economic incentives to be able to get after decarbonizing the remainder of our production. What has been frustrating is watching decarbonization or CO2 policy get batted around in elections, or people having turf wars over who has jurisdiction or responsibility. We're keen to get on with what we think is the next and natural evolution of our business and getting rid of the carbon. But it's been particularly hard to watch as it became a political issue as opposed to a technological and cost issue that we know that we can get after and manage. Now, all that being said, it looks like we've had some progress with the Supreme Court ruling in terms of [it being] a federal jurisdiction. That will will definitely help. But we've got to get out of the way of ourselves. I mean, this is a pressing global issue. We need to stop talking about it and get to work to decarbonize our future.

Farah Nasser: Do you think that there's been a real shift [in thinking] when it comes to the oil and gas sector in Alberta?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: There's a palpable shift... I'd say in the last three or four years, the urgency to get after doing more on the carbon file has has definitely increased. You're seeing large portions of the oil and gas sector, and particularly the oil sands sector saying this is something we need to turn our attention to and we need to agitate and get in front of government and say, this is how we can achieve your Paris Accord goals, as opposed to standing back and waiting for the government to come and provide incentives. We need to be proactive in terms of how we're how we're presenting ourselves and how and laying out the plans that we do have and how they can be beneficial. So there has been a massive change in terms of not only the sense of urgency that we see with respect to decarbonizing, but also how proactive we have become as an industry in terms of working with all levels of government to achieve these goals.

Farah Nasser: Was there something specific that changed your view?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: I'd say the specific piece was frustration. It was frustration that we have continued to talk and talk and talk about this, and our children are going to hang us up by the thumbs for our lack of action on this file. So the frustration with respect to lack of activity, lack of action — that's been the single biggest challenge we had reaching a tipping point with myself and I think others in the business that we can't rely on others. We need to chart that path forward, and we need to chart it in an aggressive fashion. That's a large part of the reason why you're seeing oil and gas companies leading industries across the country with a net zero commitments.

Farah Nasser: Can you paint a picture as to what Alberta will look like in your mind in 2030?

Derek Evans, CEO MEG Energy: It's going to be an extraordinarily exciting place... In 2030, I think we are going to be a high tech sector. Oil and gas production will not be the biggest part of the economy. I think in 2030, you'll see carbon capture and storage hubs just outside of Calgary and Edmonton. We will be storing five to 10 million tons of of CO2 in each of those. And you'll start to see primary industries such as steel, fertilizer companies, power companies, all developing around those hubs. And my basis in belief for that is we have the technology, we have the understanding, we have the storage reservoirs. But most importantly, we have the entrepreneurial spirit and innovative sort of genetic material inside of our bones that is going to make that all possible.

SEE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

BlackRock goes against BP board in climate resolution vote

By Simon Jessop and Ron Bousso 

REUTERS MAY 28,2021

© Reuters/CARLO ALLEGRI The BlackRock logo is pictured in New York City

LONDON (Reuters) -The world's biggest asset manager and top BP investor BlackRock said on Friday it had backed a shareholder resolution calling for faster climate action which the energy company's board opposed.

BlackRock's vote at BP's annual general meeting earlier this month points to growing pressure on both major oil companies and investors to accelerate efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions. BlackRock holds a 6.8% stake in BP, according to Refinitiv data.

"While recognizing the company's efforts to date and direction of travel, supporting the resolution signals our desire to see the company accelerate its efforts on climate risk management," BlackRock said in a vote bulletin.

The asset manager said, however, that it voted in favour of Total's energy transition strategy at the company's AGM on Friday, which won over 90% of shareholder support.

It also supported management at Royal Dutch Shell in a non-binding vote on the company's energy transition strategy at its AGM this month. Refinitiv data showed BlackRock is also the biggest investor in the company.

Managing $9 trillion in assets, BlackRock's vote has been a key focus for campaigners and investors alike, as pressure builds on the world's biggest oil companies to put in place a plan aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

BlackRock said it had backed the BP shareholder resolution put forward by activist group Follow This, which asked for the company to set deeper climate targets.

Although the Follow This resolution was rejected, the 20% support it won was seen as a signal that a growing number of investors want CEO Bernard Looney to accelerate his plan to cut BP's emissions from its oil and gas production to net zero by 2050, which will see it reduce oil output by 40% by 2030.

BlackRock said it supports BP's climate strategy but that it also supported the Follow This resolution "because we see it as a means to reiterate our expectation that BP progressively refine its GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions reduction targets."

BP declined to comment on BlackRock's vote.

Criticised by campaigners for too often siding with management, BlackRock has toughened its stance with some companies in recent months, and this week backed boardroom change at Exxon Mobil over its climate inaction.

With Total's annual meeting bringing an end to the European oil majors' AGMs for this year, BlackRock released voting bulletins for all four, detailing how it voted and why.

Before the AGM season began, BlackRock had warned companies it wanted to see them set climate related targets and report against them, or they could vote against the board. They also flagged a willingness to support more shareholder resolutions.

In the case of Royal Dutch Shell, BlackRock said it supported a non-binding resolution filed by the company on its energy transition strategy and also voted against a shareholder resolution calling for Shell to set deeper short- and medium-term carbon reduction targets.

BlackRock said it backed the company because "it meets our expectations that companies have clear policies and action plans to manage climate risk and provides a roadmap towards the company’s stated climate ambitions and targets."

"We prefer the annual 'say on climate' advisory vote offered by management as a mechanism for shareholders to give feedback on the company’s climate strategy," it said.

At Norway's Equinor, the asset manager backed two shareholder proposals, against the advice of management, one calling for the company to set short-, medium- and long-term targets for greenhouse gas emissions, and one to report on climate and nature risk.

With regard to the targets, BlackRock said it backed the resolution in the hope that it would further speed up the company's progress on climate risk management.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Three Exxon refineries top the list of U.S. polluters
By Tim McLaughlin 

© Reuters/KATHLEEN FLYNN Exxon's U.S. oil refineries pump out more soot than rivals' plants

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil's U.S. oil refineries pump out far more lung-damaging soot than similarly-sized facilities operated by rivals, according to regulatory documents and a Reuters analysis of pollution test results.

The Texas-based firm's three largest refineries - two in Texas and one in Louisiana - are the nation's top three emitters of small particulate matter, according to the analysis of the latest tests submitted to regulators by the nation's 10 largest refineries.

The three Exxon refineries together averaged emissions of 80 pounds per hour, eight times the average rate of the seven other refineries on the top-ten list, some of which are larger than Exxon's plants, the analysis shows. The top polluter, Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery, averaged 138 pounds per hour. See graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3i4mU9j

The performance reflects the firm's inadequate spending to cut emissions, said Wilma Subra, a Louisiana-based scientist who formerly served on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

"Exxon has all the resources in the world to lower its pollution rates dramatically," she said.

The company has taken heat for years for its environmental performance. This week, Exxon lost at least two seats on its board of directors to an activist hedge fund seeking to force the firm to reckon with climate change.

Exxon said in a statement that it tries to comply with environmental laws and has invested billions of dollars to reduce emissions over the last two decades.

Oil-and-gas pollution has a disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities, which are often located near industrial sites. Reuters interviewed nearly three dozen residents in the predominantly Black neighborhoods near Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery. About a third said they either had breathing problems or knew someone who did.

Small particulate matter is among the most harmful pollutants. Made up of particles 50 times smaller than a grain of sand, it can bond with other toxins, infiltrate the blood stream, and damage the heart, lungs and nervous system. A small increase in long-term exposure to small particulate matter also leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rates, according to a recent Harvard University study.

"Particulate matter pollution is deadly, but you're not going to see it written on anyone's tombstone," said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group.

The EPA requires plants to restrict small particulate matter emissions to 1 pound or less for every 1,000 pounds of coke burned in a refinery's catalytic cracking units.

But Exxon's Baton Rouge plant is the only major U.S. refinery that doesn't have to meet that standard because of an EPA rule that exempts "cat crackers" that were built before 1976 and haven't been modified since.

Refineries also have to meet state standards for particulate-matter pollution. But those limits can vary widely among states - and among different facilities within states - based on the strictness of state regulators and whether a refinery has agreed to tighter limits to settle lawsuits. And Louisiana regulators allow much higher pollution levels at Exxon's Baton Rouge plant than at other state refineries.

“There is a surprising amount of unevenness among states" in enforcing pollution limits, said Philip Mattera, research director at Good Jobs First, a Washington-based watchdog group. “People don’t realize how much the EPA delegates responsibility on big environmental laws to state agencies.”

OLD POLLUTION SCRUBBERS

Exxon’s two big oil refineries in Texas – in Beaumont and Baytown – are also among the top three polluters identified by Reuters. But Exxon's 517,000-barrel-per-day Baton Rouge plant produces far more soot.

The plant's emissions of small particulate matter hit a peak of 350 pounds per hour during an independent test conducted in January 2020 by an engineering firm Exxon hired to demonstrate its regulatory compliance.

Emissions averaged 255 pounds per hour during the test. That exceeded a limit, imposed on the refinery by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ), of 234 pounds per hour – one of the highest limits in the country, according to regulatory documents. Other similarly-sized refineries in Louisiana and other states have state soot emissions limits closer to 50 pounds per hour.

The LDEQ declined to comment on the pollution limits it sets for Exxon's Baton Rouge plant.

Exxon officials blamed the refinery's high emissions on low water pressure in its 1970s-era wet gas scrubber, according to company correspondence with the LDEQ. Exxon told the state it had since resolved the issue.

Maintenance on such scrubbers, commonly used to control pollution, can lower emissions but requires shutting down a cat cracker for several weeks, hurting profitability, according to Exxon disclosures to the LDEQ. Completely new systems can cost more than $1 billion.

Because the Baton Rouge refinery's two catalytic crackers were built during World War Two – among the first such units in the country – they are exempt from federal EPA standards.

'GIVE US GOOD AIR'

The Baton Rouge refinery, more than a century old, borders neighborhoods with sky-high rates of childhood asthma.

Seabell Thomas, 77, whose home is separated from the refinery by Interstate 110, said her son's asthma was so bad that he routinely visited the emergency room as a child. She has since been campaigning to pressure Exxon to clean up.

"When I wake up each morning, I have to confront two demons: pollution from the highway and the Exxon refinery," she said. "We, as Black people, ask, 'God, how long can you allow this? Please, give us good air to breath.'"

In a group of census blocks that includes Thomas' home, childhood asthma rates were more than double the statewide average, according to a 2019 report by the Louisiana Health Department. Emergency-room visits for childhood asthma in the area also more than doubled the statewide rate.

"I grew up thinking asthma was an African-American disease because so many kids in the neighborhood had inhalers," said Sonyja Renee Thomas, the daughter of Seabell Thomas. "Only later, as an adult, did I realize how much pollution factored into it."

EXXON RIVALS RUN MUCH CLEANER

Big refineries run by Exxon's rivals are doing much better at controlling soot. Ironically, many of them are using technology invented and licensed by Exxon, according to disclosures by Exxon and environmental regulators.

Specialists in industrial pollution say the differences in performance can be attributed to any of a number of factors: rivals' equipment could be newer; maintenance schedules may be more frequent; and refining processes before wet gas scrubbing may also be optimized to reduce soot.

All of that takes money. In many cases, it also takes lawsuits.

Companies such as BP plc, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66 and Valero Energy Corp have made agreements with the EPA in recent years to slash emissions below federal standards to help settle pollution-related litigation, regulatory disclosures show.

These more restrictive limits are laid out in so-called consent decrees, which cover the operations of scores of U.S. refineries and influence permitted pollution levels set by states.

For example, Marathon's refinery in Garyville, Louisiana, operates an Exxon scrubber which has undergone numerous upgrades since being installed in 1979, company spokesman Jamal Kheiry said. The refinery's permit limit, set by the state, is 0.6 pounds per 1,000 pounds of burned coke, well below the EPA limit of one pound. During its latest test, Garyville's small particulate matter emissions were just 0.11 pounds. The plant is slightly larger than Exxon Baton Rouge.

"The low emissions numbers reflect robust emissions controls we have implemented," Marathon's Kheiry said.

Exxon's three largest refineries also operate under a consent decree, signed with the EPA in 2005 after the company was sued by the EPA and Justice Department for alleged Clean Air Act violations. But the agreement includes only a voluntary target for Exxon to limit soot emissions to half the EPA standard, which it has not done.

For locals around the Baton Rouge refinery, pushing for Exxon to reduce pollution can be difficult given its economic and political clout as a major Louisiana employer.

Sidney Poray, 60, has lived near the refinery for nearly 30 years and has worked with activist groups to monitor the refinery's emissions. But he's not optimistic their work will make much difference.

"Of course, I care about pollution," Poray said. "But what am I going to do? We're talking about Exxon."

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)

EPA shut down St. Croix refinery after oil rained on homes

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN 

TODAY

The stench permeated Dyline Thomas' St. Croix home for weeks, she said, upsetting her stomach, making her nose run and her throat sore.

 Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images The EPA shut down the Limetree Bay refinery in St. Croix after it rained oil on nearby neighborhoods in mid-May.

"The smell was so strong, like sulfur, like rotten eggs," the 58-year-old homemaker recalled.

Then oil was discovered in her yard in mid-May. Two days earlier, a flare incident occurred at the Limetree Bay refinery upwind of Thomas's home. As flames and smoke billowed out of the flare stack, oil droplets were launched into the sky, carried west by the wind and rained down on nearby homes.

This month the US Environmental Protection Agency took a rare and extreme step: It ordered an emergency, 60-day shutdown of the plant, citing an "imminent risk" to public health. The agency, which has jurisdiction over territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands, reported several incidents that released oil into the environment and sent sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide into the air, both of which cause respiratory illness.

© Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images The Limetree Bay refinery is seen from above in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Thursday, March 18, 2021.

In a statement sent to CNN, Limetree Bay said it intends to cooperate with the EPA and the local government in "preparing for a safe and compliant restart of the refinery."


Now St. Croix, a majority Black community in the Caribbean, is weighing its economic future against the health and environmental impacts of betting big on oil.

The refinery has been a key source of jobs and revenue for an economy battered by hurricanes and the pandemic. But some of the islands' 50,000 residents are questioning whether the price is too high, particularly for a community on the front lines of the climate change crisis in the form of sea level rise and increasingly powerful storms.

"We are at a crossroads," said Jennifer Valiulis, the executive director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, who has been critical of the plant's operation. "We have an opportunity to examine what we want our economy to look like, what we want St. Croix to be in a world that's moving away from fossil fuels as its primary energy source."

For decades, residents of this 84-square-mile island, the largest of the three major U.S. Virgin Islands, have co-existed with major industrial production. The refinery first opened in 1966, and -- under the management of Hess Corporation and then Hovensa -- boosted its Virgin Islander workforce into the middle class.

But the environmental and health tolls grew. In 2011, the Hovensa petroleum refinery -- at the time the county's second-largest -- reached a settlement with the EPA to pay more than $5.3 million for environmental violations.

The plant later closed and filed for bankruptcy. With its shutdown went more than 2,000 jobs.

Earlier this year, the facility -- backed by private equity firms -- resumed operations as Limetree Bay under a permit granted by the Trump administration with a plan to produce some 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

Virginia Clairmont, who runs a nonprofit working to revitalize the town of Frederiksted on the island's western end, told CNN she had misgivings about the refinery restarting in the first place. After multiple incidents, she wants it closed.

But, she said, "if you talk about it, you'll be attacked for trying to deprive other people of jobs."

The coronavirus pandemic only added to the islands' economic woes, shutting down a cruise industry that brings in more than 1.4 million tourists per year. Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the Virgin Islands in 2017, and the islands still bear the scars: a sailboat tossed like a toy on the shore; a tattered blue tarp over a missing roof, disintegrating in the relentless tropical sun.

On St. Croix, the plant restart created some 400 full-time jobs. Government officials estimate the operation could generate about $7 million in annual tax revenue.

Nellie Rivera-O'Reilly, a jewelry store owner on St. Croix and former legislator, was among the local senators who voted to approve the plant's reopening. "As a business owner now, I see the benefits of the refinery, or any employer of that magnitude, remaining viable on the island of St. Croix," she said.

Lawmakers were particularly concerned about health and safety, she said, and allocated money for rigorous environmental monitoring.

"These things happen in these types of industries," Rivera-O'Reilly added. "The thing to do is to make sure we learn and put in place measures to prevent this from happening.


EPA officials say they have received hundreds of calls and emails complaining about the plant since February. Tysha Henry, who grew up on St. Croix, was among the callers.

Henry, an HR manager in Atlanta, was visiting her mother on the island in May when she said an overpowering gasoline smell jolted her awake in the middle of the night.

"It felt like I was going to asphyxiate or something," she said. The smell abated within an hour but the next morning, she said, her eyes and face were swollen and puffy.

"I will not be going back home as long as this smell is there," said Henry.

Lawsuits representing hundreds of residents have been filed against the refinery in recent weeks.

The EPA's shutdown order, which was handed down at a moment environmental advocacy groups are pressing the Biden administration to bring environmental justice to communities of color, is just the fourth time the agency has used its emergency powers to temporarily close a plant.

It came two days after the refinery announced it was halting production on its own after the May 12 flare incident that spewed oil on homes west of the facility -- homes where residents catch rainwater on their roofs and store it in below-ground cisterns for drinking, bathing and cooking. The order calls for independent audits of the refinery's operations and its ability to comply with "environmental, health and safety limits."

"This already overburdened community has suffered through at least four recent incidents that have occurred at the facility, and each had an immediate and significant health impact on people and their property," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement announcing the emergency action.

Limetree CEO Jeffrey Rinker described the federal order as unlawful and "unnecessary" because the plant already had idled operations voluntarily. The company argues there's no proof that their plant is the source of some of the noxious odors, noting that a government-run landfill due west of the refinery had caught fire in early May and could have contributed to the foul smells.

In the statement sent to CNN, Limetree Bay officials said: "We have no plans to restart the refinery before it is safe to do so."

"Notwithstanding some of our struggles during this restart period, we remain committed to being a good neighbor and responsible member of the St. Croix community," they said.

When the refinery reopened as Limetree in February, Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan, Jr., a Democrat, heralded it as a "big victory for St. Croix" and the broader US territory.

"In these difficult economic times, I am very pleased that the Refinery is creating hundreds of well-paying, quality jobs," he said in a statement.

Aides to Bryan did not respond to requests for an interview, but Bryan called the flare incident "totally unacceptable."

He expressed hope, however, that the plant officials "can rectify whatever the issues are and resume operations."

Thomas, the woman who had oil in her yard and said she had a reaction to noxious fumes, said the smells that bothered her for weeks have eased, since the closing of the refinery.

Since then, she said, the refinery operators have washed her vehicles, given her three cases of bottled water and promised to get back in touch about oil that may have contaminated her cistern.

As unsettling as the incidents have been, Thomas said she doesn't want the plant to shut down permanently. It "brings a lot of jobs here," she said. "I would not want them to close."

"But I want them to take more precautions," Thomas added. "You can have all the money in the world, but you can't enjoy it if you have no health."

#FIGHTFOR15
Universal Studios Orlando Raises Wages To $15, Putting Pressure On Other Theme Parks

Bruce Haring 

DEADLINE

55/29/2021

© AP

Minimum pay rates for workers at the Universal Studios Orlando theme park will rise to $15 an hour next month, the company has confirmed. That puts pressure on rival attractions in the increasing struggle to find workers in the post-pandemic revival.

Universal Orlando is the first Florida theme park to raise wages. The company called it the largest single wage increase ever made by its theme park, and it is the first major attraction in Central Florida to offer $15 an hour to starting workers.

The pay hikes will begin June 27 for more than 18,000 employees, which includes full-time and part-time hourly jobs, as well as entry-level salaried positions,

Some employees above the $15 rate could also get paid more, depending on service time with the company.

“This is about taking care of both our current team members and those who will be joining our team,” Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said in a statement. “In addition, we are actively recruiting new team members and we are working hard to be the best employer in the marketplace when it comes to wages, benefits and work environment.”

Universal hopes to fill 2,000 summer jobs. The new wage level is a bump from the previous $13 an hour starting pay. Universal is now constructing its third theme park near the Orange County Convention Center. It is targeting 2023 to open.

Walt Disney World plans on raising its pay rates to $15 an hour by October.

The moves come as theme parks, restaurants and other businesses are increasingly finding it difficult to find an adequate number of workers for lower-wage jobs.

In Florida, the state will end the $300 per week federal unemployment supplemental payments starting June 26. It joins at least 22 other states in ending the federal add-on to state compensation.

Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park earlier this week took things one step further, offering starting pay of $20 per hour. The theme park has reduced its opening days because of worker shortages.