‘Two Dozen’ Investors Interested In Buying Anchor Brewing, Sapporo Says

Written by Garrett LeahyPublished Jul. 21, 2023 • 

A host of investors have expressed interest in buying Anchor Brewing, according to a spokesperson for its parent company. | Source:George Kelly/The Standard

A host of investors have expressed interest in buying some or all of San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company following the recent news of its imminent closure, parent company Sapporo told The Standard Friday.

“Approximately two dozen investors and individuals—including the union—have expressed interest in acquiring all or some of the assets of Anchor Brewing Company,” Sapporo spokesperson Sam Singer said.

It’s unclear how many of these interested buyers are part of larger groups or companies making bids, or which ones want to buy the brewery outright versus buying other assets, such as Anchor’s logo or other intellectual property. Singer did not respond to requests for further details in time for publication.

Sapporo announced July 12 that Anchor Brewing Company would shut down after 127 years in business, and that the final Anchor beers would be poured at its Potrero Hill taproom at the end of July. Employees received a 60-day notice the day the brewery’s closure was announced, and Sapporo said it would offer separation packages.

Anchor Brewing Company’s flag flies upside down at its headquarters in San Francisco, where it became America’s first craft brewery 127 years ago. | Jeremy Chen/The Standard | Source:Jeremy Chen/The Standard

Those who have at least publicly shared interest in saving Anchor Brewing include tech investor Mike Walsh and former juice company executive Kyle Withycombe, who has said he would do away with the beer maker’s controversial 2021 rebrand. It is not known whether or not they have made formal acquisition offers to Sapporo. Walsh and Withycombe did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

READ MORE: ‘It Started With the Label Change’: Anchor Brewing Had It Coming, Bartenders, Beer Drinkers Say

Rhode Island brewery Narragansett Beer also started a petition last week calling on beer drinkers and Anchor enthusiasts to show their support for the historic company.

“By signing this petition, we are urging all beer enthusiasts, local businesses, and supporters of the craft beer industry to come together and show our unwavering support for Anchor Brewing Company,” the Change.org page reads.

Bartender Matt Butcher pours a pint of Anchor Steam beer at Potrero Hill bar Thee Parkside. | Source:Garrett Leahy/The Standard

The Anchor workers’ union also expressed interest this week in buying the brewery. It is unclear to what extent the former workers, roughly 40 of them, have secured financing to make the purchase. ILWU Local 6, which represents the breweries’ workers, did not respond to requests for comment.

Sapporo has opted to pass up court-monitored bankruptcy, instead arranging with an outside party under state Department of Alcoholic Beverage and Control guidance to hold its assets before they’re liquidated to creditors.

The designated liquidator would choose a buyer, Singer said.

The brewery and its neighboring taproom could be valued at roughly $85 million.

Sapporo said they support selling off the brewery, but said as of Friday there is still no progress on a potential purchase.

“It is heartening to see so many stepping forward to possibly carry on the tradition of an iconic San Francisco company and beer,” Singer said. “We remain hopeful that Anchor will be purchased and continue on into the future.”

 

FLORIDA: Nopetro Energy Cancels Disputed LNG Export Facility

on FLORIDA: Nopetro Energy Cancels Disputed LNG Export Facility

PORT ST. JOE, Florida, July 21, 2023 (ENS) – Nopetro Energy, the company planning to build a controversial containerized liquified natural gas export facility in Port St. Joe, Florida, says it will “no longer pursue the opportunity due to market conditions.”

The announcement this week is viewed as a victory by the citizens of Port St. Joe who worked to stop this project, The Gulf County Citizens Coalition For A Healthy Future.

And it’s also a victory for the Washington, DC-based NGO Public Citizen, which lobbied federal regulators, pursued legal action, and supported the efforts of local community activists to defeat the proposed terminal.

Located on the Gulf Coast of the Florida pnahandle, the Port of Port St. Joe is a deepwater seaport with a 1,900 inear foot bulkhead at the ship channel turning basin. Well-suited for bulk and cargo shipments, the port in this small beach town offers access to rail, the U.S. Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, state and U.S. highways.

As Nopetro planned it, the proposed facility would have been built on 60 acres in the heart of Port St. Joe on land owned by the St. Joe Company. Nopetro planned to purchase natural gas and bring it through two lateral pipelines from St. Joe Natural Gas, and operate three natural gas liquefaction trains to fill ISO shipping containers.

Trucks were to move those LNG-filled shipping containers 1,329 feet from the liquification trains to the newly constructed dock. The dock would have been owned an operated by the Port of Port St. Joe.
Nopetro planned to build and operate a crane at this dock to load the LNG containers on to marine cargo vessels, destined for export to Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

Since 2022, some of Port St. Joe’s 3,357 residents and Public Citizen have hosted three community meetings challenging the proposed project planned for the site of a shuttered paper mill in the largely Black neighborhood.

The company did not say the cancelation was in response to citizen objections to the facility based on fear of pollution and explosions. Instead, Nopetro said it determined that market conditions were inhospitable late last year.

Ed Hart, Nopetro’s senior vice president of supply, said in a statement, “In 2022, Nopetro Energy conducted due diligence on a site for a proposed natural gas plant in Port St. Joe. Many months ago, after completion of that process, Nopetro Energy decided to no longer pursue the opportunity, purely due to market conditions.”

Beginning in May 2021, Public Citizen urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, to reject Nopetro’s request to escape FERC oversight over the project and avoid comprehensive federal environmental impact review.

Nopetro argued that a 1,329 foot separation between the liquefaction terminal and shoreline made the facility exempt from FERC’s oversight.

FERC agreed with Nopetro, and Public Citizen is challenging FERC’s refusal to exercise authority in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to ensure that Nopetro cannot take advantage of FERC’s decision in the future.

“Nopetro wanted to cut corners, and rush the project past the community with little to no notice,” Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said.

“I was relieved to hear Nopetro decided not to pursue the construction of a liquified natural gas storage and export facility in Port St. Joe, Florida,” said Dannie Bolden, one of the leaders of the community’s opposition to the LNG project.

“The coalition took action and spoke loudly and with one voice, ‘Just Say No To Nopetro.’ We were successful, but we must remain steadfast to ensure there or no LNG facility constructed along Florida’s Panhandle,” Bolden said.

Slocum said, “Public Citizen has been privileged to work with so many dozens of incredible Port St. Joe residents who courageously took a stand for their community.”

Some of those who oppose the liquified natural gas export facility are: the North Port St Joe Project Area Coalition, Public Citizen, Earthjustice, RethinkEnergyFL, Earth Action, Food and Water Watch, As We Sow, Healthy Gulf and the ReGenesis Institute, and the Florida Center For Government Accountability in collaboration and partnership with numerous other climate change, environmental and social justice advocates and organizations.

Featured image: Site of the former St. Joe Paper Company Mill, the proposed location of Nopetro Energy’s Port St. Joe LNG facility, now canceled. (Photo courtesy Port St. Joe)

Environment News Service (ENS) © 2023 All Rights Reserved.

BOOK TOUR
Ex-Trump aide shows how Trump turned the GOP 'authoritarian curious’
Gideon Rubin
July 21, 2023

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump

A former Trump administration official on Friday suggested it’s not just his former boss that pro-democracy advocates need to worry about.

Miles Taylor during an appearance on “MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” said that the Republican party has become “authoritarian curious,” a shift in American politics he called “enormously alarming.”

“I spent two years trying to map this out, not just in my name, but by talking to senior Republicans in Congress, former Republicans, senior Trump administration officials that I served with from the cabinet level all the way down to people who sat outside of the Oval Office, and the big takeaway Ali was that the GOP has become very authoritarian curious if you will, and that it's not just Donald Trump that's been flirting with fascism," said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s chief of staff during the Trump administration who authored of the newly released book “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump.”

"A lot of these other candidates in the race with him have actually taken Trumpism further than Donald Trump did. They've taken policies that Trump himself rejected and implemented them like Ron DeSantis with using migrants as pawns and flying them around the United States. Greg Abbott's done the same thing."

He added:

“Similarly, we've seen that, you know, Trump's fringe talking point about witch hunts inside the FBI and the need to cleanse that building become a mainstream talking point. So Trumpism has really grown beyond his control, and you said the operative words Ali, ‘vengeance and retribution.’"

“Donald Trump sounds like he's auditioning for a bad Batman movie, but that language has been embraced by the wider Republican Party.”

Velshi suggested that 40 years ago it would’ve been hard to imagine the GOP would distance itself so far from Ronald Reagan and asked Taylor what he thought it would take to return it to a more traditional Republican political party.

“First, I think folks need a wake-up call about how serious it is. I mean, the whole point of writing this down in Blowback was to try to map out the playbook of persecution that they want to put in place and by they, I mean, the broader MAGA movement, Trump’s allies here in Washington, who want to support whoever the Republican candidate is and stamp their administration and some of the anecdotes that these senior Trump officials gave me are shocking. I mean, there's playbooks for how to start using the levers of government to spy on political rivals, to deploy DHS forces into Democratic cities to intimidate the political opposition, to appoint special counsels to prosecute Democratic politicians and left leaning organizations."

“This is very systematic weaponization of the federal government with the most thin legal veneer of validity that they can put on top of it to justify what they are doing. It's enormously alarming and I don't think Donald Trump is the only one who would implement that playbook.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene questions if UFOs and aliens are really angels: 'Honestly, I've looked into it'

Sarah K. BurrisMatt Laslo
July 20, 2023, 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks outside the U.S. Capitol on February 2, 2023. (Shutterstock.com)

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee will move on from its attacks on Hunter Biden to address UFOs next week.

According to the GOP's schedule, Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) will hold a hearing Wednesday on UFOs after intelligence agencies submitted a new report of incidents over the past year.

Republican lawmakers had promised a study of "unidentified aerial phenomena" after a former intelligence official made claims that the U.S. military may have found a crashed alien spacecraft, ABC News reported.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) has become the Republican's leader in Congress on UFOs, but he swears there will be "professionals" before the committee to answer questions.

Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who sits on the Oversight Committee, appeared to reject the idea of aliens from space.

"I'm a Christian," she explained, "and I believe the Bible. I think that, to me, honestly, I've looked into it, and I think we have to question if it's more of the spiritual. Angels or fallen angels."

In the past, the Pentagon has said that many of the UAPs have been explainable, like space debris falling into the atmosphere, weather balloons and drones.

 

Coons warns of government shutdown: We will ‘scare the hell out of you’

BY JULIA SHAPERO - 07/21/23 

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) warned on Friday that a government shutdown appears likely, as Congress faces down a September deadline to pass its annual spending bills.

“We are going to scare the hell out of you,” Coons said at the Aspen Security Forum, alongside Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and James Risch (R-Idaho). “We’re really good at that.”

“On the debt ceiling, on default, we came right up to the end,” he continued. “We’re gonna have a government shutdown because we’re gonna fight between the House and Senate about appropriations. Maybe, I sure hope not. We keep coming right up close.” 

Lawmakers have until the end of September to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills to fund the government, but with the August recess approaching, they are staring down a tight deadline.

However, Coons suggested that bipartisan efforts, like those between himself and his Republican colleagues on Friday’s panel, will ultimately get the job done.

“In the end, it is exactly these kind of gentlemen with whom I am able to work and where we are able to continue to deliver sustained, strong, forward-leaning initiatives around strengthening our country, our defense, our military, our manufacturing and our system,” he said. 

“It’s really only because of the personal relationship that are at the core of the Senate that we’re still able to work,” he added.

 

Biden meets with United Auto Workers president while group withholds 2024 endorsement

BY ALEX GANGITANO - 07/19/23 

Getty Images

President Biden on Wednesday met with United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain to discuss contract negotiations with automakers, while the union is currently withholding its endorsement of Biden’s reelection bid. 

The UAW leadership had asked for an opportunity to brief White House senior staff on their analysis and positions related to the negotiations with the top U.S. automakers, known as the Big Three. 

When Biden learned about that meeting in the West Wing, he asked to also talk directly with Fain and the two of them had a short meeting, a White House official said.

The union’s worker contracts expire in September, and Fain has warned automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, formerly Chrysler, that the union is prepared to strike over negotiations about cost-of-living pay raises, pensions and other issues.

Meanwhile, the union said in May it won’t endorse Biden yet due to concerns over the White House’s focus on electric vehicles. The president has directed major funding towards a transition to EVs, building up manufacturing of parts and charging stations. 

Fain said at the time that UAW wants to see a “just transition” to EVs “where the workers who make the auto industry run aren’t left behind.” He noted that taxpayer money is being used to build up the electric vehicle industry.

The union has historically backed Democrats and endorsed Biden in 2020. Fain has made clear the union is not going to support former President Trump.

Other major unions have backed Biden’s reelection bid already, including the AFL-CIO, the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers, among others.

Plumbers union endorses Biden reelection bid

BY ALEX GANGITANO - 07/19/23

President Joe Biden waves to members of the media as he walks to board Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Sunday, July 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The top plumbers union endorsed President Biden’s reelection bid on Wednesday, adding to the list of big labor organizations that have supported the president again this cycle.

The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (UA), which represents about 366,000 plumbers, pipefitters and welders, announced its endorsement earlier than it announced in the 2020 cycle.

“The Biden Harris Administration has provided economic opportunity for all United Association members — meaning our members have a fair shot at working family-sustaining jobs while building the future of American infrastructure,” UA general president Mark McManus said in a statement.

The group pointed to Biden’s policies, such as replacing lead service lines, building semiconductor manufacturing facilities and permitting reform, as reasons they wanted to endorse.

UA released a nationwide ad campaign announcing the endorsement, which was backed by a nearly $1 million buy and will run nationwide for four weeks, then only in battleground states for another four weeks.

“This endorsement highlights the groundswell of support we have seen from across the organized labor movement,” Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said in a statement. “That’s because Joe Biden is the most pro-labor president in history — making historic investments in our country’s manufacturing and fighting for our workers.”

Biden’s reelection campaign was endorsed by AFL-CIO in June, along with more than a dozen other unions — like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, National Nurses United and the American Federation of Government Employees.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) also endorsed Biden earlier in June, citing the infrastructure law as an accomplishment of the administration.

“The unprecedented show of support from labor this early in the campaign unlocks the movement’s powerful organizing abilities and resources to help show how President Biden is delivering more jobs, more manufacturing, and lower costs for American families,” Rodriguez said.

But the president hasn’t had all good luck with unions this cycle. The United Auto Workers union in May said it would hold back from an endorsement, citing concerns over the White House’s focus on electric vehicles.

Biden jokes that he got an endorsement from Marjorie Taylor Greene after video hits 40M views

BY ALEX GANGITANO - 07/20/23 

President Biden joked Thursday that he got an endorsement from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after the video his campaign made featuring clips from her speech topped 40 million views since it was posted Tuesday evening.

“As you may have seen — apparently 40 million people watched — Marjorie Taylor Greene, the very conservative gentlelady from the state of Georgia, said Biden is doing things like Roosevelt. And, it goes down the line, and created these jobs and he thinks that — I thought that was, I never had an endorsement from her before,” Biden said in Philadelphia.

The Biden campaign made the video out of Greene’s speech from Turning Point USA, which was intended to attack the president on policy issues. The Biden campaign set it to uplifting music as she lists the president’s agenda and legislative priorities and compares him to former Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It reached more than 30 million views in 12 hours and received the second-highest impressions on a Biden video since he was inaugurated, only behind his reelection campaign launch video that dropped in April.

The president took jabs at other Republicans during his remarks Thursday in Philadelphia, especially for voicing support for projects in their districts after they voted against the bills that provided the funding.

“All those members of Congress who voted against the bill suddenly realize its pretty good and they’re bragging about it. I find it interesting,” he said, noting that every Republican voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats’ sweeping climate and tax bill.

The White House last month picked a fight with Greene after her hometown newspaper in Floyd County touted federal public safety grants the area would receive through the American Rescue Plan. Greene and every other House Republican voted against the bill in March 2021.

The president also poked at Sen. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), who has become his favorite GOP foil since the senator has blocked the chamber from moving on military promotions in protest over the Pentagon’s abortion policy.

“The one who’s blocking the nominations of American’s finest military leaders, jeopardizing our national security over domestic social issues. Well, he’s also strongly opposed to the bipartisan infrastructure law, and now I listen to him on television,” Biden said, mimicking Tuberville in an interview talking about boosting broadband efforts.

Biden mocked Tuberville for touting $1.4 billion in federal funding that Alabama is set to receive for expanded broadband internet access, despite the senator voting against it in 2021.  

“I’m glad the senator is coming along around on the infrastructure law but I’m not going to let up until he comes around on the critical military nominations as well,” he said Thursday.

Biden also mocked former President Trump. While highlighting the construction of windmills in states like Colorado he added, “not withstanding what the other guy said, windmills do not cause cancer.”

Trump in 2019 claimed that the noise from a windmill causes cancer.

The president was surrounded by “Bidenomics” banners on the stage for his speech at the Philly Shipyard. The White House rolled out the Bidenomics slogan last month, and since then, the president and top officials have traveled to promote the idea. 

“I’m not here not here to declare victory, we’ve got a long way to go on the economy. But I’m here to say, we have more work to do, we have a plan that’s turning things around quickly,” Biden said.

Polling this week found that, despite the roll out of Bidenomics, only 34 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of inflation. The same Monmouth University poll also found a split rating on Biden’s handling of jobs and unemployment, with 47 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving of it.