Valero Oil's CEO Hides Behind Employees and Defends CA Proposition 23

[TomCADem]

Here is Valero's CEO hiding behind his employees in defending Proposition 23, which is designed to roll back environmental laws. Afterall, if you love the environment, then you must hate the poor employees of Valero. Also, does Valero employee 1 million Californians or less than 4000?

http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_16228616?nclick_check=1

On behalf of Tesoro and Valero's nearly 4,000 employees in California, we would like to express how disappointed we were to hear Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger once again misrepresent and demonize our companies and our workers, who have been working day after day to provide Californians with the products and services they need to live their lives.

We understand that our companies and the governor are on opposite sides of the debate over Proposition 23, the ballot initiative that gives California voters the opportunity to postpone implementation of the state's costly go-it-alone greenhouse gas reductions until the state's economy recovers.

However, opposing a political initiative is no excuse to retreat to the defense of the desperate: attacking the messenger instead of the message by insulting the more than 1 million Californians who work at our locations, who are vendors at our sites, and who shop at our retail outlets every day.

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Our employees have volunteered thousands of hours of their own time to charitable causes.

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Our companies have diverse operations in many states, particularly in California. Combined, we employ 3,841 people in California with annual payroll of $259 million. We also pay more than $100 million in taxes in the state. Nor are we, strictly speaking, "oil companies." We do not produce oil or own any crude oil reserves. Instead, we buy crude from third parties and turn it into the transportation fuels so vital to the California economy.