Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Maybe they should bring those refineries home.

Valero and Tesoro, that is:

The two San Antonio refining companies have spent millions backing the measure (Proposition 23), which would put California's law reducing greenhouse-gas emissions on hold until the Golden State's present 12.4 percent unemployment level falls to 5.5 percent for a full year.
...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has referred to Valero and Tesoro as “greedy Texas oil companies” and some of the biggest polluters in California.

In a speech in late September, Schwarzenegger kicked it up a notch, saying, “Does anyone really believe that these companies, out of the goodness of their black-oil hearts, are really spending millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs? This is like Eva Braun writing a kosher cookbook. ... It's about their ability to pollute and thus protect their profits.”
Greedy Texas oil companies. How special. If Ah-nuld really feels that way, then Valero and Tesoro executives need to take a long, hard look at the costs of moving those refineries to a more business-friendly state (such as the state in which those two companies are headquartered). I'm sure Texas would welcome with open arms those 4,000 jobs, that $259 million payroll and $100 million in taxes, and it would make for great press in the state too: "Texas companies bringing jobs home." No doubt Jan Jarboe Russell, Rick Casey and other Texas media pundits would spin it as Valero and Tesoro moving jobs to where the laws are more lax, but that's okay. I'd think those Texans who took those jobs and the people running the places where said Texans spend their money care a hell of a lot more about providing for their families than they do about the opinions of lamebrained journalists.