The talking points of the Phillips 66 cadre of supporters are those that Phillips 66 beats like a dead horse, including the loss of 200 high paying jobs should the rail spur not be approved. No one has ever challenged the jobs at Phillips, and in fact when asked about the plant closing, Dennis Nuss, the Phillips 66 company spokesman was quoted in the SLO New Times; “the subject has not come up.”
But in a very professionally orchestrated campaign, and expensive, too, green “Protect Jobs” signs are sprouting like mushrooms along the roadside. Along with these signs, fliers are finding their way to the front doors reinforcing a misleading storyline.
In the Sept. 24 letter to the editor written by Patrick Sidun (“Fact vs. fear in the Phillips 66 debate”), he categorizes the opposition to the Phillips 66 rail spur project as wealthy people living in expensive homes in an exclusive development. Well I do live there, but I wouldn’t quite put myself in the league of Warren Buffett who just invested $6.4 billion into Phillips. But I don’t remember anyone standing on the corner handing out $100 bills to me. I worked for every damn nickel that I earned.
So I don’t need to apologize for living here. I do think that Mr. Sidun has a lot to apologize for when he says we don’t care. Our community matches Phillips more than dollar for dollar in public service and volunteer hours. We do care about their jobs, it’s their CEO in Houston who stated that as corporate policy they would have a crude-by-rail strategy. He’s not only putting his workers’ health at risk, should the project be approved, Canadian crude would replace the California domestic crude, and thus those workers locally would have their jobs at risk.
In his letter, Mr. Sidun continues by stating “with this vocal and well funded group … .” Vocal we are, but well funded we are not. We are a pure grass roots effort. That we have been able to leverage our many talents to raise the issue and “wake up the community” to this danger is to our credit, especially going against the deep pockets of Phillips.
So Mr. Sidun should be fearful. Not for his job, because there is not such basis for that fear—they have sourced crude for almost 60 years by pipeline from the California fields, and they can continue to do so for yet another 60 years. He should be fearful as to what Phillips intends to bring down the mainline and into the refinery should the project be approved.
Instead of spewing his anger at his neighbors, he should do the research and read what the introduction of tar sands would mean to his health and those of his coworkers.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2015.
