Letters: Politicians’ op-ed dodges state’s role in insurance mess

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Politicians dodge state’s
role in insurance mess

Re: “Insurance companies should sue Big Oil for harm to climate” (Page A6, July 9).

In their recent column, California Sen. Jerry McNerney and U.S. Rep. John Garamendi dodge accountability for state mismanagement of its insurance industry.

Chevron believes affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy is essential to human progress, but California policymakers have chased many energy producers out of the state. More than 17% of today’s gasoline refining capacity will shut down by early next year, once Valero and Phillips 66 shut down important California refineries.

California policymakers have similarly chased much of the insurance industry out of the state, including State Farm and Allstate. As a former insurance commissioner, Garamendi knows the systemic challenges facing the state’s insurance market are the result of regulatory failures.

Over-regulation has hobbled the insurance industry. Anything else would require accountability for the state’s bad policies, something California regulators and politicians are anxious to dodge.

Andy Walz
President, Chevron Downstream, Midstream & Chemicals
San Ramon

Red flags should halt
coal-shipping plan

Re: “City loses new ruling tied to coal” (Page B1, July 3).

Thank you for detailing Oakland’s coal-shipping battle in your article.

At issue is a recent appeals court ruling allowing for the construction of a marine terminal on the former Oakland Army Base; a terminal to store and ship coal and coal ash. The developer, Phil Tagami, has deep Oakland roots, having managed many projects in Oakland, including a gorgeous renovation of The Rotunda building. So why is he mixed up in an unpopularproject?

Sure, money talks, but what’s not stated is the shaky financial background of Insight Terminal Solutions, the shipping company with scant expertise moving coal. Meanwhile, it has experienced bankruptcy, while making sizable donations to a former judge running for city attorney.

This reeks of short-term gains for a few while risking contamination to marine life and polluting the air over nearby communities, raising enough alarms to put the brakes on the project.

Denise Bostrom
Oakland

Give incarcerated
a path to re-entry

Senate Bill 38 will help right the wrongs of decades of failed policy in California. The systemic focus on punishment over rehabilitation has failed time and time again.

As a youthful offender who has been in prison for 30 years now, I know firsthand how second chances can happen. Most of the community impacted by criminal justice want a second chance, but many fail during re-entry due to a lack of resources and being overcome by addiction.

SB 38 will help those on the road to recovery in rebuilding their lives. This, in turn, protects our community and lowers recidivism.

John Crosthwaite
Corcoran State Prison

‘Alligator Alcatraz’ offers
a glimpse of our future

Re: “Lawmakers visit detention center in Everglades after being turned away” (Page A10, July 13).

Who to believe? I was struck by the stark contrast in accounts of the “detention facility” in Florida. Democrats saw a “detention center” that was “crowded, unsanitary and bug infested” with “cage style units of 32 men sharing 3 combination toilet-sink devices, temperatures measuring 83 degrees, grasshoppers and other insects” versus a “well-run, clean and functioning facility” based on Republican accounts.

I know where I’m placing my money. The fact that the facility was stood up in days on an airstrip in the middle of the Everglades speaks volumes. Republicans are “sanewashing” the truth to the American public. While the current focus is on brown and Latino people, with ICE chasing them through strawberry fields to “detain” them, who’s next?

More and more facilities, concentration camps, are planned in other Republican states. They call them “detention centers,” but there is no pathway out for the detainees. Wake up, fellow Americans.

Cathy Teegardin
Pleasant Hill

Deportations were stop
on the road to Nazism

Re: “Instead of hysterics, let’s focus on migrants” (Page A6, July 16).

A letter claimed that comparing ICE today with Nazi roundups in 1938 is wrong because the aim then “was extermination, not deportation.” That is false. Detentions and deportations of so-called “anti-socials” ramped up from 1937. Murders of Jews by Nazi thugs began in 1939. The first extermination camp opened in 1941.

My grandfather was a Jew born in Berlin to parents who were born in Poland. With no birthright citizenship in Germany, he was not considered German and was caught in the first expulsion of Jews in October 1938. Thousands of Jews were dumped on the Polish border to fend for themselves. He never came back.

Trump is grabbing immigrants, most of whom have lived and worked here quietly for years, detaining them in horrific conditions or deporting them to prisons in other countries. To my horror, these are the same first steps the Nazis took on their road to slaughter.

Pamela Dernham
Oakland