The City of Oakland signed a development deal for a coal-shipping terminal in 2013, and then backed out over environmental protests. Now that’s coming back to haunt them, as legal rulings against their flip-flop could cost the city hundreds of millions.
The Port of Oakland is the ninth-busiest port in the United States of America, and an important economic lifeline for the City of Oakland. But being in the politically far-left Bay Area, the Port of Oakland is often a proxy backdrop for political battles, like the AB-5 trucker blockade in 2022, or the shipping of military supplies to Israel brouhaha over the last couple of years.
One political battle that appeared to have come and gone is now coming back to haunt the City of Oakland in a big way. The New York Times has an analysis today of a coal-shipping deal that the city had agreed to in 2013 and then backed out of in 2016. But that begat numerous lawsuits, most of which the city has been losing, and the massive legal payouts the city is facing could force Oakland into bankruptcy…