John Oliver criticizes Valero's joint pipeline project that would have cut through historically Black neighborhoods.

John Oliver has had a lot of Texas politicians and businesses in his sights in recent weeks. This week, one of his targets is the San Antonio-based oil and gas giant Valero. 

Oliver criticized Valero on Sunday, May 1, in a Last Week Tonight segment on environmental racism and redlining in marginalized communities. He touched how industrial zones and projects are built near neighborhoods with residents that are predominantly Black or marginalized.

In the segment, Oliver talks about Valero's joint project with Plains All American known as the Byhalia pipeline, which would have connected a Valero oil refinery in south Memphis to Byhalia, Mississippi. 

He pulled from a VICE News report which shows that the now paused pipeline would cut down into south Memphis through several historically Black neighborhoods in 2021. The report shows a map detailing how the pipeline would avoid a more simple, straight line path through predominantly White neighborhoods.

"That does seem a little odd, doesn't it?" Oliver asks. "Normally the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and not through any Black people that happen to be living near by."

The pipeline was eventually halted due to pushback from activists.

Justin J. Pearson with Memphis Community Against Pollution told Now This News that when asked why the company chose to take the pipeline south, a Plains All American representative told locals, "We basically chose a point of least resistance."

Oliver also highlights "Shingle Mountain" which was a 211,000-cubic-yard landfill pile of roof shingles that recycling company Blue Star Recycling dumped near Black and Latino suburbs in Dallas. When journalist Soledad O'Brien interviewed CEO Chris Ganter on the BET show Disrupt & Dismantle, he tells her "Oh the whole neighborhood around there is gross." 

"Everything around there is an industrial area," Ganter tells O'Brien. "I didn't really go down there very often because I didn't like being down in that part of town."

Shingle Mountain has since been removed and the Byhalia Pipeline has been halted as a result of local activists, but those same activists are concerned about Tennessee House Bill 2246 which was amended to say that communities couldn't resist critical infrastructure, Memphis station Action News 5 reported.

- With DeLorean moving to San Antonio, here are other companies that moved to Texas

- Guess the rent of this secluded one-bedroom with Hill Country views

- Here's a new look at the upcoming high-end apartments near the Alamodome

- Great Texas Airshow reaches max capacity, strands Randolph AFB residents

Sign up for the MySA Morning Headlines to receive fresh San Antonio news every morning.