NEW! Clearing the Zero-Emission Path: A review of financial transfers to polluting fuels via California carbon trading programs.

California gave oil companies and biofuel suppliers nearly $28 billion from state-controlled climate funding streams for carbon-emitting transportation from 2013 through 2024. This is the combined value in 2023 dollars of free Cap and Trade allowances given to oil refiners and drillers and Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits awarded to oil companies and other suppliers of transportation biofuels during those 12 years. The money came mainly from Californians at the gas pump. It was intended to incentivize the lowest-carbon transport feasible, including electric vehicles and public transit. Instead, it funded carbon-emitting transportation, further locking it into place.

Refinery fuel production shifts prioritize jet fuel in California as fears for gas supplies spread

READ THE LATEST UPDATE

Refiners exported inventory in run up to record gas price spike

READ OUR FACT SHEET

State data reveal refining for export

GET THE DATA

It's in some of the worst places to drill, and we don't need it.

VIEW THE OIL CALIFORNIA COULD KEEP IN THE GROUND

See the California Air Resources Board tell its staff to plan specifically for phasing down oil refining

VIEW THE BOARD'S SEPT. 1, 2022 DISCUSSION WITH ITS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE. (A 45-minute view, from time mark 1:04:30.)

Quick start to gradual refining phase down crucial to feasibility of state climate goals

READ THIS CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ALLIANCE REPORT

Groups expose site-specific and global impacts of the oil industry's preferred biofuel technology

Oil companies are moving to repurpose stranded crude refining assets for a particular type of biofuel. This biofuel is uniquely prone to cause increased carbon emissions, deforestation, explosion hazards for refinery workers, and acute exposures to flare emissions in Black, Brown and low-income communities near their new bio-refineries. But these potential impacts are not disclosed in draft environmental reviews for the largest of these projects proposed to date.

READ OUR COMMENTS ON THE PHILLIPS 66 AND MARATHON PROJECTS

Throwing [bio]fuel on the fire

It was supposed to replace petroleum. It didn't. California's total distillate fuel emissions increased. READ THE DATA BRIEF

Oil refiners say air pollution control wastes too much water. Their refineries waste up to 50 times more. And can recycle.

READ FACT SHEET

Community, climate, environment and labor groups call for Just Transition action in northern California's oil refining belt.
READ OUR LETTER TO CONTRA COSTA COUNTY SUPERVISORS

Biofuels: Burning food?

When two of the five refiners in its region presented their plans to process biofuels instead of crude oil to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the District asked about fuel chain impacts associated with the new biofuel feedstock. Good Question. READ FACT SHEET

Union Local Calls for Just Transition Policy in the Oil Fields.

An August 5, 2020 letter to California officials from United Steelworkers Local 675 asserts that oil companies should pay for plugging their abandoned wells, and this work should accelerate now to create jobs, protect communities, and "advance a just transition away from fossil fuels."

Based in the LA area, United Steelworkers (USW) 675 represents oil production workers and is the state's major refinery operator workers union local. Asked about refining, Charlie Sandoval of USW 675 said "we need to plan something yesterday for refinery workers' transition. The only way that we can guarantee that is for community and labor to get together on a real plan." The new call for action in the oil fields advances part of such a serious plan. READ LETTER

103 Groups tell California's Governor Newsom to start reducing refinery production now. VIEW LETTER

DECOMMISSIONING CALIFORNIA REFINERIES

Climate and Health Paths

in an Oil State

A Report by Greg Karras, G. Karras Consulting
prepared for Communities for a Better Environment

release date: July 6, 2020

DOWNLOAD THE 2022 UPDATE

Decommissioning California Refineries

We need to talk about how we are going to break free from our toxic relationship with oil before it takes us over a cliff.

Put formally, the scientific consensus that petroleum use must be cut rapidly to stabilize our climate at 1.5–2ºC above pre-industrial levels and proven alternatives to oil we have now beg a question. What could reverse the political inertia that has stalled action to replace oil with sustainable alternatives? This is now the urgent question upon which the continued existence of human societies as we know them may depend. Yet little formal attention has so far been paid to the site-specific conditions that affect societal capacity to escape oil dependence in time.

The research reported in Decommissioning California Refineries, done for the environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment, reveals specific answers to the parts of this urgent question framed by communities in the dominant oil refining state on the U.S. West Coast: What is the least-impact, most socially just, most feasible path to climate and health protection in California?

To purchase a $20 copy of the book (plus $8 shipping) please email us at gkarrasconsulting@gmail.com, or use the Paypal link below.

Community, climate, environment and labor groups call for Just Transition action in northern California's oil refining belt. READ OUR LETTER TO CONTRA COSTA COUNTY SUPERVISORS