Clean Air, Good Jobs, and a Healthier Richmond

We need your support to protect public health, improve air quality, reduce global warming and invest in a healthier and cleaner community.  With the support of community groups, Attorney General Jerry Brown's office crafted a proposal to settle the  Chevron Refinery Expansion Project lawsuit.  This proposal for "Clean Air, Good Jobs and a Healthier Richmond" will improve refinery monitoring, control Chevron's use of much dirtier, more polluting crude oil, reduce refinery flaring and increase renewable energy on-site and in the nearby communities that have been disproportionately burdened by refinery pollution. 

While there is much more work to be done to truly protect health and provide green jobs in Richmond and the greater Bay Area, we think the Attorney General's proposal is a reasonable alternative to the continued litigation.  The Attorney General's proposal would partially limit the types of heavier crude oil to be refined in Richmond.  Throughout the campaign, the community's primary goal has been to protect public health in Richmond by reducing local pollution.  The main community concern with this project is that allowing Chevron to process heavier and more contaminated oil would increase toxic and smog-forming pollutants from the refinery, harming community health and the environment and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

This proposal has the support of faith leaders, health providers, residents and union members.  We call for elected officials across the City of Richmond, Contra Costa, the Bay Area and the State of California to support protecting public health, improving air quality, reducing global warming pollution and investing in a healthier and cleaner future for today and the next generation. 

What's at Stake: City of Richmond

• Nearly 80% of people within one mile of the Chevron refinery are people of color.  The majority of the community is working class, and over 25% live below the national poverty line.

• Children in Richmond are already hospitalized for asthma at almost twice the rate of children in the rest of Contra Costa County.

• 90% of Richmond's greenhouse gas emissions come from industry, and 90% of those industrial emissions come from Chevron's Richmond refinery, according to the City of Richmond.  Based on the Environmental Impact Report, the expansion could generate almost 900,000 tons of additional greenhouse gases annually.  This figure does not include additional greenhouse gas emissions or other toxic co-pollutants generated by refining dirtier crude.

• Chevron's Refinery is the largest air emitter in Richmond (according to the Toxic Release Inventory data.

What's at Stake: Statewide and National Implications

• The Environmental Protection Agency released a historic finding that greenhouse gases are already endangering public health and welfare.  We need to prevent current and future exposure to GHGs and harmful co-pollutants.

• According to California Air Resources Board data, the Chevron oil refinery is the largest industrial greenhouse gas polluter in the state, emitting nearly 4.8 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2008.

• A move to refining and production of more pollution-intensive grades of crude is a threatening trend for our future local, national and global energy system, climate and environmental health.  State and national elected officials, health and environmental advocates, community residents and unions whose workers are on the front line must monitor these developments closely.  The Richmond Chevron refinery is a test case.  We must address the short-term and long-term implications of the project.   

• The Chevron Refinery Expansion project has become the "poster child" for industry to once again attack the California Environmental Quality Act.  That statute requires projects to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, and actually reduce significant impacts  that would be caused by the proposed project.  Losing those statutory disclosure and protection requirements would hugely and adversely impact local and state communities.

Richmond already gets more than its fair share of exposure to air pollution and environmental hazards.  These disproportionate impacts have left generations of local residents paying for the ongoing health related costs of cancer, asthma and other respiratory illnesses. According to Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), children, the poor, the elderly and those with weak or impaired immune systems are the most vulnerable to climate change; we need to focus reduction of greenhouse gases from sources that also emit toxic air pollution in these most polluted and more vulnerable neighborhoods.  In order to adequately protect public health, any permitting decision must take into account the multiple pollution sources that are already present in this community and that are contributing significantly to current levels of air pollution. 

Proposal for "Clean Air, Good Jobs and a Healthier Richmond"

The proposal will: 

Curb Air Pollution: Under this proposal, Chevron would replace outdated boilers built in the 1930s and 1940s (as it originally promised to do as part of this project, but later indefinitely deferred), and install the sort of flaring prevention equipment that is already in place at the Shell refinery in nearby Martinez.

Good Jobs: Chevron would increase onsite renewable energy and energy efficiency and the proposal would create more and greener jobs by requiring installation of solar energy.

Reduce GHGs and Promote Climate Solutions: The proposal would improve energy efficiency 20% by 2020 which would reduce pollutant emissions at the refinery by burning less fuel per gallon of gasoline and other products made. .  It would also expand renewable energy sources such as on & off-site solar, which would help jumpstart the sustainable energy solution to global warming. 

We need to protect the community from health and environmental hazards by not locking in another generation of toxic pollution.  At the same time, the Chevron Refinery Expansion project has ramifications far beyond Richmond.  That is why we, the undersigned, encourage you -- our elected officials, community leaders and allies -- to publically support this alternative proposal and to do all that you can to ensure that Chevron is accountable for reducing local pollution.  We are counting on you to protect the public interest.  The Attorney General's proposal is an important start.

Please keep us informed and posted on further developments and what actions you can take to support the community on this issue.  Thank you.