After refinery explosions, California lawmakers move to preserve safety rules

California lawmakers are advancing an effort to preserve oil refinery safety rules that were designed to prevent fires, explosions and other catastrophes despite industry opposition.

The union-backed proposal, Senate Bill 966, would enshrine existing worker protections into state law as California regulators move to revise them in response to a legal settlement with the state’s oil lobby.

“We're trying to get the best regulations possible for these industries,” said Nick Plurkowski, a leader of a Bay Area local of the United Steelworkers. “An industry where you have to write into regulation … that it's okay to refuse work that could lead to your death.”

The bill would lock in workers’ rights to refuse dangerous work, participate in safety reviews, choose their own representatives for safety planning and report hazards anonymously.

The measure is among several targeting the oil and gas industry this year, including proposals aimed at refinery closure plans and a bid to curb high gas prices during wartime by expanding the state’s price-gouging law. Lawmakers’ focus on refineries comes as California drivers face the nation’s highest gasoline prices and the Iran war pushes up the global price of crude oil.

The worker safety bill would lock in provisions adopted after a 2012 Chevron refinery fire in Richmond that prompted 15,000 people to seek medical attention. The Western States Petroleum Association, the state’s main oil lobby, formally opposes the measure, arguing it would override a 2024 legal settlement the industry reached with regulators.

The industry and union players fighting over the bill do not contribute much money directly to lawmakers, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database. Campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry can be toxic in elections for the state’s politically dominant Democratic Party.

But WSPA is a powerhouse when it comes to lobbying. It’s routinely the biggest spender in the Capitol among the many interest groups that hire lobbyists, according to state records.

WSPA reported lobbying on the measure, and is joined by some of the state’s largest refiners, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum and PBF Energy, according to lobbying reports reviewed by CalMatters. Those three companies run refineries that comprise nearly 90% of California’s crude oil refining capacity.

The proposal, which cleared a key fiscal committee this week, is authored by State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat from Long Beach, and comes after an explosion last year at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery. That blast rattled windows across nearby neighborhoods and shot uncontrolled columns of flame into the air, raising new concerns about the safety of the state’s aging refineries.

Zach Leary, a lobbyist for WSPA, in testimony at a legislative hearing earlier this summer, argued the proposal would override a 2024 settlement under which California regulators agreed to pursue changes to refinery safety rules in exchange for the industry dropping years of litigation.

“Unfortunately, it's this type of regulatory and legislative whiplash that creates a business environment that is very difficult to operate in,” Leary said in June.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Finance also opposes the bill, arguing it adds additional costs not included in this year’s budget, could expose the state to further litigation expenses and may conflict with an ongoing process to rewrite the rules following the 2024 settlement.

California has some of the nation’s toughest refinery safety measures because of two earlier explosions: the 2012 Richmond refinery fire, and another in 2015 at a refinery in Torrance then owned by ExxonMobil that came close to releasing modified hydrofluoric acid, a potentially deadly industrial chemical.

The worker rules are built around the concept of process safety, which requires refineries to identify and address hazards before they lead to accidents and gives workers a direct role in safety reviews and investigations. The goal is to prevent failures that can lead to refinery fires and explosions.

But WSPA sued to block the rules in 2019, calling them unclear and invalid. California quietly settled in 2024. In response to the settlement, the California Environmental Protection Agency finalized amendments this year to its refinery safety rules, including how workers take part in safety decisions and how hazards are reviewed. A companion rule revision at the state’s workplace safety agency is ongoing.

Plurkowski, of the local United Steelworkers union, said that the outcome at CalEPA prompted the push for the worker safety measures to be written into law. The regional United Steelworkers District 12 sponsored the measure.

“Part of what led to SB 966 was how quickly CalEPA folded,” Plurkowski said. “People's lives are at stake, communities are at stake, we've learned enough lessons to know better at this point.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.