Envisioning a Climate-Safe California webinar #17: Phasing Out Oil Refining in California: Implications for Health and Workers – 25 July 2024
The Clean Coalition was a partner organization for this webinar, which took place on 25 July 2024 at 10am.
The Climate Center believes in thriving, healthy communities. They envision a future where everyone in California enjoys clean air and water, renewable and reliable energy, healthy food, and abundant nature. California has the tools and the know-how to make this vision a reality if our elected leaders summon the political will. It is time we put people back at the heart of policy. In doing so, we can keep our friends and loved ones safe from worsening climate disasters, create millions of family-sustaining jobs, and give everyone the chance to thrive in the clean energy economy.
The climate center’s Envisioning a Climate-Safe California: Stories and Solutions webinar series will combine personal stories, frontline perspectives, scientific expertise, and policy analysis to shed light on how California can lead the world toward a climate-safe future. We’ll hear from the people and communities feeling the impacts of the climate crisis today as well as those advocating for solutions.
See below for more information on the seventeenth webinar of the series.
Webinar #17: Phasing Out Oil Refining in California: Implications for Health and Workers
Thursday, 25 July 2024 at 10am to 11:30am PST
California is a major oil refining state, mostly making fuels for our own use but also for export. California and local governments have policies requiring a transition away from fossil fuels in the electricity, transportation, and oil extraction sectors. But California has no requirements for phasing out oil refineries — the largest industrial fossil fuel polluters in the state.
This webinar outlined how refineries operate and produce emissions and how they are regulated (or not regulated). We heard from fenceline communities about how living near refineries impacts their health as well as their visions for phasing out refining. We also heard from labor experts and state officials about planning a worker-friendly transition away from refineries toward clean energy.
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Presenters
Commissioner Siva Gunda is serving his first term on the California Energy Commission. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Gunda in February 2021 to serve as the Energy Commission’s public member. Gunda was later appointed to Vice Chair in September 2021. He is the lead commissioner on energy assessments. Gunda served as manager of the Demand Analysis Office and deputy director for the Energy Commission’s Energy Assessments Division. The division forecasts and assesses energy demands and supplies.
Julia May is a Senior Scientist at Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), providing engineering analysis and regulatory policy development on oil refineries and other industrial pollution sources. She is deeply involved in planning the transition away from dependence on oil refineries toward clean energy replacements to protect communities and the planet from climate and health destruction. For the last 35 years, she has provided technical support for CBE and other Environmental Justice organizations, demystifying refinery operations, their health-harming pollution, and seeking alternatives. She helped develop best-in-nation oil refinery regulations to prevent accidents and flaring and to minimize continuous emissions from refinery storage tanks, ships, boilers, heaters, and more.
Brian White is a U.S. Navy veteran and currently serves as the Policy Director in the office of Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez. Previous to his current position Mr. White was a 29 year member of United Steelworkers and Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers unions, while working at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, CA. His work at the refinery included operating some of the most complex and difficult units in the refinery. Mr White also led a Union Safety program at the refinery for three years and trained plant operators on process procedures and regulatory requirements.
Alicia Rivera is an organizer for Communities for a Better Environment in Wilmington and has been a lead oil refinery organizer in California for over 20 years. Her initiation to refinery disasters was the former Texaco, now Marathon refinery that spectacularly exploded in the late 1990s, physically damaging homes and people’s health, aggravating respiratory illnesses and ability to breathe. Since then, Alicia has witnessed countless explosions, flaring, and neighbors’ health harms, and has been instrumental in pushing and winning regulations and policies at the regional Air District and the State to clean up refineries. She is now actively involved in work toward refineries phaseout.