Taking a new tack on his statewide campaign against global warming, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown announced a settlement Tuesday that requires ConocoPhillips to spend $10 million to offset greenhouse gases created by a proposed $600 million expansion of its East Bay refinery.
Brown told a news conference that the accord is believed to be the first time an oil refinery in the country has agreed to mitigate increased carbon emissions from an expansion project.
To compensate for an initial emissions increase of 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually at its Rodeo facility, the oil giant agreed to fund a $7 million offset program under the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, a $200,000 restoration of the San Pablo wetlands and a $2.8 million reforestation effort that is projected to sequester 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases.
In addition, ConocoPhillips agreed to identify all greenhouse gas emissions sources and reduction opportunities at its California refineries, identify energy savings measures for its Rodeo refinery and surrender a permit for a petroleum coke purification plant at its Santa Maria facility, which emitted 70,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually until it was shut down earlier this year.
Brown said that the offsets are projected to be roughly equivalent to the increased emissions from the plant. And while calling the agreement “pathbreaking,” he acknowledged: “Relative to the problem [of global warming] we have a long way to go.”
Mark Ross, chairman of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said the agreement could translate into one-quarter to one-third of the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the Bay Area required under the landmark state law AB32 by 2020.
Ross said the projects to be funded by $7 million from ConocoPhillips have not yet been identified, although some are likely to be related to transportation, such as the scrapping of heavy polluting junker cars and conversion of fleet vehicles to bio-fuel, hybrid or plug-in hybrid power.
“Seven million dollars to reduce that amount of tonnage will be a challenge,” he said. “But this type of mitigation is just a start. This is vanguard effort.”
The agreement came after the attorney general’s office challenged the project by appealing to Contra Costa County officials and arguing that their environmental impact study failed to adequately evaluate and mitigate the global warming impacts.
The accord also followed last month’s settlement of Brown’s lawsuit against fast-growing San Bernardino, which required it to measure how much its long-term growth plan will contribute to global warming and to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
More than a dozen jurisdictions in California have received letters from Brown and former Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer warning them to address global warming effects from development and transportation plans.
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