State supports Bay Area refinery emission "caps" to stop rise in greenhouse gases, toxic pollutants

In a dramatic turn in a years-long campaign, the California Air Resources Board has thrown its support behind emission limits to cap rising particulate and greenhouse gas air pollution from five Bay Area refineries. The state agency announced its support in an early April letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which is currently considering several proposed regulations to reach a promised 20% reduction in refinery emissions by 2020.

Despite its stated commitment to lowering toxic and climate-warming refinery emissions, the regional Air District has repeatedly delayed the adoption of much-needed regulations, pointing to arguments from oil-industry lobbyists who claim that emission caps would conflict with the State’s cap-and-trade program. The California Air Resources Board letter rebuts those arguments, and puts the impetus on the Air District to move forward with passage of proposed regulations.

Caps needed now to prevent massive emissions increase

The release of the State's letter comes as oil companies seek to process lower-quality grades of oil (like tar sands) that could increase the intensity of emissions per barrel of oil refined and increase the overall amount of refinery emissions. The switch to higher-emitting crudes could increase region-wide refinery emissions by as much as 40-100%.

The Air District has primary responsibility for controlling industrial air-pollutant emissions in the region. Particulate-matter air pollution kills an estimated 1,700-2,500 people in the Bay Area annually, and greenhouse gas air pollution threatens severe climate disruption. Oil refining is the biggest industrial emitter of both pollutants in the Bay Area.

Loopholes and delays

The Air District has taken steps to control emissions from various parts of refineries, but it has not yet set facility-wide refinery emission limits. This giant loophole could allow the oil industry’s plans for refining higher-emitting oil to come to fruition.

Back in 2012, recognizing the need to close this loophole, the Air District’s Board of Directors instructed its staff to develop a new regulation by the spring of 2015 (yes, we're already two years behind that deadline!) as a backstop against increasing refinery emissions. That regulation, called Rule 12-16, would set transparent, enforceable limits (“caps”) on refinery emissions of greenhouse gases and four pollutants that cause particulate-matter air pollution: PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen oxide (NOx), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The emission caps would be set at 7% above existing emission levels of those pollutants at Bay Area refineries.

After many delays by the Air District staff (under industry pressure) the Board committed to consider adopting proposed Rule 12-16 at a public hearing this May. We had hoped that they would live up to this commitment and not delay this rule any further, but as of this printing the timeline for adoption was up in the air.

Time is of the essence: we must institute a cap on emissions as quickly as possible, in order to prevent dangerous increases in greenhouse gas and toxic air pollutant emissions. The longer we wait to establish a "cap", the more time refineries have to complete large-scale infrastructure projects required to process tar sands. Any more delays will lock in these projects for decades, setting the course for higher emissions baselines once a cap is eventually put in place.

WhatYouCanDo

The State’s letter vindicates the position of community, environmental justice, and climate groups who have long argued for emission caps to prevent an increase in already harmful refinery pollution. But there’s much more work left to be done before the regulation is passed and goes into effect.

We will bring our demands to a May 31st meeting of the Air District’s board of directors. Will you join us?

Wednesday, May 31st (time TBD)
1st Floor Board Room, 375 Beale Street, San Francisco
RSVP to brittany@sfbaysc.org or 510-848-0800

If we succeed in passing precedent-setting emission caps, we can send a message to the entire nation: local communities can and must have a say over what goes into the air they breathe.


Image credit: Steve Ongerth (far left), Rebecca Auerbach (second from left), and other advocates of the refinery emission cap outside a recent Air District workshop. Photo by Brittany King.