Action Alerts

Protect California communities from harmful emissions from oil refineries

What's At Stake

After continued pressure on California lawmakers from advocates across the state – including Earthjustice supporters like you — both the California State Assembly and State Senate have finally passed SB 674, sending the bill to Governor Newsom’s desk to sign into law – but he still needs to hear from you. 

With SB 674, we have an important opportunity to end a longstanding injustice by giving California’s frontline communities living near refineries the vital information and basic protections they need to protect their health and safety. 

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Across the state, tens of thousands of Californians live near oil refineries. These refineries are inherently dangerous operations, prone to so-called accidental fires, explosions and unpermitted flaring that puts nearby communities at risk. They are also a massive source of pollution, spewing harmful pollutants, like particulate matter and nitrogen oxide into local neighborhoods. Refineries are overwhelmingly located in environmental justice communities already overburdened with toxic emissions.   

As California advances towards our goal to transition away from fossil fuels in our lifetime, it is even more important that regulators effectively monitor these archaic facilities and provide essential safeguards to protect the health and safety of the overburdened communities living nearby.     

That’s why we’re proud co-sponsors alongside community group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, of SB 674, a common-sense bill that will provide California’s fenceline communities with transparency into the toxic pollution entering their neighborhoods and the basic protections they deserve and are legally entitled to. SB 674 will improve emissions monitoring, and provide fenceline communities with life-saving data and notifications about health-harming emissions.   

We’re almost there but we need your help. CA’s Legislature has passed SB 674, and now it’s up to Governor Newsom to sign this bill into law.   

Tell Governor Newsom it’s time to enact SB 674 to improve protections for environmental justice communities from oil refineries and hold refineries accountable for their harmful emissions.   

Kids play soccer near the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, Calif.
Kids play soccer near the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, Calif. (Hannah Benet for Earthjustice)

Delivery to Governor Newsom

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.