{"id":6120,"date":"2025-10-15T15:20:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/6120\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:20:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:20:28","slug":"after-the-fire-in-el-segundo-whos-watching-california-refineries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/6120\/","title":{"rendered":"After the fire in El Segundo, who’s watching California refineries?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alejandro Lazo<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

An explosion rattled windows across nearby neighborhoods. Orange columns of flame shot like blowtorches out of stacks and pipes, uncontrolled.<\/p>\n

The incident that shook Chevron\u2019s El Segundo refinery last week once would have prompted a federal investigation. Not anymore.<\/p>\n

As the Trump administration moves to weaken the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, California still hasn\u2019t said whether any agency, department or authority will take charge of a comprehensive investigation when a refinery erupts \u2014 something that\u2019s happened twice this year.<\/p>\n

Separately, in response to fears over higher gas prices, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have opened the door to more drilling<\/a>, and state agencies have delayed, or moved to loosen, new oversight measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does raise the issue of who’s watching the refineries,\u201d said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. \u201cThey’re the most dangerous manufacturing facilities we have in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scholars and engineers as well as local agencies and fenceline communities have seen the now-inactive chemical safety board as a vital source of information into the causes of major incidents at refineries. The independent federal agency \u201cwas the gold standard for investigations of these kinds of incidents,\u201d said Greg Karras, an environmental advocate and independent consultant.<\/p>\n

But the Trump administration has argued that the board \u201cduplicates substantial responsibilities” of other agencies. In President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, the White House proposed eliminating the board; in this second term, executive branch officials have again proposed to zero out its budget.<\/p>\n

The California Environmental Protection Agency is not leading a broad, multi-regulatory investigation after the Oct. 2 explosion.\u00a0Instead, says CalEPA spokesperson Diana Ibrahim, the agency is \u201cready to support\u201d the El Segundo Fire Department, which will lead a safety review.<\/p>\n

Other state, regional and local agencies are investigating for their own purposes \u2014 a specialized unit<\/a> of the California Department of Industrial Relations for worker hazards, the South Coast Air Quality Management District for pollution and the California Energy Commission for fuel supply \u2014 while Chevron runs its own internal review.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite siloed,\u201d said Earthjustice attorney Oscar Espino-Padron. \u201cIt\u2019s often difficult to point to one body that\u2019s really helping to coordinate and compile all of the necessary information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, an explosion at the Martinez Refinery, owned by PBF Energy, injured six workers and caused a shelter-in-place order. The Martinez and El Segundo incidents are the latest in a string of nearly a dozen major refinery explosions and fires in California over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some lawmakers and advocates are frustrated that the state has yet to get ahead of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fire in El Segundo has to happen for us to \u2026 wake up?\u201d said state Sen. Lena Gonzalez<\/a>, a Democrat from Long Beach whose bill to create a statewide standard for refinery air-quality monitoring was vetoed by Newsom last year<\/a>. \u201cIt’s just so ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watchdogs said to struggle reining in refineries<\/p>\n

State and local agencies that launched investigations after last week\u2019s fire have struggled to enforce refinery rules in the past, according to observers.<\/p>\n

In the five years leading up to the explosion, the South Coast Air Quality Management District\u2019s inspectors issued 46 notices of violation to Chevron in El Segundo. The most recent, issued July 30, alleged that the refinery<\/a> failed to properly control the burning of excess gases at a piece of equipment related to its Isomax unit, which uses hydrogen, heat and pressure to break down heavier oils into lighter fuels like jet fuel. That\u2019s the same part of the refinery that caught fire last week.<\/p>\n

That notice is not yet finalized, a process that can take months or years. Espino-Padron, the Earthjustice attorney, said the air district\u2019s oversight is often opaque, with residents having no easy way to tell when or how a notice of violation is resolved. Penalties also tend to be minimal, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is there isn’t enough personnel to really provide adequate oversight of these operations,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat you see is not significant, robust enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rainbow Yeung, a spokesperson for the South Coast air district, rejected criticisms of the district\u2019s inspection practices, enforcement and transparency. Yeung said the district is coordinating with other agencies on possible enforcement actions \u201cwith an eye toward protecting the public going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Chevron facility over the last decade, CalOSHA opened 18 accident and complaint inspections, eventually issuing nearly two dozen violations. The most recent CalOSHA investigation began on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

Garrett Brown, a retired employee of the agency, said that the inspection teams are short staffed. The agency\u2019s ability to investigate is \u201ccompromised,\u201d he said, in part because of recent turnover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Denisse Gomez, from the Department of Industrial Relations, says that Cal\/OSHA \u201chas consistently carried out its duties\u201d in responding to refinery incidents and \u201ccontinues to strengthen its specialized workforce through active recruitment and training to protect workers and uphold California\u2019s nation-leading refinery safety program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Safety standards face rollbacks\u00a0<\/p>\n

California has some of the nation\u2019s toughest refinery safety rules because of two earlier explosions \u2013 one in 2012 at Chevron\u2019s Richmond refinery, and another in 2015 at ExxonMobil in Torrance. The rules are built around the concept of process safety, which requires refineries to identify and fix hazards before accidents occur and to involve workers directly in investigations when they do. The system is designed to prevent the kind of cascading failures that have caused refinery explosions in the past.<\/p>\n

But after the Western States Petroleum Association sued to block the rules, calling them burdensome, CalEPA and other state agencies quietly settled the suit. Unions and advocates say revisions to two regulations prompted by that settlement could weaken<\/a> key safeguards.<\/p>\n

The agency is updating the accidental release program rule for refineries and has yet to finalize those revisions. A companion rule at the state\u2019s workplace safety agency is unchanged, for now; regulators are proposing to update the rule next year.<\/p>\n

WSPA spokesman Jim Stanley did not comment on the settlement or process safety regulations specifically, but he argued that California refineries follow some of the industry\u2019s strictest rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom CalOSHA to local air districts to the California EPA, refiners work closely with regulators at all levels of government and our partners in labor to minimize the risk of accidents, keep workers and communities safe, and comply with environmental standards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Mike Smith, chair of the United Steelworkers National Oil Bargaining Program, said that the heart of refinery safety is having experts on site who can fully understand what\u2019s happening inside the plant.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, any weakening of safety regulations in the refining sector is not good,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith said that the rules have been under threat after the union was excluded from settlement negotiations between industry and the state over those protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe foundation really is employee participation,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe experts in the plants playing a role.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The debate over those revisions comes as California\u2019s political priorities shift\u2014from tightening refinery oversight to keeping fuel flowing.<\/p>\n

California eases up on oil<\/p>\n

In an effort to lower gas prices and keep up with growing energy needs, California\u2019s Democratic leaders have softened their stance toward the oil industry this year. For years, Newsom blasted refiners for high gas prices and promised to phase out drilling. Faced with the threat of refineries closing, potentially imperiling supply and pushing up prices, he too has changed course.<\/p>\n

In 2024, two days after signing a measure<\/a> aimed at pricing and maintenance schedules, Phillips 66 announced it would shut its Los Angeles refinery<\/a> by the end of 2025, citing doubts about the sustainability of California\u2019s market. In April, Valero said it would close its Benicia refinery next year, blaming a challenging regulatory environment.<\/p>\n

Last month Newsom signed a bill<\/a> that opened the way for new wells in Kern County. At the same time, the Energy Commission slowed implementation<\/a> on many of the measures Newsom had previously pushed, such as ones on fuel inventories, resupply after outages, refinery maintenance and a long-promised price-gouging penalty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Critics argue those moves have left the state more exposed to price spikes in the wake of the El Segundo fire and without strong tools to steady supply or hold refiners accountable. That\u2019s \u201cvery dangerous in moments like this,\u201d said Court of Consumer Watchdog.<\/p>\n

Stanley, the spokesman for WSPA, said the refinery rules and other measures were impractical.<\/p>\n

Following the fire, Chevron made adjustments to its operations to ensure fuel supply to Southern California, Reuters reported. Chevron spokesman Sean Comey told CalMatters that the refinery paused the flow of outbound product pipelines from the refinery the night of the incident, but restarted them after three hours.<\/p>\n

The Energy Commission has said it is focused on keeping fuel supplies steady and prices down. But in a key report<\/a> published this summer, commissioners warned that years of under-investment and deferred maintenance have created \u201csafety and reliability challenges\u201d at aging refineries. The report urged the state to stabilize fuel supplies through a mix of legislative and regulatory steps \u2014 including the postponing of rules to stave off further closures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Niki Woodard, a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission, said the El Segundo fire is expected to hit jet-fuel supplies harder than gasoline, with jet-fuel prices jumping about 30 cents Friday and\u00a0and negligible changes at the pump in the wake of the incident.<\/p>\n

Though prices at the pump have barely moved, some experts warn that the state\u2019s effort to keep fuel affordable may be coming at the expense of safety. Environmental consultant Karras said the state should view refinery safety as an economic issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state\u2019s refining fleet has gotten to the point where it just can\u2019t keep blowing itself up without starting to have to import gasoline,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the federal government furloughed and Trump\u2019s proposed budget moving to permanently wind down the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, Karras said state leaders could still assemble a strong independent investigation into the El Segundo fire by hiring furloughed or former chemical safety board experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous amount of experience and expertise to do an investigation if state leadership had the political will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. An explosion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6574,7,9,8,443,137,1963],"class_list":{"0":"post-6120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-air-resources-board","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-climate-change","13":"tag-los-angeles-county","14":"tag-oil-and-gas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}