Legal Legacies: Richmond, California
Tall smokestacks appear to dominate the landscape of Richmond, California. Their presence evokes a multi-generational story of rapid industrialization, near unfettered pollution, and the establishment of one of the largest refineries in the Bay Area—all facilitated by some of the biggest law firms in the country. It’s easy, from the outside looking in, to see Richmond as no more than a shadow of Chevron, as the town that supplies the labor necessary for the refinery to run and the community that suffers the life-threatening consequences of its operations. A closer look at the history, however, reveals a much more complex story—one of community organizing and ongoing mobilization for a better, cleaner, and healthier environment. Less than three miles from the Chevron refinery is Unity Park, a community-built public forum which sits on what used to be an illegal dumping ground for trash and debris. In North Richmond, local residents gather at Urban Tilth to share in sustainably grown produce, otherwise unavailable to many families in the area. These hubs of cooperative life did not develop in isolation, but rather through the sustained and collective efforts of community organizations, such as Richmond Progressive Alliance and Asian Pacific Environmental Network, who together formed a broad-based coalition: Richmond Our Power. This coalition, alongside many other community-based groups in the area, work not only to fight the outsized influence of Chevron on the residents’ social and political life, but to materialize a collectively-envisioned future for the city. Richmond’s networks of community care are vital parts of the town’s landscape, and must be read alongside and against the legacy of Chevron and its legal defenders.
This is the first installment of LSCA’s Legal Legacies project. This story will begin by discussing the cumulative impact of legal actions on Richmond’s industrial and regulatory landscape—specifically, how law firms have worked over time to entrench fossil fuel interests into the fabric of this town. It will emphasize the impacts of this work on local communities, with a focus on the health, economic, and racialized consequences flowing from the Chevron refinery. Lastly, and most importantly, this story will highlight and uplift the historical and ongoing efforts of communities to push back against fossil fuel development, and how they have built a legacy of mutual aid and grassroots resistance to challenge Chevron and its Biglaw defenders.
A Legal Legacy of Impunity and Deregulation
Gerald White, an economic historian, described Chevron’s Richmond refinery as “the colossus” among its West Coast peers. The refinery, originally owned by Chevron’s predecessor Standard Oil, became the West Coast’s largest and most advanced oil processing plant upon its completion in 1902. The City of Richmond was incorporated several years later in 1905, growing around it and transforming from an agricultural community to an industrial hub. The Chevron refinery has been the source of at least six major explosions and fires dating back to 1989, and a major contributor to air pollution in the area. Its continued existence, despite these harms, is facilitated by major law firms—such as Jones Day, Pillsbury, Winthrop & Shaw, and Latham & Watkins—that have worked to both defend Chevron and its refinery against civil class actions and to create a regulatory environment amenable to the polluting giant.
In 1999, an explosion at the Chevron refinery resulted in the spewing of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere of surrounding communities. The fire sent black soot and smoke all over the city and beyond. Over the course of several days, the incident forced “thousands of residents to lock themselves indoors to stay away from the fumes” and injured up to three Chevron emergency response team workers. As part of Chevron’s response, Jones Day sought to deny community members from certifying as a class in their suit seeking punitive damages from Chevron for the 1999 explosion. Van Tonder v. Chevron Corporation, No. A104870 (Cal. Ct. App. Dec 01, 2003). Class actions allow individuals who were wronged but lack the resources or capacity to sue to recover for their injuries. In seeking to deny class certification, Jones Day sought to limit Chevron’s scope of liability, in order to limit the amount of damages Chevron would have to pay for the harms they inflicted. It was a procedural move that succeeded in denying substantive justice, as the plaintiffs were ultimately denied class certification and, thus, collective recourse. In re Chevron Fire Cases, No. A104870 (Cal. App. 1st Dist. May 06, 2005).
This was not the last time that Jones Day would defend the fossil fuel giant. In 2012, the refinery erupted in flames again due to a preventable pipe failure. The ignition of flammable vapor resulted in a large plume of particulates traveling across the Richmond area, and at least 15,000 people from the surrounding communities sought medical treatment due to the incident. In 2013, Chevron agreed to pay $2 million in fines and restitution. It was clear to the City of Richmond that this settlement was not enough. The City cited the “continuation of years of neglect, lax oversight and corporate indifference to necessary safety inspection and repairs” in its complaint against Chevron when it filed suit for negligence, strict liability in engaging in abnormally dangerous activity, private and public nuisance, and trespass for the soot and ash that landed on property. City of Richmond v. Chevron Corporation, Chevron U.S.A. Inc., No. C13-01654 (Super. Ct. Contra Costa Cty., Cal.). It was then Jones Day that led Chevron’s defense and shot down several of the City’s claims before driving the case towards settlement prior to trial. The settlements were a measly sum in comparison to the company’s $26.2 billion in profit in 2012 and $15 million expenditure on lobbying Congress and the California State Legislature during the 2011-2012 legislative session to decrease regulations. The reality of having a multi-billion dollar firm willing to defend a corporation’s every action is that it gets to escape the consequences of its misdeeds with relative impunity. Jones Day’s contribution to the renunciation of accountability for Chevron, both in 1999 and again in 2012, cannot be overstated.
Jones Day also does not operate alone. In 2017, EPA finalized the Chemical Disaster Rule, which was in large part a response to a series of chemical disasters like the 2012 Chevron refinery fire. The Rule required facilities, when engaging in their process hazard analysis, to undertake an additional analysis of safer technology and alternatives, among other things. The Rule thus sought to address one of the key failings that led to the fire: “Chevron did not regularly or rigorously apply inherently safer technology, which provides an opportunity for preventing major accidents, in its [process hazard analyses].” It was an attempt to close the regulatory gap that Chevron exploited in undertaking a lackadaisical internal review for system safety. The Rule, however, did not see the light of day. Just over a month later, Hogan Lovells, representing several industry groups, filed a petition to halt the Rule, thereby preventing its implementation, and forcing the EPA to reconsider it. It was the first of many actions that would lead the 2017 Rule to be delayed for over a year, and ultimately in 2019, EPA did largely reconsider and rolled back many of the Rule’s requirements. The work of Hogan Lovells, and those who engage in similar tactics of regulatory delay, may be more covert than Jones Day’s involvement, but their actions similarly work to defend oil and gas giants like Chevron—here, by preventing regulatory agencies from effectively overseeing dangerous facilities. By limiting regulatory intervention, firms like Hogan Lovells encourage the proliferation of risk, allowing it to metastasize, and when triggered by Chevron’s negligence, can have devastating consequences for nearby communities. And in the aftermath, firms like Jones Day can then swoop in to defend Chevron from liability. Hogan Lovells and Jones Day are thus complicit in the same agenda of defending fossil fuel interests against cities and the communities that comprise them.
Despite organized and persistent community pushback, Chevron has also attempted to deepen its roots in Richmond over the years, with Biglaw backing its efforts at every step. In 2003 and 2009, Pillsbury, Winthrop & Shaw defended Chevron’s plans to expand its operations against lawsuits brought by Communities for a Better Environment, an organization dedicated to “build[ing] people’s power in California’s communities of color and low income communities to achieve environmental health and justice.” In 2008, Chevron received the necessary permits to significantly expand the Richmond refinery, and to construct a project that would enable the refinery to process low-quality crude oil. These additions would have led to greater emissions and dirtier air for nearby residents. Communities for a Better Environment, along with other environmental justice allies, filed suit in 2009 seeking a writ of mandate to cease operation against the City and Chevron, arguing that the environmental review of the project was flawed, specifically because it failed to disclose, analyze, and mitigate all the potential environmental impacts of the project. Communities for a Better Environment et al. v. City of Richmond, No. A125618 (Cal. Ct. App. July 20, 2009). Over the next five years, Pillsbury worked to push through Chevron’s plans until ultimately, in 2014, Chevron received a new and final report from the City, allowing it to enact its expansion agenda.
The 2003 suit challenged the City’s decision to allow Chevron to build additional storage facilities without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIR). Cumulative impacts were a key issue in the litigation. Chevron, again represented by Pillsbury, argued that “significant cumulative impacts from [] other projects are not sufficient to require an EIR if the contribution to these impacts by the project under [review] is not cumulatively considerable.” Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Richmond, No. A101913, 2004 BL 14978, at *19 (Cal. Ct. App. 1st Dist. Nov. 29, 2004). In other words, Chevron sought to escape regulatory review by narrowly training the focus of the investigation on only one of its many proposed projects for expansion. The court disagreed with this flawed logic: “[E]ven if a project's individual impacts are not sufficiently significant to require an EIR, this does not mean the cumulative impacts of the project in connection with other projects are necessarily insignificant. Although the incremental environmental impact from a single project may be small, the impact may be significant when considered together with impacts from other projects.” Id. The court thus declared it necessary for the City to reconsider its decision in light of the court’s discussion of cumulative impacts.
Borrowing the court’s logic, we come to a similar conclusion on Pillsbury—and Jones Day and Hogan Lovells. The actions of individual law firms may seem incremental when viewed in isolation, but when considered in conjunction with other corporate actions, their true impact becomes clear. With each expansion, with each attempt at oversight defeated, with each disaster left unaccounted for, the harms produced by the Chevron refinery accumulate and the oil giant’s grip on the city tightens, making it harder for regulators and community members alike to intervene. And at each step of this decades-long cumulative process, a Biglaw firm is there doing the work of defense and deregulation to further fossil fuel interests. Most recently, Latham & Watkins has chosen to represent Chevron in its challenge to a Bay Area Air Quality Management Rule which would require the Chevron refinery to reduce pollution from one of its most polluting units. Chevron U.S.A Inc. v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District, No. MSN21-1739 (Super. Ct. Contra Costa Cty., Cal. Sept. 7, 2021). In filing this suit, Latham seeks not only to keep the Chevron refinery running but at a significantly greater cost to local health and environment than would otherwise exist under the Rule. The result is a legal legacy—shared by all these individual law firms—of impunity, deregulation, and tragedy borne by local residents and facilitated by corporate lawyers.
Impacts on the Richmond Community
The Chevron refinery subjects the residents of Richmond to a litany of environmental harms. The refinery is the single largest source of particulate matter emissions in the City, and releases hundreds of tons of pollutants each year that are known to cause heart attacks, decreased function of vital organs, and respiratory issues among other health problems. Data from the California Environmental Protection Agency places every community bordering the Chevron facility in the 99th percentile for asthma. Richmond children have roughly twice the rate of asthma as their neighbors countywide, and “5.1 to 11.6 premature deaths per year were attributed to baseline Particulate Matter 2.5 emissions from the Chevron refinery[.]” The refinery also releases tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into nearby surface waters each year, contaminating the local ecosystem of Richmond residents and subjecting them to risks of toxic poisoning. These statistics, as startling as they are, fail to capture the seriousness of the problem—people are living these numbers day-to-day and have been for decades. The following quotes, drawn from a series of major news articles and investigative journalism pieces, begin to paint a picture of the severity of the harms:
“They're killing us slowly, or even quickly because of their constant pollution and flaring. So that's how they directly affect our lives.” Christian Guzman, quoted by the Othering & Belonging Institute at Berkeley.
“We had just brought my grandmother over from Mexico, so that as she entered her 70s we could care for her. She developed asthma after that day – she had never in her life had asthma up until then. We had brought my grandmother over to keep her from harm’s way and the refinery did just that.” Angulo, quoted by Danielle Renwick in The Guardian.
“At school, along with earthquake drills, we were practicing chemical explosion drills.” Saeturn, quoted by Jane Kay and Cheryl Katz in SF Gate.
“One of the things that was most striking to me when I first started practicing [medicine] in Richmond was the expectation from families that their children would develop asthma, and the sort of inevitability of it. The sense that we know this is going to happen, the question is when?” Dr. Amanda Millstein, quoted by the Othering & Belonging Institute at Berkeley.
“You’ve got to understand what that does to a psyche of a community, and it still persists. We have literally been the garbage can for everybody else. The disrespect is just total.” Saleem Bey, quoted by Robert Rogers for Richmond Confidential.
These impacts are compounded by the area’s demographic patterns. More than 80% of residents are people of color, predominantly Latinx, Black, or Asian, and the highest percentages of people of color are in neighborhoods right next to the refinery. As a result, people of color in Richmond live on average 10 years less than white people living in other parts of the county. Thus, residents who must already contend with systemic health threats and a lack of access to resources must also bear the brunt of the refinery’s harms. The convergence of these factors of race and pollution in this Bay Area community render its residents the subjects of environmental racism, connecting Richmond to a nationwide geography of discrimination constituted by landmarks such as Louisiana’s Cancer Alley and North Carolina’s Warren County.
Lastly, a continued refrain in defense of Chevron is that, despite the local harms the refinery inflicts on residents, it also brings significant employment opportunities. This alleged benefit is sharply contradicted by public data: “152 local residents of Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo work in oil refinery jobs, according to data from the US Census. This is only 0.2 percent of local residents. Most of Chevron’s roughly 3,264 employees live outside the area.” The justification, then, is no more than divisive rhetoric used to pit advocates for jobs against those for health and climate. Moreover, residents should not have to choose between their jobs and their family’s health. The fact of that matter is that the refinery is dangerous, and each legal action that supports, defends, and protects the refinery is an action that furthers the felt harms experienced by the Richmond community.
Community Response
Oil and gas facilities, such as the Chevron refinery, are often located in areas where communities are perceived to lack political power and community organizing. While this may have been true of the Richmond community back in 1902, it is certainly no longer an accurate portrayal of the Richmond community of today. In fact, the presence of the Chevron refinery, and the 2012 disaster in particular, has engendered generations of activists. The people of Richmond have been resisting, and building power, this entire time—and their work is as integral to the story of this place as that of corporate negligence.
On the first anniversary of the 2012 Chevron refinery fire, 210 people were arrested while marching to protest safety issues at the refinery. The fire had sparked a new and ongoing wave of environmental activism. “I think the 2012 fire had a big role in creating a generation of young people who are pissed and are looking at the status quo and saying, ‘Enough is enough,’” said Alfredo Angulo, a resident of Richmond, as quoted by Danielle Renwick for The Guardian. Angulo is a youth organizer for the Richmond Listening Project, which seeks “to amplify the stories and voices of the communities most harmed by fossil fuel operations [] in Richmond.” Angulo was “excited to discover, in these conversations, that everyday people do have a vision for a Richmond beyond Chevron. It’s a community where we have clean air, clean water, clean soil, and where our economy is regenerative and not based on the extraction of fossil fuels.” Angulo’s work is emblematic of that of the broader just transition movement in Richmond—it is community-focused and community-led.
One environmental justice organization, which advocates for Asian American immigrant and refugee communities across California to fight for clean air and a better future, that has had an outsized impact on the counter-Chevron revolution in Richmond is the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). During the Vietnam War, many Laotians arrived in California, and western Contra Costa County specifically, as refugees. Having fled from military-backed environmental disasters and political repression in their home countries, they found themselves in a foreign country exposed to familiar toxics. APEN’s Laotian Organizing Project (LOP) started in 1995 to bring together the Laotian community and to fight for their needs. Their first campaign victory came in 1999 in response to the Chevron refinery fire that same year. Among those most impacted by the fire were non- or limited English-speaking residents due to poorly communicated shelter-in-place information, which included vital instructions on emergency safety procedures. To address this disparity, LOP campaigned for the local health services and operations to implement a multilingual emergency phone-alert. Not only did they succeed in their Warning System Campaign, but they also activated the Laotian community, developing new grassroots leaders and mobilizing a participatory and democratic process for changemaking. Within the County, Laotians now form a community of 10,000, with most residing in the city of Richmond. Their strength, and their legacy, activates power that they built together to not just counter the failures of Chevron and their Biglaw partners but to also envision what an alternative Richmond—one constituted by and responsive to the community—might look like.
APEN is also not alone in their fight. They are part of a coalition of local community organizations under the banner of Richmond Our Power. Collectively, they work to ensure residents have clean healthy air, water, food, and transportation, and that they have meaningful work and co-governance that is inclusive of the most marginalized of their communities. Working both within and without the legal system, through community teach-ins, political mobilization, environmental review litigation challenges, community land trusts, and communal farming, Richmond Our Power seeks to embody the principles of “Resist, Rethink, and Restructure” in its efforts to build a just transition to a regenerative, living economy in the city.
Local activists also understood that to effect lasting change, they would have to transform the local government. In 2003, they started the Richmond Progressive Alliance, a political organization that “mobilizes people in support of progressive policies and candidates” in order “to take political decision-making back from corporations and put power in the hands of the people.” In 2020, despite the multi-million dollar effort by Chevron to counter with their own candidates, Richmond Progressive Alliance succeeded in securing a city council seat for every one of the candidates supported by APEN Action. These community efforts to wrest power from the hands of corporate outsiders and to divert influence to community representatives are especially important in light of Chevron’s history of political manipulation. In 2014, for example, Chevron spent over $3 million to try and defeat community-backed progressive candidates for office. They ultimately failed in their efforts to use their money to speak over community voices, but their commitment to monopolizing the City’s local governance was well-demonstrated by their actions. Chevron also operates a local news outlet, Richmond Standard, that seeks to control discourse and narrative in support of oil and gas interests—making it even more important to elevate the stories and voices of the communities affected. When law firms take the side of Chevron over that of the community, they are only furthering the disparity in political capital between the oil giant and the residents; they give Chevron the leverage and resources to challenge every regulatory proposal and attack every attempt at accountability, so even if Chevron does not win at the lobbying or voting stage, they have a second shot at any decision through litigation.
Richmond’s residents, however, are not standing idle. They are mobilizing, voting, campaigning, and suing to transform their City’s landscape from one dominated by Chevron to one representative of the communities that inhabit it. They are building, sharing, envisioning, and collectivizing to create their own legacies of community care and environmental justice—legacies that will outlast those of Chevron and its Biglaw defenders.
