As I noted in a December post, I am preparing new stories on efforts by Bay Area climate justice activists who are mobilizing for the first-ever overall limits on oil refinery greenhouse gas and particulate matter emissions, thus dealing a major blow to the Canadian tar sands and other dirtier crudes.
I wrote a story about it for The Nation, published on January 31st:
“In spite of its reputation as a haven for environmentalism, California is home to the third-largest oil-refining sector in the United States, which exports a considerable amount of gasoline, jet fuel, propane, and other fossil-fuel products to surrounding states. Oil processing is already California’s largest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases, but things could get even worse in the coming years: The state’s refineries have developed a greater technical capacity to convert lower-quality, denser oil into engine fuels than those in other parts of North America, meaning they’re at the leading edge of the oil industry’s long-term pivot towards refining dirtier-burning sources, including the tar sands—something California’s existing climate policies may do little to prevent.” Click here to keep reading @ thenation.com >>