California Refinery Decommissioning Bill Not Moving Forward
A California bill that sought to delve into refinery decommissioning and retirement costs in the region has failed to move to the state assembly floor, legislation co-author California Senator Catherine Blakespear said on Monday.
Senate Bill 1259, introduced in the California Senate in February, aimed to require all refinery operators in the state to submit a retirement plan to the State Water Resources Control Board that disclosed anticipated decommission and remediation processes, estimated all associated costs and documented financial assurances by December 2028. The bill was placed on the inactive file in the assembly on the request of California Assembly Member Robert Garcia.
“I have moved SB 1259 to the inactive file because it did not have the votes to pass the Assembly,” Blakespear said in a statement on Monday. “I fought hard to get this bill passed, despite strong opposition from the oil and gas industry, because I believe oil refineries should follow similar disclosure requirements about the cost of cleaning up their facilities as other sectors of the energy industry already do.”
Blakespear added that the state should be “smart and thoughtful” with its transition to clean energy, as it looks to reduce fossil fuel dependency.
After passing through the senate, the legislation most recently moved through the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee in a 10-4 vote.
The bill would have allowed the water board to develop an overview of the methods, costs and timelines associated with soil and groundwater remediation utilized at already decommissioned and remediated refineries by December 2027.
Refiners would have also been obligated to disclose the workforce needed during and one year before decommissioning a refinery in their retirement plan. Operators were also encouraged to identify their intent to sell or transfer their facility in the plan, which would require disclosing information on the buyer, the anticipated timeline for a transfer and the distribution of obligations between the two parties.
Along with its advocates, the bill faced strong opposition from the state’s refiners, which highlighted that the potential law conflicted with federal accounting standards and risked businesses providing misleading signals in the market.
“California consumers should be relieved SB 1259 did not move forward,” the Western States Petroleum Association said in a statement. “If this proposal had passed, this policy would have risked sending false and misleading signals to investors and financial markets by forcing disclosures that could be interpreted as evidence a refinery is preparing to close, even when no closure is planned.”