California opens the door for Big Oil’s CO₂ pipeline plans
States will be responsible for keeping people safe as the oil industry pushes a massive buildout of carbon dioxide pipelines near communities.
This article is being co-published with The Lever, an investigative newsroom. Click here to get The Lever’s free newsletter.
A California bill now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) signature would set a pathway to eliminate the state’s trailblazing moratorium on pipelines used to transport carbon dioxide. The fossil fuel industry lobbied to shape the Democrat-sponsored legislation, which could allow such pipelines to be constructed without strict distance requirements around communities and sensitive wildlife habitats — raising fears that leaks or ruptures of the asphyxiant gas could occur close to people’s homes.
The hazards of carbon dioxide pipelines became apparent in 2020, when a pipeline rupture outside the small town of Satartia, Mississippi, emitted a cloud of highly condensed carbon dioxide that suffocated residents and halted emergency vehicles as it displaced oxygen in the air. Emergency responders have since likened the incident to a “zombie apocalypse.”
By eliminating one of the country’s only carbon dioxide pipeline moratoriums and failing to include a safety provision that only states can take to insulate communities from these projects, advocates say California, a longtime climate leader, could be setting a dangerous precedent. Across the country, other states are grappling with a massive pipeline buildout bolstered by the Trump administration, which awarded the fossil fuel industry with increased tax incentives for carbon capture and withdrew pipeline safety regulations.
California’s 2022 moratorium was designed to stay in place until federal regulators “concluded” updated safety rulemaking on carbon dioxide pipelines. But those federal draft rules were rescinded by President Donald Trump earlier this year, and the rulemaking has been sidelined to a list of “long-term actions.” With more than a dozen carbon capture projects hanging in the balance, fossil fuel interests, including Chevron, the Western States Petroleum Association, and California Resources Corporation, lobbied state lawmakers for legislation that would allow such projects to move forward.
The new bill, sponsored by Democratic State Sens. Henry Stern and Jerry McNerney, instructs the state fire marshal to draft carbon dioxide pipeline safety rules by July 1, 2026, that are at least as protective as the ones previously drafted under the Biden Administration, triggering the state to lift the moratorium. The new regulatory framework would also require that new carbon dioxide pipeline projects be reviewed under the state’s environmental permitting law, among other requirements.
“If we don’t empower our state to impose safety standards with this bill, there will be no safety standards at all — the federal backstop has collapsed,” said Stern.
“After the federal government’s regulatory process stalled, from day one we worked closely with a broad group of stakeholders to develop this policy out of concern that the carbon pipeline regulations that could come out of this new Administration might simply be a rubber stamp for the oil industry to build pipelines however they wanted,” said California Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D), who sponsored the assembly’s version of the new carbon pipeline bill.
But the bill does not include a setback requirement — a required distance from “sensitive receptors” including homes, hospitals, and schools — which advocates have said is essential to protect people in the event of a leak or rupture.
Bill Caram, executive director of the advocacy group Pipeline Safety Trust, said he was disappointed that California didn’t set a better example for other states regarding carbon dioxide pipeline setback requirements. Federal regulators at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration don’t have the authority to enact such requirements. But states do, and it’s “one of the strongest tools they have to ensure that communities are safe from pipelines carrying these hazardous materials,” he said.
Nationally, carbon dioxide pipelines are being proposed primarily in rural, lower-income communities and Black neighborhoods, according to a study published in the May issue of Nature.
If industry pressure continues to dictate the terms of carbon capture and carbon dioxide safety legislation, more communities — many of them already beset by fossil fuel industry pollution — could see such pipelines in their backyards. And fossil fuel companies could continue branding their oil and gas operations as part of a “lower-carbon future.”
“We don’t think that there should be toxic waste pipes running through our communities,” said Dan Ress, staff attorney at the California-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. “We think [carbon capture] is being used to prop up the fossil fuel industry in a way that is very bad for climate, very bad for public health, and very bad for justice.”
Lobbyist Pressure Steers Pipeline Buildout
Environmental justice groups had advocated for a 3,200-foot setback, or “health protection zone,” for carbon dioxide pipelines in California, similar to the one the state has for oil and gas drilling. Oil producers in the state are currently challenging the drilling setback in court. Ress said oil lobbyists refused to compromise on any sort of setback during negotiations over California’s new pipeline bill.
According to sources inside the California legislature — who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the negotiations more freely — the industry would have opposed the bill if it included a required setback, so lawmakers prioritized mandating the safety regulations drafted under Biden, including safeguards for leak monitoring and emergency response protocols.
Oil interests, including Chevron, the Western States Petroleum Association, and California Resources Corporation have helped to defeat environmental legislation in the state before. Earlier this year, industry allies helped kill a bill that would have allowed victims of climate disasters to seek compensation from major oil companies. And oil lobbyists fiercely opposed another proposal to make major polluters pay into a fund designated for climate adaptation projects, which has since stalled.
California’s pipeline legislation does establish a two-mile emergency planning zone for carbon dioxide pipelines within which operators are prohibited from building if there are one or more “sensitive receptors” in the area, like schools, homes, and hospitals. But companies can skirt that ban if they present engineering models to local regulators demonstrating that “the risk of exposure to carbon dioxide is within an acceptable range.”
Sponsors of the legislation argued that those engineering models, which can help identify how carbon dioxide would travel in the event of a leak and inform routing plans, are a more appropriate safeguard than setbacks.
“I understand the desire to just pick a number around setbacks, but science is still evolving here, so we didn’t want to just lock in an arbitrary distance,” said Stern, one of the senate sponsors. “Instead, we’re giving communities a voice through a public process that otherwise wouldn’t exist to ensure these critical climate projects are done safely.”
But advocates say some local agencies have already demonstrated their willingness to expose communities to dangerous pollution from the fossil fuel industry, despite public outcry.
“For many of these projects that are in historically oil and gas towns, the counties have already determined the acceptable level of risk from oil and gas drilling that we know causes cancer and asthma and has left people exposed to pollution for decades,” said Isabel Penman, a California-based organizer at the nonprofit Food and Water Watch.
Newsom and some other state officials appear to be moving toward compromising with the oil industry, despite their previous aims to crack down on oil companies’ alleged price gouging and transition the state off fossil fuels. Over the summer, Newsom and Democratic legislators, including Stern, negotiated a plan with the industry to boost oil drilling in heavily polluted Kern County, citing concerns about gas prices. Newsom signed that bill this month.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is still advancing a climate deception lawsuit against major oil companies and a plastics deception lawsuit against ExxonMobil. He recently told an audience at Climate Week NYC, the world’s largest annual climate event, that additional lawsuits could follow.
Still, the line between lobbyists and state policy has been blurred: Some of the same lobbyists opposing carbon dioxide pipeline setback requirements on behalf of Calpine, California Resources Corporation, and other industry groups also worked as regulators between lobbying stints, according to lobbying data compiled by California advocacy nonprofit Consumer Watchdog. Those lobbyists, along with Chevron and Western States Petroleum Association, did not respond to requests for comment.
California Advocates Weigh In
Local organizers are particularly concerned about the unique risks of carbon dioxide ruptures and worry about relying on industry to properly monitor for leaks and provide equipment and training to under-resourced emergency departments. Breathing in highly pressurized carbon dioxide can cause unconsciousness, seizures, coma, and even death within minutes at high concentrations. Years after the disaster in Satartia, residents still reported symptoms of brain injury.
“We are very untrusting of the oil and gas industry to carry this out safely, because they’ve already had their infrastructure leaking for so many years,” said Ileana Navarro, a community organizer and air quality specialist with the Central California Environmental Justice Network.
Navarro works with communities in the San Joaquin Valley, which has some of the worst air quality in the country. She worries carbon capture could extend polluters’ social license to operate.
The fossil fuel industry has long sold carbon capture as a climate solution, and California officials are now promoting it as a cornerstone of the state’s plans to reduce emissions.
“California has established net-zero carbon emissions goals that include ambitious carbon removal targets,” said Assemblymember Petrie-Norris when explaining the importance of the new bill.
But growing evidence and internal oil industry documents and whistleblowers indicate that the technology is not an effective or substantial way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — especially as the industry increases production of climate-warming oil and gas in California and elsewhere.
One California carbon capture project, the Montezuma Carbon Hub, is proposing to expand to the Bay Area, where it could use a 45-mile pipeline to collect carbon dioxide from local refineries and power plants, including the Chevron refinery in Richmond and the Marathon refinery in Martinez. The carbon dioxide would then be stored underground near the Siusun Marsh in Solano County, according to the project application.
Earlier this month, a group of residents and advocates formed a coalition to oppose the Montezuma project.
“A leak of toxic concentrated carbon dioxide would be catastrophic to humans, wildlife, and our wetlands,” said Bonnie Hamilton, a pediatrician and longtime Solano resident with San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, at the coalition’s launch.
“There Are Going To Be Failures”
California has effectively banned the use of captured carbon for “enhanced oil recovery,” a process that involves injecting captured emissions into wells to recover hard-to-reach oil reserves. But in other states, most carbon capture is used to facilitate more drilling — and will now receive additional tax incentives from Trump and Congress.
In places like Louisiana, already an epicenter of carbon capture deployment, that means more oil production and more carbon dioxide pipelines — which are being proposed closer than ever to communities in the state. One Exxon carbon dioxide pipeline recently approved by St. James Parish, Louisiana, would be built along the Mississippi River near primarily Black neighborhoods, 155 feet from the closest business and 355 feet from the nearest residence.
A different Exxon carbon dioxide pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, leaked last year while operators reportedly failed to monitor the facility, and many residents said they didn’t hear about the incident until checking social media. Earlier this month, Sulphur residents learned the company was planning to use eminent domain to run another such pipeline project directly through people’s property. After outcry from residents and legislators, Exxon withdrew its applications.
Louisiana legislators introduced bills earlier this year to require setbacks for carbon dioxide pipelines in the state, among other additional safeguards, but they failed to pass.
Illinois, the only other state besides California with a carbon dioxide pipeline moratorium, is also set to end its pause on July 1, 2026. South Dakota lawmakers this year advanced a similar moratorium, but amid opposition from the American Petroleum Institute and carbon capture company Summit Carbon Solutions, the bill failed to pass the Senate.
With federal safety rules on carbon dioxide pipelines eliminated and no replacements in sight, it will be up to states to keep communities safe, said Caram of Pipeline Safety Trust.
“You need strong safety regulations on how the pipeline is built and how it’s operated, but you also need strong routing and siting standards to ensure that communities are fully protected,” he said. “Because no matter how strong your regulations are, there still are going to be failures.”