Chevron Owns Richmond's Main Local News Source — and Many Refinery-Related Stories Go Untold
Bay Air District Hails 'Decisive Victory' in Battle to Cut Refinery Pollution
Engine Maker Cummins Faces $2 Billion Fine for Emissions Cheating Scandal
Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans
San Francisco Teen Creates a Free App to Calculate Skin Risk Based on Location
Martinez Refinery's Chemical Release Poses No Long-Term Hazard, Tests Find
Are Zero-Emission Vehicles Making a Dent in California's Air Pollution?
As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’
Bay Area Regulators Approve Rules to Phase Out Gas Furnaces and Water Heaters
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The Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted today to ban sales of new natural gas water heaters and furnaces in the nine-county Bay Area by 2027 and 2029, respectively, to help lower pollution from smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions.","credit":"Justin Sullivan/Getty Images","altTag":"Gas-powered water heaters displayed for sale in a Home Depot store, with an employee standing by.","description":null,"imgSizes":{"medium":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389-800x567.jpg","width":800,"height":567,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"large":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389-1020x723.jpg","width":1020,"height":723,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389-160x113.jpg","width":160,"height":113,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"post-thumbnail":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389-672x372.jpg","width":672,"height":372,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"twentyfourteen-full-width":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389-1024x576.jpg","width":1024,"height":576,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"kqedFullSize":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/03/GettyImages-1473783389.jpg","width":1024,"height":726}},"fetchFailed":false,"isLoading":false}},"audioPlayerReducer":{"postId":"stream_live"},"authorsReducer":{"byline_news_11981095":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11981095","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11981095","name":"Miranda Green, David Folkenflik","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11972271":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11972271","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11972271","name":"Alexa St. John and Tom Krisher\u003cbr>The Associated Press","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11964317":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11964317","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11964317","name":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon ","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11950351":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11950351","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11950351","name":"Molly Peterson (The California Newsroom) and Dillon Bergin (MuckRock)","isLoading":false},"danbrekke":{"type":"authors","id":"222","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"222","found":true},"name":"Dan Brekke","firstName":"Dan","lastName":"Brekke","slug":"danbrekke","email":"dbrekke@kqed.org","display_author_email":true,"staff_mastheads":["news","science"],"title":"KQED Editor and Reporter","bio":"Dan Brekke is a reporter and editor for KQED News, responsible for coverage of topics ranging from California water issues to the Bay Area's transportation challenges. 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Her other passions are crafts (now done in collaboration with her daughter) and the Brazilian martial art of capoeira.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/95001c30374b0d3878007af9cf1e120a?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"pbartolone","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"podcasts","roles":["subscriber"]}],"headData":{"title":"Pauline Bartolone | KQED","description":"KQED 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FM","link":"/"}},"news_11981095":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11981095","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11981095","score":null,"sort":[1711659622000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"chevron-owns-this-citys-news-site-many-stories-arent-told","title":"Chevron Owns Richmond's Main Local News Source — and Many Refinery-Related Stories Go Untold","publishDate":1711659622,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Chevron Owns Richmond’s Main Local News Source — and Many Refinery-Related Stories Go Untold | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":253,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR’s David Folkenflik reported this story with Miranda Green of\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.floodlightnews.org/\">\u003cem> Floodlight\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RICHMOND, Calif. — Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, California Soon, black smoke blanketed the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth, says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. “We don’t know the full story, but we know that you shouldn’t breathe in the air or be outside, for that matter,” Khamphanthong says now. “It would be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out there and figure it out themselves.”[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\" Gayle McLaughlin, former mayor, Richmond\"]‘\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> will never, ever print anything that is critical of Chevron, and it will never print anything that upholds the community’s victories against Chevron.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s primary local news source, \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/\">\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, didn’t cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron is the city’s largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> consistently toes the company line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s a reason for that: Chevron owns \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at Chevron’s website and you look at \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>, a lot of the information is copy and paste,” says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. “They present a very skewed viewpoint that is bought and paid for by Chevron.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981097\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981097\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A view of a city landscape with trees and a refinery in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The city of Richmond exists in the shadow of the nearby Chevron refinery, which has been connected to poor air quality and health issues in the nearby community. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The site’s very name evokes the history of Chevron, which was created when John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was broken up by federal trust-busters more than a century ago. \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> prides itself on being the “number one source for local, community-driven news” about the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around town, in coffee shops, an architect’s office, at a Mexican restaurant, even at a waterside National Park Service site, the Standard is recognized as the main source of news about the city. It carries stories about \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/03/27/rich-city-rides-launches-capital-campaign-to-purchase-home-base/\">charity drives\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/09/19/emergency-rail-replacement-prompts-closure-on-s-garrard-blvd/\">street closings\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/lifestyle/entertainment-and-food/2020/07/13/the-factory-bar-sets-opening-date/\">New bars\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/09/20/art-exhibition-celebrates-latinx-heritage-month-in-richmond/\">art exhibits\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/07/17/girl-power-coming-to-soccer-field-in-richmond/\">Youth soccer events\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/05/15/point-richmond-music-announces-lineup-for-summer-concert-series/\">local concerts\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/community/2024/02/06/richmonds-ons-loves-on-at-risk-people-to-end-gun-violence/\">safety initiatives\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades ago, the city relied on the Richmond \u003cem>Independent \u003c/em>and the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> to report on the community. And then a pattern familiar across the U.S. unfolded. The \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> pulled back. The \u003cem>Independent\u003c/em> got folded into a newspaper in nearby Berkeley, which itself shut down in 1984. Papers in other East Bay cities shriveled up. Now, the city’s news landscape is dominated by its major corporate force. Markets where news outlets shut down are often called news deserts. The Standard has created something of a news mirage: Stories are told — but with an agenda. Facts displeasing to Chevron are omitted; hard truths softened. The company is seeking to get its point of view across and to convey that it can be trusted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent February night, a city council meeting repeatedly focused on developments involving Chevron. Other than journalists for NPR and Floodlight, not a single journalist attended in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same San Francisco public relations firm that operates the Standard for Chevron runs a similar site about developments in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, where Chevron has major business interests. It also runs one of the company’s sites in Ecuador, where the energy giant has fought back decades of litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981098\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981098\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A person rides a bike through an intersection with cars waiting at a stoplight.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond Standard is a local news site funded by Chevron, which runs a large refinery in town. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chevron’s bid to control the public discourse comes as efforts to combat climate change threaten the fossil fuel industry, especially in California. State regulators would effectively \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/california-bans-the-sale-of-new-gas-powered-cars-by-2035.html\">ban\u003c/a> the sales of gas-powered cars by 2035. They released the world’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/11/16/california-releases-worlds-first-plan-to-achieve-net-zero-carbon-pollution/\">first plan\u003c/a> to achieve net-zero carbon pollution. Other states and countries have adopted similar goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11975650,news_11856920\" hero=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/231027-CHEVRON-RICHMOND-REFINERY-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" label=\"Related Stories\"]In February, Chevron revealed that it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000009341024000013/cvx-20231231.htm#ib7903ee4cd7540d8ab5b70d4bf454edd_121\">losing about $1.8 billion \u003c/a>on assets, mainly in California, because of the state’s tougher regulatory climate. Chevron’s corporate headquarters is in San Ramon, about a 35-mile drive southeast of Richmond, though the company has moved the bulk of its workforce to Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The company saw a need to offer the community more news coverage of Richmond, which had been largely ignored by traditional media with the exception of crime stories,” says Braden Reddall, a manager of external affairs at Chevron. “Most people in Richmond will tell you there is a lot more to the community than what is known and reported by traditional media outlets. It’s a proud community, filled with interesting people who are doing interesting things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reddall, who earlier covered the company for the international news service \u003cem>Reuters\u003c/em>, added that other outlets more than adequately cover Chevron.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981099\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a green shirt with orange design patterns leans against the side of a building outside.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former schoolteacher Patricia Dornan says she reads The Richmond Standard but skips the stories about Chevron. “I don’t read any of the articles about how wonderful their company is,” she says. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lifelong Richmond resident Patricia Dornan says she cherry-picks which stories she reads in the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you understand that it’s going to have a Chevron-Standard Oil point of view, it’s fine because most of the stuff that they’re putting out has nothing to do with them,” says Dornan, a retired middle school teacher. “And so long as it doesn’t have to do with Chevron, it’s fine. I don’t read any of the articles about how wonderful their company is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dornan volunteers at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/rori/index.htm\">Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park\u003c/a>. She tells visitors about the marvels of American manufacturing in a time of war and about the women welders of Richmond who were able to turn out warships in 51 days rather than two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1444px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png\" alt=\"A map showing Richmond with red and blue lines outlining pipelines in the area.\" width=\"1444\" height=\"1432\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png 1444w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-800x793.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-1020x1012.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-160x159.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1444px) 100vw, 1444px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pipeline locations are approximate. Source: Google Earth, US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, California Department of Technology, OpenStreetMap contributors \u003ccite>(Hilary Fung/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her grandmother moved to town in 1905 — just three years after the refinery first opened — and her family has been there ever since. One of the streets in town is named after her father. She says Richmond can’t function without Chevron, but a true local news outlet would help hold it accountable to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she wants to know what Chevron is up to, Dornan says, “I usually ask my friends who are retirees from the refinery — what’s going on?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Richmond deserves more news coverage’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the Standard launched in 2014, it proclaimed: “Richmond deserves more news coverage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the first time in more than 30 years, Richmond will have a community-driven daily news source dedicated to shining a light on the positive things that are going on in the community,” the \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/chevron-speaks/2013/01/23/richmond-deserves-more-news-coverage/\">site announced.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron presents the Standard as an investment in the Richmond community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/115094/documents/HHRG-117-II15-20220914-SD007.pdf\">The public relations firm operating the Standard wrote (PDF)\u003c/a>, “This site would tell the stories other outlets had lost the resources to tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11940114\" hero=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS55021_004_KQED_ChevronRefineryStrike_04072022-qut.jpg\" label=\"Related Stories\"]But not all of the stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent review found\u003cem> The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> had published 434 stories that touch on its owner, Chevron, since the site’s inception. Eight articles refer to flaring incidents. None cite oil spills. The majority of the stories that mention Chevron focus on profiles, \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/uncategorized/2024/02/16/chevron-richmond-recognized-for-helping-red-cross-sound-the-alarm-on-fire-safety/\">awards\u003c/a> ceremonies, community projects and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/10/20/chevron-richmond-celebrates-hispanic-heritage-month-with-classic-cars-and-much-more/\">celebrations\u003c/a> it throws on such occasions as \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2024/02/26/chevron-richmond-marks-milestone-with-25th-black-history-awareness-celebration/\">Black History\u003c/a> and Hispanic Heritage months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Area air pollution regulators secured landmark concessions from Chevron in February to settle a lawsuit, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution\">they called it a “decisive victory\u003c/a>.” The \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> headline cited “\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/east-bay-refineries-settle-with-bay-area-air-quality-agency-agree-to-20-million-in-fines-for-hundreds-of-violations/\">$20 million in fines for hundreds of air-quality violations\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11901875\" hero=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/02/RS53159_013_Richmond_ChevronRefinery_01132022-qut.jpg\"]\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2024/02/13/chevron-agreement-with-air-district-called-win-for-environment-and-energy/\">Richmond Standard\u003c/a> \u003c/em>was more reserved: “Chevron agreement with Air District called win for environment and energy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The article did not clearly lay out the core of the litigation. The words “fine” and “penalty” did not appear. Careful readers might have been able to piece together what transpired: The news outlet described an agreement involving $20 million that “solidifies the future of energy production at the Richmond Refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a whole host of news outlets around the Bay Area that cover the refinery,” says Reddall, the Chevron spokesperson. “The Standard seeks to fill in the gaps. From where I’m sitting, I don’t think that it’s a refinery that’s not written about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981100\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A person rides a bike down a street with a mural in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Richmond is a working-class city of 115,000 — nearly half of whom are Latino. Most people working at the Chevron refinery live outside the city. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A news mirage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Boundaries blur between city and corporation in this largely working-class city of 115,000 people, almost half of whom are Latino. The tech boom of nearby Silicon Valley and the opulence of neighboring Marin County feel like universes away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11912101\" hero=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/04/RS55033_019_KQED_ChevronRefineryStrike_04072022-qut.jpg\"]The public high school’s mascot is the Oilers. Streets are named Ammonia and Petrolite and Xylene. Chevron’s network of pipes, low-lying cooling ponds and even sulfuric stench have become defining parts of the town’s character. A nature park where tufted egrets and hummingbirds frolic abuts the nearly 3,000-acre refinery itself — an expansive preserve of smokestacks, pipelines and tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron, which recorded $21.3 billion in profits last year, has played an outsized role in Richmond for decades. It supplies the city with jobs — yet most Chevron employees live elsewhere. It pays roughly $50 million a year to Richmond — more than a sixth of the town’s annual revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s relationship with Richmond turned sour rather abruptly in 2012. An explosion at the refinery injured \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/chevron-refinery-fire-cal-osha-fine-calosha-fined/2247343/\">19 employees.\u003c/a> The air pollution from the resulting industrial fire could be seen from miles away. In the ensuing days, 15,000 Bay Area residents went to medical centers for respiratory complications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981101\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg\" alt='A sign with red lettering on the side of a building that reads \"Richmond Oilers.\"' width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond High School mascot is the Oilers. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State and local prosecutors charged Chevron with \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/chevron-convicted-of-labor-codes-pays-2m-after-refinery-fire/1951195/\">criminal negligence\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/05/chevron-2m-fire/2620303/\">other crimes. T\u003c/a>he company settled by pleading no contest to six charges, paying out roughly $10 million to affected local residents, agencies and hospitals. Chevron also paid $5 million directly to the city of Richmond to settle a separate civil lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time of the incident, political sentiment in Richmond had started to swing away from the company. As the months passed, progressives threatened to take control of the city government. They promoted a future without the refinery — just as Chevron sought approval from city officials for a sweeping project to overhaul and modernize it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the 2014 election cycle dawned, Chevron took action to ensure its voice was heard. It promised a huge investment in scholarships and public health programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also spent $3 million to help propel pro-industry candidates. They all lost. “The election became a referendum on Chevron,” says Tom Butt, at the time a city council member who won election as mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also launched\u003cem> The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the outset, the company disclosed its involvement. In small letters at the top of its homepage, the site reads, “Funded by Chevron.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981102\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1703px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981102\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An elderly white man wearing a tan jacket sits down outside.\" width=\"1703\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg 1703w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-800x1203.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1020x1533.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-160x241.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1362x2048.jpg 1362w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1920x2886.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1703px) 100vw, 1703px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Butt was elected mayor of Richmond in 2014. He says that election was a referendum on Chevron. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the aftermath of the election, the Standard published a 428-word statement from \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/chevron-speaks/2014/11/19/election-mattered/\">Chevron\u003c/a> in its entirety that defended the company’s actions and criticized the city’s new leaders. “The question for Richmond is: Will local leaders recognize that business is integral to the city’s success?” the Chevron statement read. “Or, will city leaders continue to oppose efforts to create growth, preferring instead to watch the business climate — and the prosperity that business helps generate — decline?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We should be outraged’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Katt Ramos, who helps lead Communities for a Better Environment’s Richmond chapter, stages tours to demonstrate what she says is Chevron’s destructive legacy. It also illustrates what happens when independent local news disappears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She stops by Peres K–8 School in the Iron Triangle, a nickname derived from the three train tracks that intersect here. Older kids play soccer on a field with a coach while younger ones cavort on a playground. Beyond the school fence, the Chevron plant stands less than a mile away. A sign next to the school’s entrance warns of a shallow hazardous liquid pipeline from the refinery, a warning not to dig there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in Richmond,” Ramos says. Adults have to tell kids they can’t play outdoors due to a high number of bad air days, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1703px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981103\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A close up image of woman with black hair and a greenish scarf outside.\" width=\"1703\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg 1703w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-800x1203.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1020x1533.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-160x241.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1362x2048.jpg 1362w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1920x2886.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1703px) 100vw, 1703px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in Richmond,’ says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. She says the city’s air pollution problems and residents’ health issues are rarely covered in the news. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the best way of gauging the seriousness of such concerns is to look at child admissions to emergency rooms for asthma, says Anne Kelsey Lamb, who oversees asthma research for the Oakland-based Public Health Institute. Children in the ZIP code of the Iron Triangle — which includes the refinery as well as the neighborhoods surrounding the Peres school — are admitted for emergency care for asthma at triple the rate for California at large. (The institute provided an analysis of the most recent available state statistics at the request of NPR and Floodlight.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parceling out responsibility for air pollution is complicated, given Richmond’s many highways and railroads, along with the refinery. The regional board that regulates air quality found that Chevron accounts for 63% of all particle pollution in Richmond and two neighboring towns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These issues rarely get covered, Ramos says. She starts to weep gently when talking about the city’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think, at best, we should be outraged, you know?” she says. “Everyone should be concerned about the conditions that our community has to face.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The PR firm running the Standard\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Chevron owns the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>, San Francisco-based Singer Associates runs it from across the bay. The consulting firm is known for handling PR crises. Founder Sam Singer is no stranger to Richmond; he grew up in Berkeley and briefly worked at the Richmond \u003cem>Independent\u003c/em> and a sister paper before moving on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singer Associates has written that the news outlet came about after Chevron developed a “fractured relationship with many stakeholders, including city government leaders.” The site was part of an effort “to provide the company with greater freedom to operate by increasing awareness for the positive role it plays in Richmond,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/115094/documents/HHRG-117-II15-20220914-SD007.pdf\">according to Singer’s application for an industry award\u003c/a>, as cited in a U.S. House Natural Resources Committee staff report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981104\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A man swings a fishing pole over his head by a body of water.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man fishes for leopard sharks in the waterways along Point Richmond, a thoroughfare for petroleum that has been the site of several oil and chemical spills. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singer Associates employee Mike Aldax, a former reporter for the defunct \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> and the Bay City News Service, writes most Standard articles. (Aldax did not return messages seeking comment.) The site also hired two journalists who live in Richmond to write for the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our team has worked hard to build relationships with the community, which is why people trust us, and turn to us, to cover community stories,” Singer wrote in an email for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pace of reporting ebbs and flows. Some featured videos on the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>‘s homepage are several years old. The metabolism of fresh posts stepped up in early March, shortly after NPR and Floodlight first sent a series of queries about the Standard to Chevron and Singer for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Chevron newsrooms begin in South America\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In launching the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>, Chevron followed a path the fossil fuel giant had first forged thousands of miles to the south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2009, Singer has run The Amazon Post in Ecuador at Chevron’s direction. The English-language site emerged as Chevron confronted lengthy multibillion-dollar litigation seeking to hold it liable for the pollution from oil drilling there. (Chevron had acquired Texaco in 2001, which was responsible for the oil extraction.) Chevron’s legal battle spread to other nations, including the U.S. and Brazil. The American attorney who led the suits against Chevron for Ecuadorian farmers and Indigenous peoples was a frequent target of the site. He was ultimately disbarred in New York for his actions in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Flames flicker from a refinery surrounded by trees.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flames flicker through the thick green trees of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest — where gas flares, oil wells and refineries darken the landscape and poison the environment — shown in Shushufindi, Ecuador, in 2023. The legacy there of Texaco, which Chevron acquired, has inspired lengthy legal battles in several countries. \u003ccite>(Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://theamazonpost.com/\">The Amazon Post\u003c/a> caters to English-speaking audiences and clearly discloses that it reflects “Chevron’s Views & Opinions on the Ecuador Lawsuit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A subsequent Spanish-language site called Juicio Crudo (an allusion to crude oil) focuses\u003ca href=\"https://www.juiciocrudo.com/\"> squarely\u003c/a> on a damning legal judgment against Chevron that a U.S. court later \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/federal-judge-rules-for-chevron-in-ecuadorean-pollution-case.html\">found to be fraudulent\u003c/a>. It reprints text directly from Chevron’s Spanish-language \u003ca href=\"https://www.juiciocrudo.com/documentos/f8eda1d720.pdf\">press releases\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eloriente.com/\">El Oriente\u003c/a>, a Spanish-language digital outlet launched in 2019, presents as a news site aimed at audiences residing in the Ecuadorian Amazon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, it noted at the bottom of its page that it was “sponsored by Chevron.” Days after NPR and Floodlight started posing questions about Chevron’s sites, the affiliation was moved to the top, just beneath the site’s name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sites link to one another. Chevron says those sites are managed separately, not by Singer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In at least one instance, the controversies surrounding Chevron in Ecuador inspired fodder for the Standard back in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Richmond’s then-mayor, \u003ca href=\"https://ci.richmond.ca.us/directory.aspx?EID=1070\">Gayle McLaughlin\u003c/a>, traveled to see Ecuador’s environmental degradation at a time when her party sought to force Chevron to pay more to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after she returned home, the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>‘s Aldax reported: “The mayor’s six-day trip to Ecuador was in support [of] the South American nation in its ongoing battle against Chevron, which it falsely blames for polluting the rain forest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2014/06/11/richmond-mayor-gayle-mclaughlins-association-with-ecuadors-u-s-pr-firm-raises-questions/\">Aldax wrote\u003c/a> that McLaughlin was late filing $4,499 in expenses for the trip, which the Ecuadorian government had paid for. The article embedded a \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/ugtMBkqmXbQ\">video \u003c/a>produced by The Amazon Post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing glasses and a purple shirt with design speaks and gestures with her hands next to a Black woman with locs and glasses.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gayle McLaughlin, then Richmond’s mayor, speaks onstage during a 2014 event in Los Angeles. \u003ccite>(Mike Windle/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was a rare instance of the Standard producing anything other than benign community news. She had to pay a $200 fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, McLaughlin calls her misstep minor. She tells NPR and Floodlight she believes the story was intended to warn Chevron’s critics that it could embarrass them or just ignore them altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> will never, ever print anything that is critical of Chevron,” McLaughlin says, “and it will never print anything that upholds the community’s victories against Chevron. And we need to spread the word about those victories.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Expanding to Texas\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Chevron launched its latest newsroom, called Permian Proud, in the Permian Basin in August 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site posts stories about West Texas and New Mexico, which are home to the nation’s highest-producing oil fields, where Chevron has substantial drilling interests — and where \u003ca href=\"https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/explore/#/state-localnewslandscape?state=TX&stateCode=48\">local news has been hard hit\u003c/a>. Permian Proud explained its mission this way: “We aim to complement the important work of existing local media by providing hyper-local news you won’t find anywhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike California, Texas is a deeply red state with a broader support base for the oil and gas industry. Even so, Chevron’s future there is similarly deeply reliant on the goodwill of residents and regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past year and a half, Permian Proud has put a spotlight on national spelling bee contestants, the local arts community, nonprofit organizations, community events, high school sports, industry accomplishments, and much more,” Chevron spokesperson Catie Matthews wrote in a statement for this story. “Additionally, the platform has amplified coverage of local stories by other news outlets and provided a digital arm to some of our rural communities and smaller nonprofit organizations who would otherwise not have one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Permian Proud also promotes Chevron’s perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the articles on the site are rewritten press releases. For example, Permian Proud’s article “\u003ca href=\"https://permianproud.com/chevrons-permian-basin-operations-to-tap-into-more-recycled-water/\">Chevron’s Permian Basin operations to tap into more recycled water\u003c/a>” is almost identical to Chevron’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/2022/q3/permian-basin-operations-to-tap-into-more-recycled-water#:~:text=We%20reached%20an%20agreement%20with,by%20the%20end%20of%202023.\">press release\u003c/a>. The original text read, “By using recycled water in our fracking operations, we help preserve fresh water and groundwater in drought-prone areas.” Permian Proud swapped “Chevron helps” for “we help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the few listed bylines: Mike Aldax of Singer and \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981107\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with black hair and a greenish scarf outside stands in front of a mural with a microphone painted.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ramos says locals share news about Chevron by word of mouth because The Richmond Standard is ‘giving us the opposite of the truth.’ \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Relying on word of mouth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the absence of independent local news sources, Richmond residents say they rely on each other for accurate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A husband-and-wife team started a small news site last year. A former mayor shares his thoughts about local politics in a newsletter. When school is in session, journalism students at the nearby University of California, Berkeley, cover Richmond as part of their studies. A nonprofit group has held listening sessions about plans to extend a hyperlocal site to the area. And sometimes — when the news is big enough — San Francisco TV stations cross the bay to cover it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mostly, there’s word of mouth. Activist Katt Ramos points to the February 2021 pipeline rupture. As Chevron publicly conceded, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11931168/chevron-agrees-to-pay-200000-for-2021-bay-fuel-spill-at-richmond-refinery\">resident spotted the tainted water\u003c/a> long before Chevron or any news outlet alerted the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of our news is really from me, gathered by our local kind of independent folks that go around covering things for us,” Ramos says. “Because we have to deal with publications like \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> that are giving us the opposite of the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Felicia Alvarez, Maria Fernanda Bernal and Richard Tzul of the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Chevron+owns+this+city%27s+news+site.+Many+stories+aren%27t+told&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Chevron operates a major refinery in Richmond. It also owns the city's dominant news site, putting its own spin on events, and runs similar sites in Texas and Ecuador.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1711673330,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":81,"wordCount":4033},"headData":{"title":"Chevron Owns Richmond's Main Local News Source — and Many Refinery-Related Stories Go Untold | KQED","description":"Chevron operates a major refinery in Richmond. It also owns the city's dominant news site, putting its own spin on events, and runs similar sites in Texas and Ecuador.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Chevron Owns Richmond's Main Local News Source — and Many Refinery-Related Stories Go Untold","datePublished":"2024-03-28T21:00:22.000Z","dateModified":"2024-03-29T00:48:50.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"Miranda Green, David Folkenflik","nprImageAgency":"Tracy J. Lee for NPR","nprStoryId":"1239650727","nprApiLink":"http://api.npr.org/query?id=1239650727&apiKey=MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004","nprHtmlLink":"https://www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1239650727/chevron-fossil-fuel-richmond-standard-california-news?ft=nprml&f=1239650727","nprRetrievedStory":"1","nprPubDate":"Thu, 28 Mar 2024 05:58:00 -0400","nprStoryDate":"Thu, 28 Mar 2024 05:59:00 -0400","nprLastModifiedDate":"Thu, 28 Mar 2024 05:58:38 -0400","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11981095/chevron-owns-this-citys-news-site-many-stories-arent-told","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR’s David Folkenflik reported this story with Miranda Green of\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.floodlightnews.org/\">\u003cem> Floodlight\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RICHMOND, Calif. — Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, California Soon, black smoke blanketed the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth, says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. “We don’t know the full story, but we know that you shouldn’t breathe in the air or be outside, for that matter,” Khamphanthong says now. “It would be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out there and figure it out themselves.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> will never, ever print anything that is critical of Chevron, and it will never print anything that upholds the community’s victories against Chevron.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":" Gayle McLaughlin, former mayor, Richmond","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s primary local news source, \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/\">\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, didn’t cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron is the city’s largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> consistently toes the company line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s a reason for that: Chevron owns \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at Chevron’s website and you look at \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>, a lot of the information is copy and paste,” says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. “They present a very skewed viewpoint that is bought and paid for by Chevron.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981097\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981097\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A view of a city landscape with trees and a refinery in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5693_custom-2a426eb8dde45252963199495680bc4bb9d327d0-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The city of Richmond exists in the shadow of the nearby Chevron refinery, which has been connected to poor air quality and health issues in the nearby community. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The site’s very name evokes the history of Chevron, which was created when John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was broken up by federal trust-busters more than a century ago. \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> prides itself on being the “number one source for local, community-driven news” about the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around town, in coffee shops, an architect’s office, at a Mexican restaurant, even at a waterside National Park Service site, the Standard is recognized as the main source of news about the city. It carries stories about \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/03/27/rich-city-rides-launches-capital-campaign-to-purchase-home-base/\">charity drives\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/09/19/emergency-rail-replacement-prompts-closure-on-s-garrard-blvd/\">street closings\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/lifestyle/entertainment-and-food/2020/07/13/the-factory-bar-sets-opening-date/\">New bars\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/09/20/art-exhibition-celebrates-latinx-heritage-month-in-richmond/\">art exhibits\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/07/17/girl-power-coming-to-soccer-field-in-richmond/\">Youth soccer events\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/05/15/point-richmond-music-announces-lineup-for-summer-concert-series/\">local concerts\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/community/2024/02/06/richmonds-ons-loves-on-at-risk-people-to-end-gun-violence/\">safety initiatives\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades ago, the city relied on the Richmond \u003cem>Independent \u003c/em>and the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> to report on the community. And then a pattern familiar across the U.S. unfolded. The \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em> pulled back. The \u003cem>Independent\u003c/em> got folded into a newspaper in nearby Berkeley, which itself shut down in 1984. Papers in other East Bay cities shriveled up. Now, the city’s news landscape is dominated by its major corporate force. Markets where news outlets shut down are often called news deserts. The Standard has created something of a news mirage: Stories are told — but with an agenda. Facts displeasing to Chevron are omitted; hard truths softened. The company is seeking to get its point of view across and to convey that it can be trusted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent February night, a city council meeting repeatedly focused on developments involving Chevron. Other than journalists for NPR and Floodlight, not a single journalist attended in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same San Francisco public relations firm that operates the Standard for Chevron runs a similar site about developments in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, where Chevron has major business interests. It also runs one of the company’s sites in Ecuador, where the energy giant has fought back decades of litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981098\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981098\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A person rides a bike through an intersection with cars waiting at a stoplight.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5591_custom-714680c19940b1fb0af95746d3b95944f8dcc85b-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond Standard is a local news site funded by Chevron, which runs a large refinery in town. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Chevron’s bid to control the public discourse comes as efforts to combat climate change threaten the fossil fuel industry, especially in California. State regulators would effectively \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/california-bans-the-sale-of-new-gas-powered-cars-by-2035.html\">ban\u003c/a> the sales of gas-powered cars by 2035. They released the world’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/11/16/california-releases-worlds-first-plan-to-achieve-net-zero-carbon-pollution/\">first plan\u003c/a> to achieve net-zero carbon pollution. Other states and countries have adopted similar goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11975650,news_11856920","hero":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/231027-CHEVRON-RICHMOND-REFINERY-MD-01-KQED.jpg","label":"Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In February, Chevron revealed that it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000009341024000013/cvx-20231231.htm#ib7903ee4cd7540d8ab5b70d4bf454edd_121\">losing about $1.8 billion \u003c/a>on assets, mainly in California, because of the state’s tougher regulatory climate. Chevron’s corporate headquarters is in San Ramon, about a 35-mile drive southeast of Richmond, though the company has moved the bulk of its workforce to Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The company saw a need to offer the community more news coverage of Richmond, which had been largely ignored by traditional media with the exception of crime stories,” says Braden Reddall, a manager of external affairs at Chevron. “Most people in Richmond will tell you there is a lot more to the community than what is known and reported by traditional media outlets. It’s a proud community, filled with interesting people who are doing interesting things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reddall, who earlier covered the company for the international news service \u003cem>Reuters\u003c/em>, added that other outlets more than adequately cover Chevron.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981099\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a green shirt with orange design patterns leans against the side of a building outside.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1000858_custom-e488c363fd777c761cf9a17ccd50d608a8e57480-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former schoolteacher Patricia Dornan says she reads The Richmond Standard but skips the stories about Chevron. “I don’t read any of the articles about how wonderful their company is,” she says. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lifelong Richmond resident Patricia Dornan says she cherry-picks which stories she reads in the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you understand that it’s going to have a Chevron-Standard Oil point of view, it’s fine because most of the stuff that they’re putting out has nothing to do with them,” says Dornan, a retired middle school teacher. “And so long as it doesn’t have to do with Chevron, it’s fine. I don’t read any of the articles about how wonderful their company is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dornan volunteers at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/rori/index.htm\">Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park\u003c/a>. She tells visitors about the marvels of American manufacturing in a time of war and about the women welders of Richmond who were able to turn out warships in 51 days rather than two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1444px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png\" alt=\"A map showing Richmond with red and blue lines outlining pipelines in the area.\" width=\"1444\" height=\"1432\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM.png 1444w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-800x793.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-1020x1012.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-28-at-10.14.03-AM-160x159.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1444px) 100vw, 1444px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pipeline locations are approximate. Source: Google Earth, US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, California Department of Technology, OpenStreetMap contributors \u003ccite>(Hilary Fung/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her grandmother moved to town in 1905 — just three years after the refinery first opened — and her family has been there ever since. One of the streets in town is named after her father. She says Richmond can’t function without Chevron, but a true local news outlet would help hold it accountable to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she wants to know what Chevron is up to, Dornan says, “I usually ask my friends who are retirees from the refinery — what’s going on?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Richmond deserves more news coverage’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the Standard launched in 2014, it proclaimed: “Richmond deserves more news coverage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the first time in more than 30 years, Richmond will have a community-driven daily news source dedicated to shining a light on the positive things that are going on in the community,” the \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/chevron-speaks/2013/01/23/richmond-deserves-more-news-coverage/\">site announced.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron presents the Standard as an investment in the Richmond community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/115094/documents/HHRG-117-II15-20220914-SD007.pdf\">The public relations firm operating the Standard wrote (PDF)\u003c/a>, “This site would tell the stories other outlets had lost the resources to tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11940114","hero":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS55021_004_KQED_ChevronRefineryStrike_04072022-qut.jpg","label":"Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But not all of the stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent review found\u003cem> The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> had published 434 stories that touch on its owner, Chevron, since the site’s inception. Eight articles refer to flaring incidents. None cite oil spills. The majority of the stories that mention Chevron focus on profiles, \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/uncategorized/2024/02/16/chevron-richmond-recognized-for-helping-red-cross-sound-the-alarm-on-fire-safety/\">awards\u003c/a> ceremonies, community projects and \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2023/10/20/chevron-richmond-celebrates-hispanic-heritage-month-with-classic-cars-and-much-more/\">celebrations\u003c/a> it throws on such occasions as \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2024/02/26/chevron-richmond-marks-milestone-with-25th-black-history-awareness-celebration/\">Black History\u003c/a> and Hispanic Heritage months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Area air pollution regulators secured landmark concessions from Chevron in February to settle a lawsuit, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution\">they called it a “decisive victory\u003c/a>.” The \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> headline cited “\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/east-bay-refineries-settle-with-bay-area-air-quality-agency-agree-to-20-million-in-fines-for-hundreds-of-violations/\">$20 million in fines for hundreds of air-quality violations\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11901875","hero":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/02/RS53159_013_Richmond_ChevronRefinery_01132022-qut.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2024/02/13/chevron-agreement-with-air-district-called-win-for-environment-and-energy/\">Richmond Standard\u003c/a> \u003c/em>was more reserved: “Chevron agreement with Air District called win for environment and energy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The article did not clearly lay out the core of the litigation. The words “fine” and “penalty” did not appear. Careful readers might have been able to piece together what transpired: The news outlet described an agreement involving $20 million that “solidifies the future of energy production at the Richmond Refinery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a whole host of news outlets around the Bay Area that cover the refinery,” says Reddall, the Chevron spokesperson. “The Standard seeks to fill in the gaps. From where I’m sitting, I don’t think that it’s a refinery that’s not written about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981100\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A person rides a bike down a street with a mural in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001528_custom-8f3c0ecaa5280f513873a046609f97a67b508583-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Richmond is a working-class city of 115,000 — nearly half of whom are Latino. Most people working at the Chevron refinery live outside the city. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A news mirage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Boundaries blur between city and corporation in this largely working-class city of 115,000 people, almost half of whom are Latino. The tech boom of nearby Silicon Valley and the opulence of neighboring Marin County feel like universes away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11912101","hero":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/04/RS55033_019_KQED_ChevronRefineryStrike_04072022-qut.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The public high school’s mascot is the Oilers. Streets are named Ammonia and Petrolite and Xylene. Chevron’s network of pipes, low-lying cooling ponds and even sulfuric stench have become defining parts of the town’s character. A nature park where tufted egrets and hummingbirds frolic abuts the nearly 3,000-acre refinery itself — an expansive preserve of smokestacks, pipelines and tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron, which recorded $21.3 billion in profits last year, has played an outsized role in Richmond for decades. It supplies the city with jobs — yet most Chevron employees live elsewhere. It pays roughly $50 million a year to Richmond — more than a sixth of the town’s annual revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s relationship with Richmond turned sour rather abruptly in 2012. An explosion at the refinery injured \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/chevron-refinery-fire-cal-osha-fine-calosha-fined/2247343/\">19 employees.\u003c/a> The air pollution from the resulting industrial fire could be seen from miles away. In the ensuing days, 15,000 Bay Area residents went to medical centers for respiratory complications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981101\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg\" alt='A sign with red lettering on the side of a building that reads \"Richmond Oilers.\"' width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5002_custom-7b06acdc68e74ea0931de6c640522261dd48c5d1-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond High School mascot is the Oilers. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State and local prosecutors charged Chevron with \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/chevron-convicted-of-labor-codes-pays-2m-after-refinery-fire/1951195/\">criminal negligence\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/05/chevron-2m-fire/2620303/\">other crimes. T\u003c/a>he company settled by pleading no contest to six charges, paying out roughly $10 million to affected local residents, agencies and hospitals. Chevron also paid $5 million directly to the city of Richmond to settle a separate civil lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time of the incident, political sentiment in Richmond had started to swing away from the company. As the months passed, progressives threatened to take control of the city government. They promoted a future without the refinery — just as Chevron sought approval from city officials for a sweeping project to overhaul and modernize it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the 2014 election cycle dawned, Chevron took action to ensure its voice was heard. It promised a huge investment in scholarships and public health programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also spent $3 million to help propel pro-industry candidates. They all lost. “The election became a referendum on Chevron,” says Tom Butt, at the time a city council member who won election as mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron also launched\u003cem> The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the outset, the company disclosed its involvement. In small letters at the top of its homepage, the site reads, “Funded by Chevron.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981102\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1703px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981102\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An elderly white man wearing a tan jacket sits down outside.\" width=\"1703\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-scaled.jpg 1703w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-800x1203.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1020x1533.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-160x241.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1362x2048.jpg 1362w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_5353_custom-70d0b60670307735f71cb85a8507b0f4ce42ab21-1920x2886.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1703px) 100vw, 1703px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Butt was elected mayor of Richmond in 2014. He says that election was a referendum on Chevron. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the aftermath of the election, the Standard published a 428-word statement from \u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/chevron-speaks/2014/11/19/election-mattered/\">Chevron\u003c/a> in its entirety that defended the company’s actions and criticized the city’s new leaders. “The question for Richmond is: Will local leaders recognize that business is integral to the city’s success?” the Chevron statement read. “Or, will city leaders continue to oppose efforts to create growth, preferring instead to watch the business climate — and the prosperity that business helps generate — decline?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We should be outraged’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Katt Ramos, who helps lead Communities for a Better Environment’s Richmond chapter, stages tours to demonstrate what she says is Chevron’s destructive legacy. It also illustrates what happens when independent local news disappears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She stops by Peres K–8 School in the Iron Triangle, a nickname derived from the three train tracks that intersect here. Older kids play soccer on a field with a coach while younger ones cavort on a playground. Beyond the school fence, the Chevron plant stands less than a mile away. A sign next to the school’s entrance warns of a shallow hazardous liquid pipeline from the refinery, a warning not to dig there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in Richmond,” Ramos says. Adults have to tell kids they can’t play outdoors due to a high number of bad air days, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1703px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981103\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A close up image of woman with black hair and a greenish scarf outside.\" width=\"1703\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-scaled.jpg 1703w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-800x1203.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1020x1533.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-160x241.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1362x2048.jpg 1362w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4959_custom-9ae1328aaedb9053674e149d6ad183dc5bf607a9-1920x2886.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1703px) 100vw, 1703px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in Richmond,’ says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. She says the city’s air pollution problems and residents’ health issues are rarely covered in the news. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the best way of gauging the seriousness of such concerns is to look at child admissions to emergency rooms for asthma, says Anne Kelsey Lamb, who oversees asthma research for the Oakland-based Public Health Institute. Children in the ZIP code of the Iron Triangle — which includes the refinery as well as the neighborhoods surrounding the Peres school — are admitted for emergency care for asthma at triple the rate for California at large. (The institute provided an analysis of the most recent available state statistics at the request of NPR and Floodlight.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parceling out responsibility for air pollution is complicated, given Richmond’s many highways and railroads, along with the refinery. The regional board that regulates air quality found that Chevron accounts for 63% of all particle pollution in Richmond and two neighboring towns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These issues rarely get covered, Ramos says. She starts to weep gently when talking about the city’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think, at best, we should be outraged, you know?” she says. “Everyone should be concerned about the conditions that our community has to face.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The PR firm running the Standard\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Chevron owns the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>, San Francisco-based Singer Associates runs it from across the bay. The consulting firm is known for handling PR crises. Founder Sam Singer is no stranger to Richmond; he grew up in Berkeley and briefly worked at the Richmond \u003cem>Independent\u003c/em> and a sister paper before moving on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singer Associates has written that the news outlet came about after Chevron developed a “fractured relationship with many stakeholders, including city government leaders.” The site was part of an effort “to provide the company with greater freedom to operate by increasing awareness for the positive role it plays in Richmond,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/115094/documents/HHRG-117-II15-20220914-SD007.pdf\">according to Singer’s application for an industry award\u003c/a>, as cited in a U.S. House Natural Resources Committee staff report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981104\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A man swings a fishing pole over his head by a body of water.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/l1001474_custom-1539e2b09a55fba135d92ed538aee324aa2fdedb-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man fishes for leopard sharks in the waterways along Point Richmond, a thoroughfare for petroleum that has been the site of several oil and chemical spills. \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singer Associates employee Mike Aldax, a former reporter for the defunct \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> and the Bay City News Service, writes most Standard articles. (Aldax did not return messages seeking comment.) The site also hired two journalists who live in Richmond to write for the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our team has worked hard to build relationships with the community, which is why people trust us, and turn to us, to cover community stories,” Singer wrote in an email for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pace of reporting ebbs and flows. Some featured videos on the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>‘s homepage are several years old. The metabolism of fresh posts stepped up in early March, shortly after NPR and Floodlight first sent a series of queries about the Standard to Chevron and Singer for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Chevron newsrooms begin in South America\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In launching the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>, Chevron followed a path the fossil fuel giant had first forged thousands of miles to the south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2009, Singer has run The Amazon Post in Ecuador at Chevron’s direction. The English-language site emerged as Chevron confronted lengthy multibillion-dollar litigation seeking to hold it liable for the pollution from oil drilling there. (Chevron had acquired Texaco in 2001, which was responsible for the oil extraction.) Chevron’s legal battle spread to other nations, including the U.S. and Brazil. The American attorney who led the suits against Chevron for Ecuadorian farmers and Indigenous peoples was a frequent target of the site. He was ultimately disbarred in New York for his actions in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981105\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Flames flicker from a refinery surrounded by trees.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-1247205074_custom-4333df7acdf33ebf2db696a0a6694986214e004c-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flames flicker through the thick green trees of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest — where gas flares, oil wells and refineries darken the landscape and poison the environment — shown in Shushufindi, Ecuador, in 2023. The legacy there of Texaco, which Chevron acquired, has inspired lengthy legal battles in several countries. \u003ccite>(Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://theamazonpost.com/\">The Amazon Post\u003c/a> caters to English-speaking audiences and clearly discloses that it reflects “Chevron’s Views & Opinions on the Ecuador Lawsuit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A subsequent Spanish-language site called Juicio Crudo (an allusion to crude oil) focuses\u003ca href=\"https://www.juiciocrudo.com/\"> squarely\u003c/a> on a damning legal judgment against Chevron that a U.S. court later \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/federal-judge-rules-for-chevron-in-ecuadorean-pollution-case.html\">found to be fraudulent\u003c/a>. It reprints text directly from Chevron’s Spanish-language \u003ca href=\"https://www.juiciocrudo.com/documentos/f8eda1d720.pdf\">press releases\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eloriente.com/\">El Oriente\u003c/a>, a Spanish-language digital outlet launched in 2019, presents as a news site aimed at audiences residing in the Ecuadorian Amazon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, it noted at the bottom of its page that it was “sponsored by Chevron.” Days after NPR and Floodlight started posing questions about Chevron’s sites, the affiliation was moved to the top, just beneath the site’s name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sites link to one another. Chevron says those sites are managed separately, not by Singer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In at least one instance, the controversies surrounding Chevron in Ecuador inspired fodder for the Standard back in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Richmond’s then-mayor, \u003ca href=\"https://ci.richmond.ca.us/directory.aspx?EID=1070\">Gayle McLaughlin\u003c/a>, traveled to see Ecuador’s environmental degradation at a time when her party sought to force Chevron to pay more to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after she returned home, the \u003cem>Standard\u003c/em>‘s Aldax reported: “The mayor’s six-day trip to Ecuador was in support [of] the South American nation in its ongoing battle against Chevron, which it falsely blames for polluting the rain forest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://richmondstandard.com/richmond/2014/06/11/richmond-mayor-gayle-mclaughlins-association-with-ecuadors-u-s-pr-firm-raises-questions/\">Aldax wrote\u003c/a> that McLaughlin was late filing $4,499 in expenses for the trip, which the Ecuadorian government had paid for. The article embedded a \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/ugtMBkqmXbQ\">video \u003c/a>produced by The Amazon Post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981106\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981106\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing glasses and a purple shirt with design speaks and gestures with her hands next to a Black woman with locs and glasses.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1705\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/gettyimages-467523155_custom-62bb18a46688cf4f9983ca4f55478a33127b602c-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gayle McLaughlin, then Richmond’s mayor, speaks onstage during a 2014 event in Los Angeles. \u003ccite>(Mike Windle/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was a rare instance of the Standard producing anything other than benign community news. She had to pay a $200 fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, McLaughlin calls her misstep minor. She tells NPR and Floodlight she believes the story was intended to warn Chevron’s critics that it could embarrass them or just ignore them altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> will never, ever print anything that is critical of Chevron,” McLaughlin says, “and it will never print anything that upholds the community’s victories against Chevron. And we need to spread the word about those victories.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Expanding to Texas\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Chevron launched its latest newsroom, called Permian Proud, in the Permian Basin in August 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site posts stories about West Texas and New Mexico, which are home to the nation’s highest-producing oil fields, where Chevron has substantial drilling interests — and where \u003ca href=\"https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/explore/#/state-localnewslandscape?state=TX&stateCode=48\">local news has been hard hit\u003c/a>. Permian Proud explained its mission this way: “We aim to complement the important work of existing local media by providing hyper-local news you won’t find anywhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike California, Texas is a deeply red state with a broader support base for the oil and gas industry. Even so, Chevron’s future there is similarly deeply reliant on the goodwill of residents and regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past year and a half, Permian Proud has put a spotlight on national spelling bee contestants, the local arts community, nonprofit organizations, community events, high school sports, industry accomplishments, and much more,” Chevron spokesperson Catie Matthews wrote in a statement for this story. “Additionally, the platform has amplified coverage of local stories by other news outlets and provided a digital arm to some of our rural communities and smaller nonprofit organizations who would otherwise not have one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Permian Proud also promotes Chevron’s perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the articles on the site are rewritten press releases. For example, Permian Proud’s article “\u003ca href=\"https://permianproud.com/chevrons-permian-basin-operations-to-tap-into-more-recycled-water/\">Chevron’s Permian Basin operations to tap into more recycled water\u003c/a>” is almost identical to Chevron’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/2022/q3/permian-basin-operations-to-tap-into-more-recycled-water#:~:text=We%20reached%20an%20agreement%20with,by%20the%20end%20of%202023.\">press release\u003c/a>. The original text read, “By using recycled water in our fracking operations, we help preserve fresh water and groundwater in drought-prone areas.” Permian Proud swapped “Chevron helps” for “we help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the few listed bylines: Mike Aldax of Singer and \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981107\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with black hair and a greenish scarf outside stands in front of a mural with a microphone painted.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1703\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/z62_4979_custom-b783932e7783d65df058ad8dc7ca9e7cb07cd0a7-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ramos says locals share news about Chevron by word of mouth because The Richmond Standard is ‘giving us the opposite of the truth.’ \u003ccite>(Brian L. Frank/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Relying on word of mouth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the absence of independent local news sources, Richmond residents say they rely on each other for accurate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A husband-and-wife team started a small news site last year. A former mayor shares his thoughts about local politics in a newsletter. When school is in session, journalism students at the nearby University of California, Berkeley, cover Richmond as part of their studies. A nonprofit group has held listening sessions about plans to extend a hyperlocal site to the area. And sometimes — when the news is big enough — San Francisco TV stations cross the bay to cover it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mostly, there’s word of mouth. Activist Katt Ramos points to the February 2021 pipeline rupture. As Chevron publicly conceded, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11931168/chevron-agrees-to-pay-200000-for-2021-bay-fuel-spill-at-richmond-refinery\">resident spotted the tainted water\u003c/a> long before Chevron or any news outlet alerted the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of our news is really from me, gathered by our local kind of independent folks that go around covering things for us,” Ramos says. “Because we have to deal with publications like \u003cem>The Richmond Standard\u003c/em> that are giving us the opposite of the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Felicia Alvarez, Maria Fernanda Bernal and Richard Tzul of the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Chevron+owns+this+city%27s+news+site.+Many+stories+aren%27t+told&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11981095/chevron-owns-this-citys-news-site-many-stories-arent-told","authors":["byline_news_11981095"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_424","news_579"],"affiliates":["news_253"],"featImg":"news_11981096","label":"news_253"},"news_11975650":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11975650","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11975650","score":null,"sort":[1707838230000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution","title":"Bay Air District Hails 'Decisive Victory' in Battle to Cut Refinery Pollution","publishDate":1707838230,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Bay Air District Hails ‘Decisive Victory’ in Battle to Cut Refinery Pollution | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area air regulators say they’ve won a “decisive victory” in a legal fight with a pair of oil companies that had sued to block enforcement of a rule intended to sharply reduce an especially harmful form of pollution emitted by the facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management Agency (BAAQMD) on Tuesday morning announced agreements with Chevron, which runs a 120-year-old refinery in Richmond, and the Martinez Refining Company, that commit both firms to comply with a rule requiring crude oil production facilities to curtail particulate pollution beginning in July 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two companies are dropping lawsuits that challenged the rule. Chevron has committed to paying penalties and making other payments that could total more than $130 million if it delays compliance with the rule. Martinez Refining, a subsidiary of New Jersey-based PBF Energy, has agreed to implement a continuous monitoring system to ensure compliance with the district regulation. Each company will pay up to $500,000 to cover the district’s legal fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11960699,news_11968786,news_11957461 label='Related Coverage']“The air district agreements with Chevron and MRC mark a turning point in our commitment to enforcing air quality regulations and deterring future violations throughout the Bay Area, especially in communities already overburdened by air pollution,” said Dr. Philip Fine, the district’s executive officer, in a statement announcing the agreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone, no matter where they live, deserves or has the right to breathe clean air, and that’s what this announcement is about today,” said Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, who is a member and former chair of the BAAQMD at the air quality agency’s press conference Tuesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board that oversees the air district approved the new rule in July 2021. Two months later, Chevron and PBF sued in Contra Costa County Superior Court to block its implementation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rule, known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/rules-and-compliance/rules/reg-6-rule-5-particulate-emissions-from-refinery-fluidized-catalytic-cracking-units\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Regulation 6, Rule 5\u003c/a>, focuses on the operation of the refineries’ fluidized catalytic cracking units, which break down heavy crude oil into lighter products like gasoline. Following that process, carbon material known as coke is burned off, pushing large volumes of particulate matter into the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Particulate pollution — consisting of both fine particles, known as PM2.5, and larger particles, PM10 — can be inhaled and is associated with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html#:~:text=Coarse%20(bigger)%20particles%2C%20called,or%20even%20into%20your%20blood.\">wide range of lung, heart and other chronic health problems\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Primary care doctor and Climate Health Now nonprofit cofounder Dr. Ashley McClure said she was “shocked” by the news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Dr. Ashley McClure, cofounder/co-director, Climate Health Now\"]‘It’s so rare to see that sanity and what’s in the public interest prevails … I don’t really understand their motives, but I’m really glad that Chevron and the PBF refinery are dropping their case.’[/pullquote]“It’s so rare to see that sanity and what’s in the public interest prevails … I don’t really understand their motives, but I’m really glad that Chevron and the PBF refinery are dropping their case,” said McClure, who, through her nonprofit, worked with BAAQMD to bring about the new rule in 2021. “The fact that it passed was really wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez resident Heidi Taylor, who is a member of the Healthy Martinez Refinery Accountability Group, welcomed the news, which she called “a huge win,” but said “the fight for clean air, water and soil” in Martinez was not over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make no mistake, I’m thrilled, but … I want to know how the measurements are going to be collected, whether or not they’re going to be publicly available,” Taylor said. “We are now relying on the district attorney and the [BAAQMD] to follow up on past violations. We are going to be as aggressive and involved as we always have been to make sure that this community is safe and healthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, the two energy companies have argued that the air district overstated the health benefits of the new rule and underestimated the cost of implementing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, both companies confirmed the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron, though, raised concerns about how the air district comes up with its regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The settlement ends our litigation over BAAQMD’s adoption of some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world. It provides for an extended compliance timeframe to navigate California’s difficult permitting landscape and settles the BAAQMD’s 5-year backlog of enforcement actions,” Chevron said through company spokesperson Caitlin Powell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron is committed to working with agencies, like the BAAQMD, on efforts to improve air quality. However, we remain concerned that the BAAQMD’s rulemaking process is fundamentally broken and believe it’s another example of how California policies have led to a hostile business environment for manufacturers, disincentivizing production of the transportation fuels that millions of Californians depend on every day,” the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PBF Energy representative said the Martinez Refining Company has been working to comply with the new rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We thank our employees and consultants whose ingenuity and hard work led to an innovative technical solution to comply with the new rule, as well as the BAAQMD for working constructively with us to arrive at our mutually desired goal of improving air quality in the Bay Area,” company spokesperson Brandon Matson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials describe the regulation as “the most health-protective rule of its kind in the nation.” They have long argued that the reduction in emissions would reduce early deaths and other health problems for people exposed to particulate matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air district said its agreement with Chevron includes a series of costly penalties if the company fails to comply with the rule when it takes effect in less than two and a half years. Chevron would pay $17 million a year for the first three years of noncompliance, which would escalate to $32 million in the fourth year. The deal also requires the Richmond refinery to take steps to reduce particulate emissions before the rule takes effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron has also agreed to pay $20 million into a Community Air Quality Fund and another $20 million to settle 678 unrelated violations related to its Richmond refinery operations. The company also promises to reduce persistent flaring at the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Chevron and New Jersey-based refinery company end litigation over rule that requires them to sharply curtail particulate emissions. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1708018298,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":25,"wordCount":1100},"headData":{"title":"Bay Air District Hails 'Decisive Victory' in Battle to Cut Refinery Pollution | KQED","description":"Chevron and New Jersey-based refinery company end litigation over rule that requires them to sharply curtail particulate emissions. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Bay Air District Hails 'Decisive Victory' in Battle to Cut Refinery Pollution","datePublished":"2024-02-13T15:30:30.000Z","dateModified":"2024-02-15T17:31:38.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area air regulators say they’ve won a “decisive victory” in a legal fight with a pair of oil companies that had sued to block enforcement of a rule intended to sharply reduce an especially harmful form of pollution emitted by the facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management Agency (BAAQMD) on Tuesday morning announced agreements with Chevron, which runs a 120-year-old refinery in Richmond, and the Martinez Refining Company, that commit both firms to comply with a rule requiring crude oil production facilities to curtail particulate pollution beginning in July 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two companies are dropping lawsuits that challenged the rule. Chevron has committed to paying penalties and making other payments that could total more than $130 million if it delays compliance with the rule. Martinez Refining, a subsidiary of New Jersey-based PBF Energy, has agreed to implement a continuous monitoring system to ensure compliance with the district regulation. Each company will pay up to $500,000 to cover the district’s legal fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11960699,news_11968786,news_11957461","label":"Related Coverage "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The air district agreements with Chevron and MRC mark a turning point in our commitment to enforcing air quality regulations and deterring future violations throughout the Bay Area, especially in communities already overburdened by air pollution,” said Dr. Philip Fine, the district’s executive officer, in a statement announcing the agreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone, no matter where they live, deserves or has the right to breathe clean air, and that’s what this announcement is about today,” said Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, who is a member and former chair of the BAAQMD at the air quality agency’s press conference Tuesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board that oversees the air district approved the new rule in July 2021. Two months later, Chevron and PBF sued in Contra Costa County Superior Court to block its implementation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rule, known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/rules-and-compliance/rules/reg-6-rule-5-particulate-emissions-from-refinery-fluidized-catalytic-cracking-units\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Regulation 6, Rule 5\u003c/a>, focuses on the operation of the refineries’ fluidized catalytic cracking units, which break down heavy crude oil into lighter products like gasoline. Following that process, carbon material known as coke is burned off, pushing large volumes of particulate matter into the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Particulate pollution — consisting of both fine particles, known as PM2.5, and larger particles, PM10 — can be inhaled and is associated with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html#:~:text=Coarse%20(bigger)%20particles%2C%20called,or%20even%20into%20your%20blood.\">wide range of lung, heart and other chronic health problems\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Primary care doctor and Climate Health Now nonprofit cofounder Dr. Ashley McClure said she was “shocked” by the news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘It’s so rare to see that sanity and what’s in the public interest prevails … I don’t really understand their motives, but I’m really glad that Chevron and the PBF refinery are dropping their case.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Dr. Ashley McClure, cofounder/co-director, Climate Health Now","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s so rare to see that sanity and what’s in the public interest prevails … I don’t really understand their motives, but I’m really glad that Chevron and the PBF refinery are dropping their case,” said McClure, who, through her nonprofit, worked with BAAQMD to bring about the new rule in 2021. “The fact that it passed was really wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez resident Heidi Taylor, who is a member of the Healthy Martinez Refinery Accountability Group, welcomed the news, which she called “a huge win,” but said “the fight for clean air, water and soil” in Martinez was not over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make no mistake, I’m thrilled, but … I want to know how the measurements are going to be collected, whether or not they’re going to be publicly available,” Taylor said. “We are now relying on the district attorney and the [BAAQMD] to follow up on past violations. We are going to be as aggressive and involved as we always have been to make sure that this community is safe and healthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, the two energy companies have argued that the air district overstated the health benefits of the new rule and underestimated the cost of implementing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, both companies confirmed the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron, though, raised concerns about how the air district comes up with its regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The settlement ends our litigation over BAAQMD’s adoption of some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world. It provides for an extended compliance timeframe to navigate California’s difficult permitting landscape and settles the BAAQMD’s 5-year backlog of enforcement actions,” Chevron said through company spokesperson Caitlin Powell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chevron is committed to working with agencies, like the BAAQMD, on efforts to improve air quality. However, we remain concerned that the BAAQMD’s rulemaking process is fundamentally broken and believe it’s another example of how California policies have led to a hostile business environment for manufacturers, disincentivizing production of the transportation fuels that millions of Californians depend on every day,” the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PBF Energy representative said the Martinez Refining Company has been working to comply with the new rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We thank our employees and consultants whose ingenuity and hard work led to an innovative technical solution to comply with the new rule, as well as the BAAQMD for working constructively with us to arrive at our mutually desired goal of improving air quality in the Bay Area,” company spokesperson Brandon Matson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air district officials describe the regulation as “the most health-protective rule of its kind in the nation.” They have long argued that the reduction in emissions would reduce early deaths and other health problems for people exposed to particulate matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air district said its agreement with Chevron includes a series of costly penalties if the company fails to comply with the rule when it takes effect in less than two and a half years. Chevron would pay $17 million a year for the first three years of noncompliance, which would escalate to $32 million in the fourth year. The deal also requires the Richmond refinery to take steps to reduce particulate emissions before the rule takes effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron has also agreed to pay $20 million into a Community Air Quality Fund and another $20 million to settle 678 unrelated violations related to its Richmond refinery operations. The company also promises to reduce persistent flaring at the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11975650/bay-air-district-hails-decisive-victory-in-battle-to-cut-refinery-pollution","authors":["258"],"categories":["news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2940","news_424","news_33822"],"featImg":"news_11975694","label":"news"},"news_11972271":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11972271","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11972271","score":null,"sort":[1704934824000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"engine-maker-cummins-faces-2-billion-fine-for-emissions-cheating-scandal","title":"Engine Maker Cummins Faces $2 Billion Fine for Emissions Cheating Scandal","publishDate":1704934824,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Engine Maker Cummins Faces $2 Billion Fine for Emissions Cheating Scandal | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Engine maker Cummins Inc. will recall 600,000 Ram trucks as part of a settlement with federal and California authorities that also requires the company to remedy environmental damage caused by illegal software that let it skirt diesel emissions tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jacqueline Klopp, director, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia Climate School\"]‘We increasingly are finding that the public health impacts from emissions from cars are really devastating, and it is one of our biggest sources also of emissions leading to climate change.’[/pullquote]New details of the settlement, reached in December, were released Wednesday. Cummins had already agreed to a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/cummins-doj-settlement-engine-emissions-claims-b80708c6ebe8eb7e7a3684db0837e209\">$1.675 billion civil penalty\u003c/a> to settle claims — the largest ever secured under the Clean Air Act — plus $325 million for pollution remedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That brings Cummins’ total penalty to more than $2 billion, which officials from the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, California Air Resources Board and the California Attorney General called “landmark” in a call with reporters on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let this settlement be a lesson: We won’t let greedy corporations cheat their way to success and run over the health and wellbeing of consumers and our environment along the way,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of a decade, hundreds of thousands of Ram 2500 and 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks — manufactured by Stellantis — had Cummins diesel engines equipped with software that limited nitrogen oxide pollution during emissions tests but allowed higher pollution during normal operations, the governments alleged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, about 630,000 pickups from the 2013 through 2019 model years were equipped with the so-called “defeat devices” and will be recalled. Roughly 330,000 more trucks from 2019 through 2023 had emissions control software that wasn’t properly reported to authorities, but the government said those didn’t disable emissions controls. Officials could not estimate how many recalled trucks remain on the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stellantis deferred comment on the case to Cummins, which has denied allegations made by the government and is not admitting liability, according to court documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The engine maker said in a statement that Wednesday’s actions do not involve any more financial commitments than those announced in December. “We are looking forward to obtaining certainty as we conclude this lengthy matter and continue to deliver on our mission of powering a more prosperous world,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cummins also said the engines that were cited but are not being recalled did not exceed emissions limits. Punishment for the unreported software is included in the penalty, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11964447,news_11964317\" label=\"Related Stories\"]As part of the settlement, Cummins will make up for smog-forming pollution that resulted from its actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preliminary estimates suggested its emissions bypass produced “thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland previously said in a prepared statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act, a federal law enacted in 1963 to reduce and control air pollution nationwide, requires car and engine manufacturers to comply with emission limits to protect the environment and human health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector is responsible for about one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, much of which stems from light-duty vehicles. Limits aim to curb the amount of emissions from burning gasoline and diesel fuel, including carbon dioxide and other problematic pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We increasingly are finding that the public health impacts from emissions from cars are really devastating, and it is one of our biggest sources also of emissions leading to climate change,” said Jacqueline Klopp, director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at the Columbia Climate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the extent that vehicle manufacturers are trying to evade our emission standards that are our biggest tool for protecting us from these public health impacts and climate change, these kinds of fines for evasion are hopefully a very important deterrent,” she added. “There are profound justice and equity issues around air pollution produced by transport emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diesel exhaust is harmful to human health; it’s a carcinogen. Long-term exposure to ozone-creating nitrogen oxides can cause health issues like respiratory infections, lung disease, and asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said Wednesday it was not lost on them that the Cummins settlement follows several other notable emissions cheating cases involving the auto industry in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday’s details come seven years after German automaker Volkswagen agreed to plead guilty to criminal felony counts following investigations into its use of similar defeat devices, a massive emissions scandal known as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-2414a620e73448ff9d32cf335cdaa165\">Dieselgate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company installed software in certain model year 2009–2015 diesel vehicles across its brands, circumventing emissions standards and emitting up to \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/vw/learn-about-volkswagen-violations#:~:text=The%20notice%20alleges%20that%20Volkswagen,pollution%20than%20emissions%20standards%20allow.\">40 times more pollution than those standards allow\u003c/a>. Volkswagen said \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-ddf0666c3f1e4917ace434ca94951423\">11 million vehicles\u003c/a> across the globe were equipped with the pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, the automaker agreed to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty and $1.5 billion in separate civil resolutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fiat Chrysler saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/newsreleases/civil-settlements-united-states-and-california-fiat-chrysler-settle-allegations.html\">similar consequences\u003c/a> in 2019 for failing to disclose defeat devices used to make vehicle emission control systems function differently during emission testing. More than 100,000 EcoDiesel Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles were sold in the U.S. with the unauthorized software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The automaker agreed to pay a $305 million civil penalty to settle the claims of cheating emission tests in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Daimler, the auto parent of Mercedes-Benz, \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/daimler-ag-and-mercedes-benz-usa-llc-clean-air-act-civil-settlement\">agreed to a $857 million civil penalty\u003c/a> due to its disclosure failures and claims over its violations of the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of sunk money into diesel engines and people making profits off of diesel engines,” Columbia’s Klopp said. “Unless you give them a really big fine and a really big deterrent, they’re willing to pay the fines to get those profits. That’s really sad because it puts the profits before the health of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The company will recall 600,000 Ram trucks as part of a settlement with federal and California authorities as well as remedying environmental damage caused by illegal software that let it skirt diesel emissions tests.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704938535,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":26,"wordCount":1016},"headData":{"title":"Engine Maker Cummins Faces $2 Billion Fine for Emissions Cheating Scandal | KQED","description":"The company will recall 600,000 Ram trucks as part of a settlement with federal and California authorities as well as remedying environmental damage caused by illegal software that let it skirt diesel emissions tests.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Engine Maker Cummins Faces $2 Billion Fine for Emissions Cheating Scandal","datePublished":"2024-01-11T01:00:24.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T02:02:15.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"Alexa St. John and Tom Krisher\u003cbr>The Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11972271/engine-maker-cummins-faces-2-billion-fine-for-emissions-cheating-scandal","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Engine maker Cummins Inc. will recall 600,000 Ram trucks as part of a settlement with federal and California authorities that also requires the company to remedy environmental damage caused by illegal software that let it skirt diesel emissions tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘We increasingly are finding that the public health impacts from emissions from cars are really devastating, and it is one of our biggest sources also of emissions leading to climate change.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Jacqueline Klopp, director, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia Climate School","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>New details of the settlement, reached in December, were released Wednesday. Cummins had already agreed to a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/cummins-doj-settlement-engine-emissions-claims-b80708c6ebe8eb7e7a3684db0837e209\">$1.675 billion civil penalty\u003c/a> to settle claims — the largest ever secured under the Clean Air Act — plus $325 million for pollution remedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That brings Cummins’ total penalty to more than $2 billion, which officials from the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, California Air Resources Board and the California Attorney General called “landmark” in a call with reporters on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let this settlement be a lesson: We won’t let greedy corporations cheat their way to success and run over the health and wellbeing of consumers and our environment along the way,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of a decade, hundreds of thousands of Ram 2500 and 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks — manufactured by Stellantis — had Cummins diesel engines equipped with software that limited nitrogen oxide pollution during emissions tests but allowed higher pollution during normal operations, the governments alleged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, about 630,000 pickups from the 2013 through 2019 model years were equipped with the so-called “defeat devices” and will be recalled. Roughly 330,000 more trucks from 2019 through 2023 had emissions control software that wasn’t properly reported to authorities, but the government said those didn’t disable emissions controls. Officials could not estimate how many recalled trucks remain on the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stellantis deferred comment on the case to Cummins, which has denied allegations made by the government and is not admitting liability, according to court documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The engine maker said in a statement that Wednesday’s actions do not involve any more financial commitments than those announced in December. “We are looking forward to obtaining certainty as we conclude this lengthy matter and continue to deliver on our mission of powering a more prosperous world,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cummins also said the engines that were cited but are not being recalled did not exceed emissions limits. Punishment for the unreported software is included in the penalty, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11964447,news_11964317","label":"Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As part of the settlement, Cummins will make up for smog-forming pollution that resulted from its actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preliminary estimates suggested its emissions bypass produced “thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland previously said in a prepared statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act, a federal law enacted in 1963 to reduce and control air pollution nationwide, requires car and engine manufacturers to comply with emission limits to protect the environment and human health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector is responsible for about one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, much of which stems from light-duty vehicles. Limits aim to curb the amount of emissions from burning gasoline and diesel fuel, including carbon dioxide and other problematic pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We increasingly are finding that the public health impacts from emissions from cars are really devastating, and it is one of our biggest sources also of emissions leading to climate change,” said Jacqueline Klopp, director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at the Columbia Climate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the extent that vehicle manufacturers are trying to evade our emission standards that are our biggest tool for protecting us from these public health impacts and climate change, these kinds of fines for evasion are hopefully a very important deterrent,” she added. “There are profound justice and equity issues around air pollution produced by transport emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diesel exhaust is harmful to human health; it’s a carcinogen. Long-term exposure to ozone-creating nitrogen oxides can cause health issues like respiratory infections, lung disease, and asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said Wednesday it was not lost on them that the Cummins settlement follows several other notable emissions cheating cases involving the auto industry in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday’s details come seven years after German automaker Volkswagen agreed to plead guilty to criminal felony counts following investigations into its use of similar defeat devices, a massive emissions scandal known as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-2414a620e73448ff9d32cf335cdaa165\">Dieselgate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company installed software in certain model year 2009–2015 diesel vehicles across its brands, circumventing emissions standards and emitting up to \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/vw/learn-about-volkswagen-violations#:~:text=The%20notice%20alleges%20that%20Volkswagen,pollution%20than%20emissions%20standards%20allow.\">40 times more pollution than those standards allow\u003c/a>. Volkswagen said \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/general-news-ddf0666c3f1e4917ace434ca94951423\">11 million vehicles\u003c/a> across the globe were equipped with the pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, the automaker agreed to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty and $1.5 billion in separate civil resolutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fiat Chrysler saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/newsreleases/civil-settlements-united-states-and-california-fiat-chrysler-settle-allegations.html\">similar consequences\u003c/a> in 2019 for failing to disclose defeat devices used to make vehicle emission control systems function differently during emission testing. More than 100,000 EcoDiesel Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles were sold in the U.S. with the unauthorized software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The automaker agreed to pay a $305 million civil penalty to settle the claims of cheating emission tests in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Daimler, the auto parent of Mercedes-Benz, \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/daimler-ag-and-mercedes-benz-usa-llc-clean-air-act-civil-settlement\">agreed to a $857 million civil penalty\u003c/a> due to its disclosure failures and claims over its violations of the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of sunk money into diesel engines and people making profits off of diesel engines,” Columbia’s Klopp said. “Unless you give them a really big fine and a really big deterrent, they’re willing to pay the fines to get those profits. That’s really sad because it puts the profits before the health of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11972271/engine-maker-cummins-faces-2-billion-fine-for-emissions-cheating-scandal","authors":["byline_news_11972271"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_1202"],"featImg":"news_11972274","label":"news"},"news_11964317":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11964317","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11964317","score":null,"sort":[1697450404000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","title":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans","publishDate":1697450404,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964354\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png\" alt=\"A graph\" width=\"800\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-1020x1032.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-160x162.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the EPA — the U.S. department monitoring air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis, “we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analyzed hard-to-find public data\u003c/a> to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Local regulators in 21 states \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">filed requests with the agency (DOC)\u003c/a> to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In total, local regulators made note of almost 700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a bridge with two pairs of people walking.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Highway 49 Bridge over the South Yuba River in Nevada County, California, is a popular area for hikers. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” But in 2005, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964355\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of communities in the Southwest where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged, respectively. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the Western U.S., but nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg\" alt='A building with a flag pole and a wooden sign that reads \"Nevada County Consolidated Fire District\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan / The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the Midwest and Northeast place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964356\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1020x1403.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-160x220.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1116x1536.png 1116w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a lot of time,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A smokier future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The recent experience of California’s Nevada county may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964350\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964350\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a plaid shirt stands next to some equipment.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, poses for a photo by a monitor in her district. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1020x573.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1536x864.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png 1793w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964366\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png\" alt=\"Two men dressed in firefighter uniforms move towards a fire outdoors with the man on the right holding a fire hose.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1020x681.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1536x1025.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-2048x1367.png 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1920x1281.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon on Dec. 3, 2020. \u003ccite>(Brian Feinzimer/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic. The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said. “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the California Air Resources Board stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We are all inheriting this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then 3 and 7 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964349\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964349\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a woman wearing a reddish-orange sweater with a purple shirt with designs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964348\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964348\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An image of a downtown area of a city.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that's dirtier than they realize.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1697414090,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":56,"wordCount":2517},"headData":{"title":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans | KQED","description":"A major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that's dirtier than they realize.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans","datePublished":"2023-10-16T10:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2023-10-15T23:54:50.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon ","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11964317/revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964354\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png\" alt=\"A graph\" width=\"800\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-1020x1032.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-160x162.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the EPA — the U.S. department monitoring air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis, “we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analyzed hard-to-find public data\u003c/a> to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Local regulators in 21 states \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">filed requests with the agency (DOC)\u003c/a> to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In total, local regulators made note of almost 700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a bridge with two pairs of people walking.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Highway 49 Bridge over the South Yuba River in Nevada County, California, is a popular area for hikers. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” But in 2005, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964355\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of communities in the Southwest where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged, respectively. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the Western U.S., but nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg\" alt='A building with a flag pole and a wooden sign that reads \"Nevada County Consolidated Fire District\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan / The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the Midwest and Northeast place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964356\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1020x1403.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-160x220.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1116x1536.png 1116w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a lot of time,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A smokier future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The recent experience of California’s Nevada county may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964350\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964350\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a plaid shirt stands next to some equipment.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, poses for a photo by a monitor in her district. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1020x573.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1536x864.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png 1793w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964366\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png\" alt=\"Two men dressed in firefighter uniforms move towards a fire outdoors with the man on the right holding a fire hose.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1020x681.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1536x1025.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-2048x1367.png 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1920x1281.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon on Dec. 3, 2020. \u003ccite>(Brian Feinzimer/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic. The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said. “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the California Air Resources Board stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We are all inheriting this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then 3 and 7 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964349\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964349\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a woman wearing a reddish-orange sweater with a purple shirt with designs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964348\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964348\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An image of a downtown area of a city.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11964317/revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","authors":["byline_news_11964317"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_21506","news_33329","news_27626","news_31499"],"featImg":"news_11964345","label":"news"},"news_11959651":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11959651","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11959651","score":null,"sort":[1693479603000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"this-free-app-created-by-a-bay-area-teen-calculates-skin-health-risk-as-california-faces-heat-waves-and-wildfire-smoke","title":"San Francisco Teen Creates a Free App to Calculate Skin Risk Based on Location","publishDate":1693479603,"format":"audio","headTitle":"San Francisco Teen Creates a Free App to Calculate Skin Risk Based on Location | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>India Poetzscher has quantified the environmental risks to the largest organ in the human body. That’s no small feat for a senior attending University High School in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 17-year-old created the \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skinchem/id6447789991\">Skin Chem app\u003c/a>, which gives users a risk score based on their location. This number helps show how environmental conditions, such as sun exposure and air pollution, threaten skin health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people are becoming more aware about UV and how that affects your skin, but there are all these other chemicals that I don’t think they’re as aware of,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the UV index, Poetzscher wanted to highlight air pollution and other factors that affect skin health. The app includes a calculator feature that takes into account cigarette smoking, car traffic and daily sunscreen use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I decided to make an app because I feel like it’s very accessible in today’s society,” Poetzscher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has long been interested in skin care. As she learned about chemistry, she noticed certain beauty products have toxic compounds. She then began doing her own research, leading her to pursue an independent study class at school. Thus, the Skin Chem app was born. It won the 2022 Congressional App Challenge for California’s 12th District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1649174665816932352\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Divya Seth, a procedural dermatology fellow at UCSF’s Dermatologic Surgery and Laser Center, said Skin Chem is promising in how it draws on environmental data to give people a snapshot of their risk on a particular day. During her medical training, she studied how the environment affects our skin, and in doing that work, she looked for similar tools. Nothing came close to Skin Chem, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although there are some different tools out there related to other types of environmental exposures, they don’t really come together in a way that directly allows you to figure out how they impact your skin specifically,” Seth said. “I think this app is unique in that it brings together that environmental data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about potential improvements to the app, Seth said while she sees the app as a great first step, she would like to see the technology give people actionable prompts. Right now, users get a risk score and are asked to take precautions — but the app doesn’t tell people to wear sunscreen or put on a hat. “As we think about how UV exposure leads to skin cancer, or how the particulate matter index can lead to different inflammatory skin conditions, I think having those next steps could be really important,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Poetzscher’s project initially began from an interest in personal skin care, the stakes for skin health could be getting higher as the climate crisis intensifies. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/\">report by the American Meteorological Society\u003c/a> found that climate change drove unprecedented heat waves, floods and droughts in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, extreme heat has been making headlines in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191238086/phoenix-ends-31-day-streak-of-highs-at-or-above-110-degrees-by-reaching-108#:~:text=Phoenix%20ends%2031%2Dday%20streak,degrees%20%E2%80%94%20by%20reaching%20108%20%3A%20NPR&text=Hourly%20News-,Phoenix%20ends%2031%2Dday%20streak%20of%20highs%20at%20or%20above,Arizona%20and%20into%20California's%20desert.\">Phoenix\u003c/a>, where record-breaking temperatures of more than 110 degrees lasted over a month. The hot weather spread into California, as well, with triple-digit temperatures seen in parts of the Bay and in the Central Valley.[aside tag=\"wildfire, technology\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]Institutions like UCSF are exploring the relationship between skin health and the climate. According to a 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle/2778632?guestAccessKey=8ae10d43-5a47-49a9-871f-333058452007\">UCSF study\u003c/a>, during the 2018 Camp Fire, which choked the Bay Area in wildfire smoke, health clinics in San Francisco saw an increase in the number of patient visits for eczema. The findings suggest that short-term exposure to hazardous air can be damaging to skin health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Seth, other U.S. research has shown that as pollutants or exposure to different factories in your area increases, there’s an increased risk of different inflammatory skin conditions. Lately, she has been looking into neighborhood disparities. Where you live may determine your propensity to certain skin conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One thing that I think is powerful about this app is looking at those hyperlocal conditions and understanding how those can change just based on built environment factors,” said Sadie Wilson, senior resilience manager at Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area nonprofit climate advocacy organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This hyperlocal attention — seen in the location-based approach of the Skin Chem app — is key to combating the larger threats emerging from the climate crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we think about climate change, usually in global emissions, all of them are adding up to have these huge shifts in our climate, we don’t often talk about how that results in really local conditions,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This local focus is showing up in the Greenbelt Alliance’s work with the summer launch of its \u003ca href=\"https://www.greenbelt.org/hotspots/\">Resilience Hotspots Initiative\u003c/a>, which identifies several climate-vulnerable communities — North Richmond shoreline, Suisun City, Newark, southwest Santa Rosa and Gilroy — and how they could benefit from nature-based solutions, or using the natural environment as resilience solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not just understanding a tree for its aesthetic purposes, but really understanding how that plays a role in stormwater capture and heat reduction in air purification,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative’s work in Gilroy and Santa Rosa is geared toward partnerships with local organizations to help respond to heat and wildfire risks while keeping equity in mind. In parts of Santa Rosa and other agriculture-based communities, predominantly Latino farmworker communities face the brunt of working outside in extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson said education is a big part of the gap that needs to be filled to help communities of color especially become resilient to climate impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Organizing and getting involved locally are some of the best ways to make change,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Poetzscher, who is part of a new climate-conscious generation, it’s the spirit of outreach that could promote hope in the face of our planet’s biggest crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I learned so much during this project,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of spreading awareness about this issue. But I think it’s better than before and it’s improving.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Brian Watt interviewed India Poetzscher. Listen to the audio \u003ca href=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/a717d537-56e0-46c2-842c-b06d0111e106/audio.mp3\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The Skin Chem app, winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in San Francisco County, aims to raise skin health awareness. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1693444500,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":26,"wordCount":1074},"headData":{"title":"San Francisco Teen Creates a Free App to Calculate Skin Risk Based on Location | KQED","description":"The Skin Chem app, winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in San Francisco County, aims to raise skin health awareness. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"San Francisco Teen Creates a Free App to Calculate Skin Risk Based on Location","datePublished":"2023-08-31T11:00:03.000Z","dateModified":"2023-08-31T01:15:00.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"audioUrl":"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/a717d537-56e0-46c2-842c-b06d0111e106/audio.mp3","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11959651/this-free-app-created-by-a-bay-area-teen-calculates-skin-health-risk-as-california-faces-heat-waves-and-wildfire-smoke","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>India Poetzscher has quantified the environmental risks to the largest organ in the human body. That’s no small feat for a senior attending University High School in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 17-year-old created the \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skinchem/id6447789991\">Skin Chem app\u003c/a>, which gives users a risk score based on their location. This number helps show how environmental conditions, such as sun exposure and air pollution, threaten skin health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people are becoming more aware about UV and how that affects your skin, but there are all these other chemicals that I don’t think they’re as aware of,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the UV index, Poetzscher wanted to highlight air pollution and other factors that affect skin health. The app includes a calculator feature that takes into account cigarette smoking, car traffic and daily sunscreen use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I decided to make an app because I feel like it’s very accessible in today’s society,” Poetzscher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has long been interested in skin care. As she learned about chemistry, she noticed certain beauty products have toxic compounds. She then began doing her own research, leading her to pursue an independent study class at school. Thus, the Skin Chem app was born. It won the 2022 Congressional App Challenge for California’s 12th District.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"singleTwitterStatus","attributes":{"named":{"id":"1649174665816932352"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Dr. Divya Seth, a procedural dermatology fellow at UCSF’s Dermatologic Surgery and Laser Center, said Skin Chem is promising in how it draws on environmental data to give people a snapshot of their risk on a particular day. During her medical training, she studied how the environment affects our skin, and in doing that work, she looked for similar tools. Nothing came close to Skin Chem, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although there are some different tools out there related to other types of environmental exposures, they don’t really come together in a way that directly allows you to figure out how they impact your skin specifically,” Seth said. “I think this app is unique in that it brings together that environmental data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about potential improvements to the app, Seth said while she sees the app as a great first step, she would like to see the technology give people actionable prompts. Right now, users get a risk score and are asked to take precautions — but the app doesn’t tell people to wear sunscreen or put on a hat. “As we think about how UV exposure leads to skin cancer, or how the particulate matter index can lead to different inflammatory skin conditions, I think having those next steps could be really important,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Poetzscher’s project initially began from an interest in personal skin care, the stakes for skin health could be getting higher as the climate crisis intensifies. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/\">report by the American Meteorological Society\u003c/a> found that climate change drove unprecedented heat waves, floods and droughts in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, extreme heat has been making headlines in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191238086/phoenix-ends-31-day-streak-of-highs-at-or-above-110-degrees-by-reaching-108#:~:text=Phoenix%20ends%2031%2Dday%20streak,degrees%20%E2%80%94%20by%20reaching%20108%20%3A%20NPR&text=Hourly%20News-,Phoenix%20ends%2031%2Dday%20streak%20of%20highs%20at%20or%20above,Arizona%20and%20into%20California's%20desert.\">Phoenix\u003c/a>, where record-breaking temperatures of more than 110 degrees lasted over a month. The hot weather spread into California, as well, with triple-digit temperatures seen in parts of the Bay and in the Central Valley.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"tag":"wildfire, technology","label":"More Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Institutions like UCSF are exploring the relationship between skin health and the climate. According to a 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle/2778632?guestAccessKey=8ae10d43-5a47-49a9-871f-333058452007\">UCSF study\u003c/a>, during the 2018 Camp Fire, which choked the Bay Area in wildfire smoke, health clinics in San Francisco saw an increase in the number of patient visits for eczema. The findings suggest that short-term exposure to hazardous air can be damaging to skin health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Seth, other U.S. research has shown that as pollutants or exposure to different factories in your area increases, there’s an increased risk of different inflammatory skin conditions. Lately, she has been looking into neighborhood disparities. Where you live may determine your propensity to certain skin conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One thing that I think is powerful about this app is looking at those hyperlocal conditions and understanding how those can change just based on built environment factors,” said Sadie Wilson, senior resilience manager at Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area nonprofit climate advocacy organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This hyperlocal attention — seen in the location-based approach of the Skin Chem app — is key to combating the larger threats emerging from the climate crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we think about climate change, usually in global emissions, all of them are adding up to have these huge shifts in our climate, we don’t often talk about how that results in really local conditions,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This local focus is showing up in the Greenbelt Alliance’s work with the summer launch of its \u003ca href=\"https://www.greenbelt.org/hotspots/\">Resilience Hotspots Initiative\u003c/a>, which identifies several climate-vulnerable communities — North Richmond shoreline, Suisun City, Newark, southwest Santa Rosa and Gilroy — and how they could benefit from nature-based solutions, or using the natural environment as resilience solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not just understanding a tree for its aesthetic purposes, but really understanding how that plays a role in stormwater capture and heat reduction in air purification,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative’s work in Gilroy and Santa Rosa is geared toward partnerships with local organizations to help respond to heat and wildfire risks while keeping equity in mind. In parts of Santa Rosa and other agriculture-based communities, predominantly Latino farmworker communities face the brunt of working outside in extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson said education is a big part of the gap that needs to be filled to help communities of color especially become resilient to climate impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Organizing and getting involved locally are some of the best ways to make change,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Poetzscher, who is part of a new climate-conscious generation, it’s the spirit of outreach that could promote hope in the face of our planet’s biggest crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I learned so much during this project,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of spreading awareness about this issue. But I think it’s better than before and it’s improving.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Brian Watt interviewed India Poetzscher. Listen to the audio \u003ca href=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/a717d537-56e0-46c2-842c-b06d0111e106/audio.mp3\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11959651/this-free-app-created-by-a-bay-area-teen-calculates-skin-health-risk-as-california-faces-heat-waves-and-wildfire-smoke","authors":["11724"],"categories":["news_19906","news_28250","news_8","news_356","news_248"],"tags":["news_2036","news_31570","news_33114","news_33116","news_33115","news_33117","news_33118","news_29851"],"featImg":"news_11959581","label":"news"},"news_11952517":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11952517","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11952517","score":null,"sort":[1686267342000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find","title":"Martinez Refinery's Chemical Release Poses No Long-Term Hazard, Tests Find","publishDate":1686267342,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Martinez Refinery’s Chemical Release Poses No Long-Term Hazard, Tests Find | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 6:10 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County health officials announced Thursday that soil testing conducted in the months after a Martinez oil refinery released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals last November has found no long-term health risks to residents in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli said the county is immediately lifting \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2023/0307-Safety-Advice-Near-Martinez-Refinery-Health-Advisory.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a March 7 advisory (PDF)\u003c/a> that recommended residents refrain from consuming fruits and vegetables grown in soil that had received fallout from the Martinez Refining Company’s release. The refinery company is owned and operated by PBF Energy, based in Parsippany, New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tzvieli said the soil testing and an associated risk assessment “confirms that the primary health risk from the spent catalyst release occurred in the initial hours and days after the refinery release.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soil-testing results were released to \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/hazmat/mrc/\">a community oversight committee\u003c/a> formed after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101892741/martinez-residents-seek-answers-on-toxic-refinery-release\">releases\u003c/a>, which occurred last Nov. 24–25, on Thanksgiving and the following day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tzvieli added during a media briefing that followed the committee meeting that because PBF failed to immediately notify officials about the release, questions remain about what health effects residents might experience because of their exposure to the toxic dust immediately after it settled on their neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We weren’t able to do measurement in real time because we didn’t know this was going on until several days later,” Tzvieli said. “So had we been able to do measurement in real time, we would have been able to look at concentrations — what was in the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the heavy metals in the dust, such as nickel, pose health concerns, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of those can have effects on the immune system, some of these metals can be carcinogenic. So it is a concerning incident,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, he added, the inability to measure the November release as it was occurring makes it hard to distinguish the hazard the incident posed from the impact of ongoing refinery emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So that’s why it’s hard to give people specific information about the risks that stemmed from this particular release,” Tzvieli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consultants hired by the county analyzed soil samples from 14 sites stretching from El Sobrante to Benicia for more than a dozen metals that may have been associated with the release of 24 tons of refinery dust — material described as “spent catalyst” used in the refining process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results for most of the heavy metals the samples were analyzed for, including aluminum, copper, nickel, zinc and chromium, all came back both within an expected regional background range and below residential health limits set by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jenny Phillips, a toxicologist employed by consultant TRC, reported that samples of arsenic and lead were close to or exceeded state health limits at a handful of sites. But she added that the higher levels of those two toxic metals were probably unrelated to last November’s refinery release. TRC’s report will be made available to the public sometime in the next two weeks, and it will be open for comment for 45 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Tony Semenza, Martinez resident and member of the oversight committee\"]‘One hundred ninety-four days after the release, we are now at the point where we’re telling people it’s OK to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables. The process is flawed.’[/pullquote]Matt Kaufmann, Contra Costa County’s deputy health director, emphasized that the investigation of the Martinez incident is far from over. The county has hired a consultant to perform an independent root cause analysis of the release, and county prosecutors are weighing potential charges against the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaufmann criticized the refining company for failing to immediately notify local officials when the incident occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The test results released Thursday “do not excuse the Martinez Refining Company for the lack of notification at the onset of this incident,” he said. “The lack of timely notification negated our ability as health officials to protect our community, including those most vulnerable, namely the medically compromised, the elderly and the children within our community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, PBF Energy spokesperson Brandon Matson said the company was “pleased” the county had released the soil-testing analysis and lifted its health advisory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The results are in line with our initial statements about the material,” Matson said. He also offered the latest in a string of apologies the company has offered to Martinez residents, saying the company has investigated the release, has identified corrective actions and is committed to implementing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Semenza, a Martinez resident serving on the oversight committee, expressed frustration that it has taken so long to assess the hazard posed by the releases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One hundred ninety-four days after the release, we are now at the point where we’re telling people it’s OK to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables,” Semenza said. “The process is flawed. This should have been done much quicker, a while ago. … I’m upset with the way the process works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More Refinery Coverage' postID=news_11947977]The test results come less than two weeks after the FBI confirmed it has launched a joint investigation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency into the Martinez plant’s spent catalyst release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Members of the refinery accountability group \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthymartinez.org/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Healthy Martinez\u003c/a> welcomed the largely reassuring test results, but expressed continuing misgivings about PBF and the refinery. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m grateful that the Thanksgiving release no longer poses serious danger and that Contra Costa Health has demonstrated leadership in this process, but I still don’t trust the refinery that didn’t report it,” said Martinez resident group member Jillian Elliott. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s results are only one piece of the larger issue,” said Heidi Taylor, a longtime Martinez resident and Healthy Martinez member. “It doesn’t change the fact that this oil refinery dumped toxic metals on our community (and) didn’t report it to county health.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy Martinez has also called on PBF to install improved emissions control and air monitoring equipment at the refinery. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FBI agents and EPA personnel have gone door to door asking residents about their experience during and after the incident. The probe also has included circulation of an online survey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez resident Wendy Ke said representatives from both federal agencies approached her late last month and asked a series of questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was primarily, ‘Do you have photos, do you have videos, do you have factual documentation? Did you touch the spent catalyst? Did you see it?’” Ke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the morning after Thanksgiving, her neighborhood was coated with what looked like ash, as if there had been a major wildfire nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it did look a little bit different,” she said. “It didn’t have a light-weight ash to it, like flaky ash. It seemed a little more sticky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same morning, resident Zachary Taylor found his neighborhood covered in dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just a consistent coating across everything, almost like a snowfall, like a light dusting, but then we go out across the street and absolutely everything is covered with it,” Taylor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11952523\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11952523\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A fine white powder collected on the edges and near the windshield wiper of a car shown in close detail.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Refinery dust known as ‘spent catalyst’ from the PBF Energy plant sits on a car windshield in Martinez in late November 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Anna Encarnacion)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Refinery catalyst is a powdered chemical compound used in the process of breaking down crude petroleum into products like gasoline. Spent catalyst is the material left over after the high-temperature refining process and contains a mix of potentially hazardous components.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Thursday’s test results were released, county health officials told Martinez residents that \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/hazmat/pdf/MRC-Catalyst-Release-FAQs.pdf\">the dust that coated homes, vehicles, lawns, gardens and a nearby schoolyard included heavy metals (PDF)\u003c/a>, including aluminum, chromium, nickel, vanadium and zinc. The county health department said there could have been short-term respiratory problems from breathing in the dust right after the incident, and that potential long-term health impacts would depend on each person’s exposure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County hired TRC, a Connecticut-based consulting and engineering firm, to take \u003ca href=\"https://cchealth.org/hazmat/mrc/pdf/Proposed-Sample-Locations-2023-0427.pdf\">soil samples in 14 locations (PDF)\u003c/a> from El Sobrante to Martinez to Benicia. Those locations were chosen after local air regulators \u003ca href=\"https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1867499/Martinez-City-Meeting-MRC_Incident_Slides-v5.pdf\">mapped fallout from the release (PDF)\u003c/a>. Crews began collecting samples in May. Health officials say the samples were taken to a lab to see which health risks they might pose through touching, inhaling or consuming food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, months after the refinery accident, \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2023/0307-Safety-Advice-Near-Martinez-Refinery-Health-Advisory.pdf\">the health department urged residents to refrain from eating food grown in soil that might contain the refinery dust (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also asked local prosecutors to file charges against PBF Energy. That request is under review, according to Ted Asregadoo, a Contra Costa County District Attorney spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asregadoo said the office is investigating whether PBF violated the law by failing to report an actual or threatened hazardous material release to county officials and whether the company made illegal discharges into the county stormwater system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials have emphasized that \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2022/1130-Hazardous-Materials-Release-at-Martinez-Oil-Refinery.php\">they learned about the releases not from the refinery but instead from residents\u003c/a>. The refinery initially told residents that its testing suggested the release consisted of only nontoxic material. The company also offered free carwash vouchers to Martinez residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has said \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/compliance-and-enforcement/incident-reports/2022/updated-incident-report-pbf-mrc-120922-draft-eg-pdf.pdf?la=en&rev=26aa2da8823e4d11b06437a9be2e9717\">the release was caused by a malfunction (PDF)\u003c/a> within the refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking unit. The air district has issued 21 notices of violation against PBF in connection with the November release and continues to investigate the incident, according to district spokesperson Ralph Borrmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PBF representatives have apologized for the releases, noting the company has cooperated with regulators and made changes to prevent a repeat of the Thanksgiving incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, some refinery neighbors say their sense of safety has been shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point I feel very uncertain about what I’m breathing, knowing what the potential is for release on a daily basis,” said Ke, who has lived in Martinez for more than a decade.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"November 2022 incident spread nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals over town, alarming residents and prompting advisory to avoid consuming food grown in soil affected by fallout. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1686334325,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":46,"wordCount":1744},"headData":{"title":"Martinez Refinery's Chemical Release Poses No Long-Term Hazard, Tests Find | KQED","description":"November 2022 incident spread nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals over town, alarming residents and prompting advisory to avoid consuming food grown in soil affected by fallout. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Martinez Refinery's Chemical Release Poses No Long-Term Hazard, Tests Find","datePublished":"2023-06-08T23:35:42.000Z","dateModified":"2023-06-09T18:12:05.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"WpOldSlug":"martinez-refinerys-dust-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 6:10 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County health officials announced Thursday that soil testing conducted in the months after a Martinez oil refinery released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered industrial chemicals last November has found no long-term health risks to residents in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli said the county is immediately lifting \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2023/0307-Safety-Advice-Near-Martinez-Refinery-Health-Advisory.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a March 7 advisory (PDF)\u003c/a> that recommended residents refrain from consuming fruits and vegetables grown in soil that had received fallout from the Martinez Refining Company’s release. The refinery company is owned and operated by PBF Energy, based in Parsippany, New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tzvieli said the soil testing and an associated risk assessment “confirms that the primary health risk from the spent catalyst release occurred in the initial hours and days after the refinery release.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soil-testing results were released to \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/hazmat/mrc/\">a community oversight committee\u003c/a> formed after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101892741/martinez-residents-seek-answers-on-toxic-refinery-release\">releases\u003c/a>, which occurred last Nov. 24–25, on Thanksgiving and the following day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tzvieli added during a media briefing that followed the committee meeting that because PBF failed to immediately notify officials about the release, questions remain about what health effects residents might experience because of their exposure to the toxic dust immediately after it settled on their neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We weren’t able to do measurement in real time because we didn’t know this was going on until several days later,” Tzvieli said. “So had we been able to do measurement in real time, we would have been able to look at concentrations — what was in the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the heavy metals in the dust, such as nickel, pose health concerns, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of those can have effects on the immune system, some of these metals can be carcinogenic. So it is a concerning incident,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, he added, the inability to measure the November release as it was occurring makes it hard to distinguish the hazard the incident posed from the impact of ongoing refinery emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So that’s why it’s hard to give people specific information about the risks that stemmed from this particular release,” Tzvieli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consultants hired by the county analyzed soil samples from 14 sites stretching from El Sobrante to Benicia for more than a dozen metals that may have been associated with the release of 24 tons of refinery dust — material described as “spent catalyst” used in the refining process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results for most of the heavy metals the samples were analyzed for, including aluminum, copper, nickel, zinc and chromium, all came back both within an expected regional background range and below residential health limits set by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jenny Phillips, a toxicologist employed by consultant TRC, reported that samples of arsenic and lead were close to or exceeded state health limits at a handful of sites. But she added that the higher levels of those two toxic metals were probably unrelated to last November’s refinery release. TRC’s report will be made available to the public sometime in the next two weeks, and it will be open for comment for 45 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘One hundred ninety-four days after the release, we are now at the point where we’re telling people it’s OK to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables. The process is flawed.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Tony Semenza, Martinez resident and member of the oversight committee","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Matt Kaufmann, Contra Costa County’s deputy health director, emphasized that the investigation of the Martinez incident is far from over. The county has hired a consultant to perform an independent root cause analysis of the release, and county prosecutors are weighing potential charges against the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaufmann criticized the refining company for failing to immediately notify local officials when the incident occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The test results released Thursday “do not excuse the Martinez Refining Company for the lack of notification at the onset of this incident,” he said. “The lack of timely notification negated our ability as health officials to protect our community, including those most vulnerable, namely the medically compromised, the elderly and the children within our community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, PBF Energy spokesperson Brandon Matson said the company was “pleased” the county had released the soil-testing analysis and lifted its health advisory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The results are in line with our initial statements about the material,” Matson said. He also offered the latest in a string of apologies the company has offered to Martinez residents, saying the company has investigated the release, has identified corrective actions and is committed to implementing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Semenza, a Martinez resident serving on the oversight committee, expressed frustration that it has taken so long to assess the hazard posed by the releases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One hundred ninety-four days after the release, we are now at the point where we’re telling people it’s OK to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables,” Semenza said. “The process is flawed. This should have been done much quicker, a while ago. … I’m upset with the way the process works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"More Refinery Coverage ","postid":"news_11947977"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The test results come less than two weeks after the FBI confirmed it has launched a joint investigation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency into the Martinez plant’s spent catalyst release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Members of the refinery accountability group \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthymartinez.org/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Healthy Martinez\u003c/a> welcomed the largely reassuring test results, but expressed continuing misgivings about PBF and the refinery. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m grateful that the Thanksgiving release no longer poses serious danger and that Contra Costa Health has demonstrated leadership in this process, but I still don’t trust the refinery that didn’t report it,” said Martinez resident group member Jillian Elliott. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s results are only one piece of the larger issue,” said Heidi Taylor, a longtime Martinez resident and Healthy Martinez member. “It doesn’t change the fact that this oil refinery dumped toxic metals on our community (and) didn’t report it to county health.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy Martinez has also called on PBF to install improved emissions control and air monitoring equipment at the refinery. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FBI agents and EPA personnel have gone door to door asking residents about their experience during and after the incident. The probe also has included circulation of an online survey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez resident Wendy Ke said representatives from both federal agencies approached her late last month and asked a series of questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was primarily, ‘Do you have photos, do you have videos, do you have factual documentation? Did you touch the spent catalyst? Did you see it?’” Ke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the morning after Thanksgiving, her neighborhood was coated with what looked like ash, as if there had been a major wildfire nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it did look a little bit different,” she said. “It didn’t have a light-weight ash to it, like flaky ash. It seemed a little more sticky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same morning, resident Zachary Taylor found his neighborhood covered in dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just a consistent coating across everything, almost like a snowfall, like a light dusting, but then we go out across the street and absolutely everything is covered with it,” Taylor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11952523\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11952523\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A fine white powder collected on the edges and near the windshield wiper of a car shown in close detail.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060723-MARTINEZ-DUST-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Refinery dust known as ‘spent catalyst’ from the PBF Energy plant sits on a car windshield in Martinez in late November 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Anna Encarnacion)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Refinery catalyst is a powdered chemical compound used in the process of breaking down crude petroleum into products like gasoline. Spent catalyst is the material left over after the high-temperature refining process and contains a mix of potentially hazardous components.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Thursday’s test results were released, county health officials told Martinez residents that \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/hazmat/pdf/MRC-Catalyst-Release-FAQs.pdf\">the dust that coated homes, vehicles, lawns, gardens and a nearby schoolyard included heavy metals (PDF)\u003c/a>, including aluminum, chromium, nickel, vanadium and zinc. The county health department said there could have been short-term respiratory problems from breathing in the dust right after the incident, and that potential long-term health impacts would depend on each person’s exposure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County hired TRC, a Connecticut-based consulting and engineering firm, to take \u003ca href=\"https://cchealth.org/hazmat/mrc/pdf/Proposed-Sample-Locations-2023-0427.pdf\">soil samples in 14 locations (PDF)\u003c/a> from El Sobrante to Martinez to Benicia. Those locations were chosen after local air regulators \u003ca href=\"https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1867499/Martinez-City-Meeting-MRC_Incident_Slides-v5.pdf\">mapped fallout from the release (PDF)\u003c/a>. Crews began collecting samples in May. Health officials say the samples were taken to a lab to see which health risks they might pose through touching, inhaling or consuming food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, months after the refinery accident, \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2023/0307-Safety-Advice-Near-Martinez-Refinery-Health-Advisory.pdf\">the health department urged residents to refrain from eating food grown in soil that might contain the refinery dust (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also asked local prosecutors to file charges against PBF Energy. That request is under review, according to Ted Asregadoo, a Contra Costa County District Attorney spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asregadoo said the office is investigating whether PBF violated the law by failing to report an actual or threatened hazardous material release to county officials and whether the company made illegal discharges into the county stormwater system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials have emphasized that \u003ca href=\"https://ccc.cchealth.org/press-releases/2022/1130-Hazardous-Materials-Release-at-Martinez-Oil-Refinery.php\">they learned about the releases not from the refinery but instead from residents\u003c/a>. The refinery initially told residents that its testing suggested the release consisted of only nontoxic material. The company also offered free carwash vouchers to Martinez residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has said \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/compliance-and-enforcement/incident-reports/2022/updated-incident-report-pbf-mrc-120922-draft-eg-pdf.pdf?la=en&rev=26aa2da8823e4d11b06437a9be2e9717\">the release was caused by a malfunction (PDF)\u003c/a> within the refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking unit. The air district has issued 21 notices of violation against PBF in connection with the November release and continues to investigate the incident, according to district spokesperson Ralph Borrmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PBF representatives have apologized for the releases, noting the company has cooperated with regulators and made changes to prevent a repeat of the Thanksgiving incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, some refinery neighbors say their sense of safety has been shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point I feel very uncertain about what I’m breathing, knowing what the potential is for release on a daily basis,” said Ke, who has lived in Martinez for more than a decade.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find","authors":["258","222"],"categories":["news_19906","news_457","news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_20389","news_20023","news_18543","news_227","news_20455","news_21107","news_226","news_29527","news_2920","news_26179","news_2919"],"featImg":"news_11952522","label":"news"},"news_11951866":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11951866","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11951866","score":null,"sort":[1685613605000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"are-zero-emissions-vehicles-making-a-dent-in-californias-air-pollution","title":"Are Zero-Emission Vehicles Making a Dent in California's Air Pollution?","publishDate":1685613605,"format":"audio","headTitle":"Are Zero-Emission Vehicles Making a Dent in California’s Air Pollution? | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3MDo218\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> listener Scott Mitchell got his first electric vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was exciting for him — not just because he got a shiny new car, but because he now felt part of the bigger social project of creating a fleet of zero-emission vehicles on the roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I equate it to when we switched from horse-drawn carriages to internal combustion engine cars. It’s that big of a revolution and it’s happening,” said Mitchell, a chemist living in San Carlos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But simultaneously, Mitchell, an outdoorsy kind of guy, says he regularly gets grossed out looking at the air quality on hot summer days. He runs a trail in the Rancho San Antonio hills near Los Altos, and says the view from the top can be brown and smoggy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get to the very top of the ridge, and you’re thinking you’ll see the skyline of San José. Instead, you see this smudgy view of the city that’s kind of blurry, and just looks gross,” said Mitchell. [baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitchell wants to know just how quickly California has absorbed zero-emission cars, and whether it’s significant enough to make a tangible difference in air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should take some pride in that and celebrate it if we’re doing good,” said Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As far as the fossil fuel-free car trend, there’s no question there’s been exponential growth in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, there were fewer than 800 zero-emission consumer vehicles on California roads, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/zero-emission-vehicle-and-infrastructure-statistics/light-duty-vehicle\">this dashboard put out by the California Energy Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of last year, the number of zero-emission vehicles Californians used in their everyday lives shot up to more than 1.1 million. And that’s not even counting gasoline hybrid cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, the counties with the highest number of zero-emission cars are the more urban ones; Los Angeles County has the most, then Orange County, then San Diego and the Bay Area counties of Santa Clara and Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now time for a little math. There are about 29 million cars on California roads right now, and only 1.1 million of them are zero-emission vehicles. Is that enough to clean up the air?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From a big-picture perspective, yes,” said Michael Benjamin, chief of air quality planning and science at the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, the state agency that tracks these things. “The sale of electric vehicles in California, which is increasing, is contributing to improvements in air quality that we’re seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past 20 years, the air quality in the Bay Area and statewide has improved. CARB data shows a clear downward trend in the number of days where air quality has exceeded limits set by the federal Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you ask people in Southern California who have lived there for 20 or 30 years or longer, ‘Could you see the mountains 20 years ago?,’ the answer would be no. Now it’s very common to see the mountains. And that’s a really good indicator of air pollution,” said Benjamin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to CARB, the improvements are in the two main kinds of pollution: ozone and particulate matter. Ozone is a main component in smog, and it can cause respiratory problems in people who live where pollution is high. Small-particle pollution comes from dust, soot and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in the year 2000 in the Bay Area, there were 29 days where particle pollution exceeded standards. In 2021, there were just two days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, the improvements in the Bay Area have been more significant than in the state as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to how much zero-emission cars have contributed to those air improvements, CARB says it’s hard to quantify, but in the Bay Area, it could be about 3% to 4%. Those numbers may sound low, but Benjamin says they’re sure to grow as more people phase out combustion engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vehicle emissions are just one piece of a larger air-quality puzzle. There are hundreds of sources of air pollution, such as lawnmowers, factories and trucks — and they’re also much cleaner than they used to be, according to the state air resources agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as usual with science, air quality is complex, and there’s a lot of variability year to year, so that downward trend in bad air days is not a straight line. With recent large wildfires in California, the number of bad air days has crept back up in certain years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in 2020 in the Bay Area, there were 25 days where particle pollution exceeded standards, and that year, according to CARB, was the worst wildfire year in California history. Those levels put us right back to the pollution we were seeing 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951886\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11951886\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The deep, dark orange glow of thick smoke surrounds an urban skyline. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the San Francisco skyline from Dolores Park in San Francisco on Sept. 9, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Air quality is also very much related to where we are in space on a particular day, and to meteorological conditions. The air we breathe is different if we are standing near a highway or in a park. And weather conditions such as wind, rain and sunlight affect air quality, not just sources of pollution like car exhaust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Benjamin said there is reason to celebrate ways clean air efforts have been successful, but there’s still a lot more work to do to address the inequalities people experience with pollution on a neighborhood level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he says wildfires, which have been getting bigger and more frequent, really put us in danger of reversing the air quality improvements we’ve made in recent decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are very happy with the improvements that we’ve seen over time in regional air pollution. But our job is only half done,” he said. “We need to transition again away from fossil fuel combustion as quickly as we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Zero-emission vehicles have become much more popular over the last decade. How much have they done to improve air quality?","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1708468135,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":true,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":30,"wordCount":1039},"headData":{"title":"Are Zero-Emission Vehicles Making a Dent in California's Air Pollution? | KQED","description":"Zero-emission vehicles have become much more popular over the last decade. How much have they done to improve air quality?","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Are Zero-Emission Vehicles Making a Dent in California's Air Pollution?","datePublished":"2023-06-01T10:00:05.000Z","dateModified":"2024-02-20T22:28:55.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"source":"Bay Curious","sourceUrl":"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious","audioUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC8987379119.mp3?updated=1685574563","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11951866/are-zero-emissions-vehicles-making-a-dent-in-californias-air-pollution","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3MDo218\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last October, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> listener Scott Mitchell got his first electric vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was exciting for him — not just because he got a shiny new car, but because he now felt part of the bigger social project of creating a fleet of zero-emission vehicles on the roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I equate it to when we switched from horse-drawn carriages to internal combustion engine cars. It’s that big of a revolution and it’s happening,” said Mitchell, a chemist living in San Carlos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But simultaneously, Mitchell, an outdoorsy kind of guy, says he regularly gets grossed out looking at the air quality on hot summer days. He runs a trail in the Rancho San Antonio hills near Los Altos, and says the view from the top can be brown and smoggy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get to the very top of the ridge, and you’re thinking you’ll see the skyline of San José. Instead, you see this smudgy view of the city that’s kind of blurry, and just looks gross,” said Mitchell. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitchell wants to know just how quickly California has absorbed zero-emission cars, and whether it’s significant enough to make a tangible difference in air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should take some pride in that and celebrate it if we’re doing good,” said Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As far as the fossil fuel-free car trend, there’s no question there’s been exponential growth in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, there were fewer than 800 zero-emission consumer vehicles on California roads, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/zero-emission-vehicle-and-infrastructure-statistics/light-duty-vehicle\">this dashboard put out by the California Energy Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of last year, the number of zero-emission vehicles Californians used in their everyday lives shot up to more than 1.1 million. And that’s not even counting gasoline hybrid cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, the counties with the highest number of zero-emission cars are the more urban ones; Los Angeles County has the most, then Orange County, then San Diego and the Bay Area counties of Santa Clara and Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now time for a little math. There are about 29 million cars on California roads right now, and only 1.1 million of them are zero-emission vehicles. Is that enough to clean up the air?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From a big-picture perspective, yes,” said Michael Benjamin, chief of air quality planning and science at the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, the state agency that tracks these things. “The sale of electric vehicles in California, which is increasing, is contributing to improvements in air quality that we’re seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past 20 years, the air quality in the Bay Area and statewide has improved. CARB data shows a clear downward trend in the number of days where air quality has exceeded limits set by the federal Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you ask people in Southern California who have lived there for 20 or 30 years or longer, ‘Could you see the mountains 20 years ago?,’ the answer would be no. Now it’s very common to see the mountains. And that’s a really good indicator of air pollution,” said Benjamin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to CARB, the improvements are in the two main kinds of pollution: ozone and particulate matter. Ozone is a main component in smog, and it can cause respiratory problems in people who live where pollution is high. Small-particle pollution comes from dust, soot and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in the year 2000 in the Bay Area, there were 29 days where particle pollution exceeded standards. In 2021, there were just two days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, the improvements in the Bay Area have been more significant than in the state as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to how much zero-emission cars have contributed to those air improvements, CARB says it’s hard to quantify, but in the Bay Area, it could be about 3% to 4%. Those numbers may sound low, but Benjamin says they’re sure to grow as more people phase out combustion engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vehicle emissions are just one piece of a larger air-quality puzzle. There are hundreds of sources of air pollution, such as lawnmowers, factories and trucks — and they’re also much cleaner than they used to be, according to the state air resources agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as usual with science, air quality is complex, and there’s a lot of variability year to year, so that downward trend in bad air days is not a straight line. With recent large wildfires in California, the number of bad air days has crept back up in certain years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in 2020 in the Bay Area, there were 25 days where particle pollution exceeded standards, and that year, according to CARB, was the worst wildfire year in California history. Those levels put us right back to the pollution we were seeing 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951886\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11951886\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The deep, dark orange glow of thick smoke surrounds an urban skyline. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS44792_006_KQED_SanFrancisco_OrangeSky_09092020-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the San Francisco skyline from Dolores Park in San Francisco on Sept. 9, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Air quality is also very much related to where we are in space on a particular day, and to meteorological conditions. The air we breathe is different if we are standing near a highway or in a park. And weather conditions such as wind, rain and sunlight affect air quality, not just sources of pollution like car exhaust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Benjamin said there is reason to celebrate ways clean air efforts have been successful, but there’s still a lot more work to do to address the inequalities people experience with pollution on a neighborhood level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he says wildfires, which have been getting bigger and more frequent, really put us in danger of reversing the air quality improvements we’ve made in recent decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are very happy with the improvements that we’ve seen over time in regional air pollution. But our job is only half done,” he said. “We need to transition again away from fossil fuel combustion as quickly as we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"baycuriousquestion","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11951866/are-zero-emissions-vehicles-making-a-dent-in-californias-air-pollution","authors":["11879"],"programs":["news_33523"],"series":["news_17986"],"categories":["news_8","news_33520"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_21693","news_30766"],"featImg":"news_11951887","label":"source_news_11951866"},"news_11950351":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11950351","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11950351","score":null,"sort":[1684846846000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","title":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’","publishDate":1684846846,"format":"standard","headTitle":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’ | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>A new father drove home from the hospital in downtown Modesto, scared — not by having a newborn baby, but by smoke-filled, “apocalyptic-looking skies.” Tom Helme couldn’t see past the next stoplight on the flat, straight road ahead. On that fall day in 2017, it was dark, he said, “like if a nuclear bomb went off, or something blocked the sun.” The San Joaquin Valley was already years into what regulators now say is a downward slide in air quality, choked by smoke from frequent wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to wildfire smoke is “ad hoc,” poorly resourced and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division, Environmental Protection Agency\"]‘If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage.’[/pullquote]“You could ask anybody working on wildfire smoke and the answer is no, we’re not doing enough,” said Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division in EPA Region 9, which includes California. “Not yet. Not yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three decades, \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">the number of acres burned by wildfire\u003c/a> has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. The new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tool for erasing some of the worst air-pollution days is called the “exceptional events” rule — a legal pathway that allows local regulators to make a case that air pollution from “natural” wildfires shouldn’t count against their federal air quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local regulators who seek to designate wildfires as exceptional events say doing so sets off a complex, burdensome process that is nonetheless essential to avoid slipping further away from meeting air quality standards — even if removing wildfire smoke from the record doesn’t actually clean up the air. According to the GAO, federal \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">regulators have granted such requests more often\u003c/a> over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Modesto, Helme first heard about exceptional events more than a year before his son’s birth, as a member of an environmental justice advisory group that meets with regulators. Officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had explained to the group that federal law permitted communities to avoid tighter regulation when pollution is “outside the control of the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme says that at that meeting, he wondered out loud whether smoke from fires was going to become the norm. “Do you picture a time when it’s not going to be considered exceptional because it happens every single year?” he asked. “And what are our options with that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC?lat=40.428019&lon=-101.796478&zoom=4.24\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Erasing dangerous smoke from the data\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1982166,science_1982448,science_1982494\" label=\"Related Posts\"]Wildfire smoke is one of the fastest-growing sources of air pollution in the United States. Particulate pollution from fires drives health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfires can cause irritation and inflammation of the lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, the 1970 Clean Air Act gives regulators little ability to take actions that could limit wildfire smoke. That’s because the landmark law focused on soot spewing from smokestacks and tailpipes. Policymakers viewed human-made pollution as the primary threat to public health, said University of Colorado at Boulder geographer Katie Clifford. “Ultimately the thinking about pollution was not about natural risks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the EPA, which enforces the Clean Air Act, has treated some wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions as naturally occurring outliers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage,” said the EPA’s Meredith Bauer. “It’s everything that’s outside of that that we would call an exceptional event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule, added to the Clean Air Act in 2005, has enabled regulators to ignore pollution data from some events when deciding whether a particular region must do more to improve its air quality. The closer that regions come to meeting federal air quality standards, the fewer restrictions local businesses and other polluters face. Forgiving wildfire pollution helps them meet those standards — and it has been happening more frequently over the last decade, according to the new GAO analysis, which named California, Colorado, Rhode Island and Texas as places that have sought to have wildfire pollution data excused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/\" width=\"1000\" height=\"350\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, a Stanford Law School professor who directs the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says the GAO’s findings are concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of the Clean Air Act is to protect people,” he said. “If a part of the law that was seldom used becomes frequently used, then the entire purposes of the act are being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes it clear that the exceptional events rule is one of the few tools the EPA has to respond to the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s very little legal or regulatory language defining EPA’s role in smoke management other than our exceptional events program,” said Anna Mebust, an atmospheric scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency who works on exceptional events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is “not something that the law was written to handle,” added Wara.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The GAO’s investigation also found that proving an exceptional event is burdensome. The EPA told the watchdog that “providing guidance for and reviewing the analyses demand a significant resource investment” for its regional offices. Local regulators described the process as overly cumbersome and convoluted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is literally hundreds of hours of work” to prove that smoke pollution is an exceptional event, said Mark Loutzenhiser, who manages monitoring, programs and rules for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exceptional event demonstrations can run to hundreds of pages, just to write off smoke pollution for a day or two. Successful arguments help local communities avoid having to enforce stricter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show where the wildfire is. Was the wind actually blowing it there? Do you have satellite proof?” Loutzenhiser said. The EPA “look[s] at all of the pollutants. They look at all the weather conditions and they check to see, what do we think the pollution should have been, versus what did we actually measure? And you have to do this for every day of these exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Hunter, interim air pollution control officer for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, says preparing for a future exceptional event designation also means extra work tracking public health advisories and media reports about fire severity — even while it’s still burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that effort during and after wildfires is costly. The GAO says some local and state regulators hire consultants to help, including government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In public documents, states estimate it can cost from $50,000 to $150,000 to prepare a filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1982166/the-epa-wants-cleaner-air-but-fire-experts-worry-new-rule-risks-making-it-worse\">the EPA considers tightening the national standard for fine particulates\u003c/a>, and as conditions for wildfires are worsening with climate change, regulators say they may see more requests to excuse that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do need some help here. If the EPA will be constantly asking us for these large, resource-intensive packages … can we not streamline that, with EPA assisting us, saying, yes, we know that there was this giant wildfire?” Hunter said. “That’s our plea to EPA: Please help us streamline this process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Health risks grow, resources don’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as smoke pollutes our air, the GAO reports that the EPA “does not have a coordinated agency-wide program or dedicated staff and resources for the agency’s work related to helping communities prepare for and respond to wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, work on wildfire smoke by the EPA is “done in addition to employees’ regular job duties.” Working on wildfire pollution is “like our Cinderella project — you know, after you’ve cleaned everything, you can go to the ball,” said EPA’s Bauer. “We work on this out of a passion for helping people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult to tap resources when we don’t have a mandate,” said the EPA’s Mebust. “I think our federal partners, their roles are more clearly defined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes a number of recommendations for the EPA to begin to better address pollution caused by wildfires. They include coordinating with other agencies to communicate risk and looking for ways to help reduce the likelihood of future smoke events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its response, EPA officials told the GAO that the programs that would accomplish these goals are underfunded and that it is “limited by its resources in its ability to respond to this growing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, exceptional events for wildfires are becoming less and less exceptional. “The data demonstrates that,” said Wara. “And we should be concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures by $128 million (PDF)\u003c/a> to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Joaquin Valley, Tom Helme’s son, now 5, struggles with asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme knows there are always going to be wildfires in California. But he’s not satisfied with the response of officials to those fires. “I don’t think they’re completely outside our control,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca id=\"howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">\u003c/a>How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C?backgroundColor=purple\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is a collaboration of California public radio stations. MuckRock is a nonprofit, collaborative platform and newsroom that brings together journalists, researchers and the public to request, analyze and share primary source data and documents in the public interest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Over the last three decades, the number of acres burned by wildfire has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. A new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1684880404,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":true,"iframeSrcs":["https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/","https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C"],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":44,"wordCount":1783},"headData":{"title":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’ | KQED","description":"Over the last three decades, the number of acres burned by wildfire has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. A new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’","datePublished":"2023-05-23T13:00:46.000Z","dateModified":"2023-05-23T22:20:04.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson (The California Newsroom) and Dillon Bergin (MuckRock)","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11950351/as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A new father drove home from the hospital in downtown Modesto, scared — not by having a newborn baby, but by smoke-filled, “apocalyptic-looking skies.” Tom Helme couldn’t see past the next stoplight on the flat, straight road ahead. On that fall day in 2017, it was dark, he said, “like if a nuclear bomb went off, or something blocked the sun.” The San Joaquin Valley was already years into what regulators now say is a downward slide in air quality, choked by smoke from frequent wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to wildfire smoke is “ad hoc,” poorly resourced and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division, Environmental Protection Agency","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You could ask anybody working on wildfire smoke and the answer is no, we’re not doing enough,” said Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division in EPA Region 9, which includes California. “Not yet. Not yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three decades, \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">the number of acres burned by wildfire\u003c/a> has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. The new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tool for erasing some of the worst air-pollution days is called the “exceptional events” rule — a legal pathway that allows local regulators to make a case that air pollution from “natural” wildfires shouldn’t count against their federal air quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local regulators who seek to designate wildfires as exceptional events say doing so sets off a complex, burdensome process that is nonetheless essential to avoid slipping further away from meeting air quality standards — even if removing wildfire smoke from the record doesn’t actually clean up the air. According to the GAO, federal \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">regulators have granted such requests more often\u003c/a> over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Modesto, Helme first heard about exceptional events more than a year before his son’s birth, as a member of an environmental justice advisory group that meets with regulators. Officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had explained to the group that federal law permitted communities to avoid tighter regulation when pollution is “outside the control of the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme says that at that meeting, he wondered out loud whether smoke from fires was going to become the norm. “Do you picture a time when it’s not going to be considered exceptional because it happens every single year?” he asked. “And what are our options with that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC?lat=40.428019&lon=-101.796478&zoom=4.24\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Erasing dangerous smoke from the data\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"science_1982166,science_1982448,science_1982494","label":"Related Posts "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is one of the fastest-growing sources of air pollution in the United States. Particulate pollution from fires drives health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfires can cause irritation and inflammation of the lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, the 1970 Clean Air Act gives regulators little ability to take actions that could limit wildfire smoke. That’s because the landmark law focused on soot spewing from smokestacks and tailpipes. Policymakers viewed human-made pollution as the primary threat to public health, said University of Colorado at Boulder geographer Katie Clifford. “Ultimately the thinking about pollution was not about natural risks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the EPA, which enforces the Clean Air Act, has treated some wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions as naturally occurring outliers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage,” said the EPA’s Meredith Bauer. “It’s everything that’s outside of that that we would call an exceptional event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule, added to the Clean Air Act in 2005, has enabled regulators to ignore pollution data from some events when deciding whether a particular region must do more to improve its air quality. The closer that regions come to meeting federal air quality standards, the fewer restrictions local businesses and other polluters face. Forgiving wildfire pollution helps them meet those standards — and it has been happening more frequently over the last decade, according to the new GAO analysis, which named California, Colorado, Rhode Island and Texas as places that have sought to have wildfire pollution data excused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/\" width=\"1000\" height=\"350\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, a Stanford Law School professor who directs the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says the GAO’s findings are concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of the Clean Air Act is to protect people,” he said. “If a part of the law that was seldom used becomes frequently used, then the entire purposes of the act are being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes it clear that the exceptional events rule is one of the few tools the EPA has to respond to the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s very little legal or regulatory language defining EPA’s role in smoke management other than our exceptional events program,” said Anna Mebust, an atmospheric scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency who works on exceptional events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is “not something that the law was written to handle,” added Wara.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The GAO’s investigation also found that proving an exceptional event is burdensome. The EPA told the watchdog that “providing guidance for and reviewing the analyses demand a significant resource investment” for its regional offices. Local regulators described the process as overly cumbersome and convoluted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is literally hundreds of hours of work” to prove that smoke pollution is an exceptional event, said Mark Loutzenhiser, who manages monitoring, programs and rules for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exceptional event demonstrations can run to hundreds of pages, just to write off smoke pollution for a day or two. Successful arguments help local communities avoid having to enforce stricter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show where the wildfire is. Was the wind actually blowing it there? Do you have satellite proof?” Loutzenhiser said. The EPA “look[s] at all of the pollutants. They look at all the weather conditions and they check to see, what do we think the pollution should have been, versus what did we actually measure? And you have to do this for every day of these exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Hunter, interim air pollution control officer for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, says preparing for a future exceptional event designation also means extra work tracking public health advisories and media reports about fire severity — even while it’s still burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that effort during and after wildfires is costly. The GAO says some local and state regulators hire consultants to help, including government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In public documents, states estimate it can cost from $50,000 to $150,000 to prepare a filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1982166/the-epa-wants-cleaner-air-but-fire-experts-worry-new-rule-risks-making-it-worse\">the EPA considers tightening the national standard for fine particulates\u003c/a>, and as conditions for wildfires are worsening with climate change, regulators say they may see more requests to excuse that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do need some help here. If the EPA will be constantly asking us for these large, resource-intensive packages … can we not streamline that, with EPA assisting us, saying, yes, we know that there was this giant wildfire?” Hunter said. “That’s our plea to EPA: Please help us streamline this process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Health risks grow, resources don’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as smoke pollutes our air, the GAO reports that the EPA “does not have a coordinated agency-wide program or dedicated staff and resources for the agency’s work related to helping communities prepare for and respond to wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, work on wildfire smoke by the EPA is “done in addition to employees’ regular job duties.” Working on wildfire pollution is “like our Cinderella project — you know, after you’ve cleaned everything, you can go to the ball,” said EPA’s Bauer. “We work on this out of a passion for helping people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult to tap resources when we don’t have a mandate,” said the EPA’s Mebust. “I think our federal partners, their roles are more clearly defined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes a number of recommendations for the EPA to begin to better address pollution caused by wildfires. They include coordinating with other agencies to communicate risk and looking for ways to help reduce the likelihood of future smoke events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its response, EPA officials told the GAO that the programs that would accomplish these goals are underfunded and that it is “limited by its resources in its ability to respond to this growing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, exceptional events for wildfires are becoming less and less exceptional. “The data demonstrates that,” said Wara. “And we should be concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures by $128 million (PDF)\u003c/a> to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Joaquin Valley, Tom Helme’s son, now 5, struggles with asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme knows there are always going to be wildfires in California. But he’s not satisfied with the response of officials to those fires. “I don’t think they’re completely outside our control,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca id=\"howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">\u003c/a>How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C?backgroundColor=purple\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is a collaboration of California public radio stations. MuckRock is a nonprofit, collaborative platform and newsroom that brings together journalists, researchers and the public to request, analyze and share primary source data and documents in the public interest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11950351/as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","authors":["byline_news_11950351"],"categories":["news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_21506","news_29523","news_29851"],"featImg":"news_11950397","label":"news"},"news_11943668":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11943668","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11943668","score":null,"sort":[1678991692000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"bay-area-regulators-approve-rules-to-phase-out-gas-furnaces-and-water-heaters","title":"Bay Area Regulators Approve Rules to Phase Out Gas Furnaces and Water Heaters","publishDate":1678991692,"format":"standard","headTitle":"KQED News","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Bay Area regulators on Wednesday approved landmark rules to begin phasing out and eventually banning the sale of new natural gas water heaters and furnaces in most of the nine-county region as part of a concerted effort to reduce air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1981511,news_11935585,news_11938934\"]Under \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/dotgov/files/rules/reg-9-rule-4-nitrogen-oxides-from-fan-type-residential-central-furnaces/2021-amendments/documents/20230127_factsheet_rg09040906-pdf.pdf?la=en\">the ambitious timeline (PDF)\u003c/a> established by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, only zero-emission, electric water heaters can be sold or installed in Bay Area homes or businesses starting in 2027. The same goes for furnaces starting in 2029, and large commercial water heaters in 2031.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The 1.8 million water heaters and furnaces in the Bay Area significantly impact our air quality, resulting in dozens of early deaths and a wide range of health impacts, particularly in communities of color,\" \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2023/barules_230315_2023_003-pdf.pdf?la=en\">Philip Fine, executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said in a statement (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials emphasized the rules only apply to new water heaters and furnace purchases, and won't require the immediate replacement of existing appliances. People can also still repair their broken-down gas appliances, but won't be able to purchase new ones after the rules go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules also have no bearing on gas stoves, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-stoves-igniting-a-new-range-war/\">an issue that has become a national political flashpoint\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the air board's move has sweeping implications for the roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/dotgov/files/rules/reg-9-rule-4-nitrogen-oxides-from-fan-type-residential-central-furnaces/2021-amendments/documents/20230127_factsheet_rg09040906-pdf.pdf?la=en\">two-thirds of households in the Bay Area that still rely on natural gas appliances (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gas appliances in residential and commercial buildings in the region account for a similar amount of harmful nitrogen oxide — or NOx — emissions as passenger vehicles, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOx emissions contribute to the formation of ozone and smog, and exposure has been linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions, along with increased risk of heart attack, stroke, lung cancer and premature death, officials said. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Philip Fine, executive officer, Bay Area Air Quality Management District\"]'This groundbreaking regulation will phase out the most polluting appliances in homes and businesses to protect Bay Area residents from the harmful air pollution they cause.'[/pullquote]\"While we're talking about two basic appliances that many of us take for granted in our homes, they have tremendous implications not only from an emissions perspective, but also from a public health perspective,\" said Fernando Gaytan, attorney with environmental group Earthjustice, which advocated for the new rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move comes less than a year after \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-09-23/california-moves-to-ban-natural-gas-furnaces-and-heaters-by-2030\">California regulators voted to ban the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters\u003c/a> beginning in 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AirDistrict/status/1636130138932019201\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency said the new rules will dramatically improve regional air quality, estimating it will avoid roughly $890 million in health impacts per year, and about 85 premature deaths, from poor air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This groundbreaking regulation will phase out the most polluting appliances in homes and businesses to protect Bay Area residents from the harmful air pollution they cause,\" Fine said in the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 public commenters, many voicing support for the new rules, spoke in rapid succession at Wednesday's hearing, including public health experts, renters and a group of eighth-grade students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I’m here because I have an 18-month-old grandson who's already using an inhaler,\" East Bay resident Bill Olson told the air board. \"These rules are future looking. ... I urge the board to help my grandson and all young people.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency said it hopes to implement the rules equitably and cost-efficiently, noting residents' concerns about the steep cost of buying and installing new electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/board-of-directors/2023/bod_presentation_031523_op-pdf.pdf?la=en&rev=d6dcb3bb2c0245859db97c5b880006e7\">A new, zero-NOx electric heater will cost roughly $8,030 (PDF)\u003c/a>, according to air district estimates released Wednesday. An electrical panel upgrade, if necessary, adds another $2,630 to the total price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a zero-NOx electric water heater costs about $2,820, plus roughly $960 for any needed panel upgrade, the agency estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/inflation-reduction-act-residential-energy-rebate-programs-california\">rebates for home energy-efficiency and electrification projects are currently available\u003c/a> through the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last summer, and will increase significantly in 2024, according to the California Energy Commission. They include an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-01-27/looking-for-inflation-reduction-act-rebates-to-go-green-get-ready-to-wait\">$8,000 rebate for heat pumps that can warm and cool homes, $1,750 for heat pump water heaters and $4,000 for electrical system upgrades\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED's Anna Marie Yanny and Laura Klivans contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Under the landmark rules, only zero-emission, electric water heaters can be sold or installed in Bay Area homes and businesses starting in 2027. The same goes for furnaces starting in 2029, and large commercial water heaters in 2031.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1678993733,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":20,"wordCount":737},"headData":{"title":"Bay Area Regulators Approve Rules to Phase Out Gas Furnaces and Water Heaters | KQED","description":"Under the landmark rules, only zero-emission, electric water heaters can be sold or installed in Bay Area homes and businesses starting in 2027. The same goes for furnaces starting in 2029, and large commercial water heaters in 2031.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Bay Area Regulators Approve Rules to Phase Out Gas Furnaces and Water Heaters","datePublished":"2023-03-16T18:34:52.000Z","dateModified":"2023-03-16T19:08:53.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11943668/bay-area-regulators-approve-rules-to-phase-out-gas-furnaces-and-water-heaters","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Bay Area regulators on Wednesday approved landmark rules to begin phasing out and eventually banning the sale of new natural gas water heaters and furnaces in most of the nine-county region as part of a concerted effort to reduce air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"science_1981511,news_11935585,news_11938934"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Under \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/dotgov/files/rules/reg-9-rule-4-nitrogen-oxides-from-fan-type-residential-central-furnaces/2021-amendments/documents/20230127_factsheet_rg09040906-pdf.pdf?la=en\">the ambitious timeline (PDF)\u003c/a> established by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, only zero-emission, electric water heaters can be sold or installed in Bay Area homes or businesses starting in 2027. The same goes for furnaces starting in 2029, and large commercial water heaters in 2031.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The 1.8 million water heaters and furnaces in the Bay Area significantly impact our air quality, resulting in dozens of early deaths and a wide range of health impacts, particularly in communities of color,\" \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2023/barules_230315_2023_003-pdf.pdf?la=en\">Philip Fine, executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said in a statement (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials emphasized the rules only apply to new water heaters and furnace purchases, and won't require the immediate replacement of existing appliances. People can also still repair their broken-down gas appliances, but won't be able to purchase new ones after the rules go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules also have no bearing on gas stoves, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-stoves-igniting-a-new-range-war/\">an issue that has become a national political flashpoint\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the air board's move has sweeping implications for the roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/dotgov/files/rules/reg-9-rule-4-nitrogen-oxides-from-fan-type-residential-central-furnaces/2021-amendments/documents/20230127_factsheet_rg09040906-pdf.pdf?la=en\">two-thirds of households in the Bay Area that still rely on natural gas appliances (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gas appliances in residential and commercial buildings in the region account for a similar amount of harmful nitrogen oxide — or NOx — emissions as passenger vehicles, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOx emissions contribute to the formation of ozone and smog, and exposure has been linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions, along with increased risk of heart attack, stroke, lung cancer and premature death, officials said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"'This groundbreaking regulation will phase out the most polluting appliances in homes and businesses to protect Bay Area residents from the harmful air pollution they cause.'","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Philip Fine, executive officer, Bay Area Air Quality Management District","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\"While we're talking about two basic appliances that many of us take for granted in our homes, they have tremendous implications not only from an emissions perspective, but also from a public health perspective,\" said Fernando Gaytan, attorney with environmental group Earthjustice, which advocated for the new rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move comes less than a year after \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-09-23/california-moves-to-ban-natural-gas-furnaces-and-heaters-by-2030\">California regulators voted to ban the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters\u003c/a> beginning in 2030.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"singleTwitterStatus","attributes":{"named":{"id":"1636130138932019201"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The agency said the new rules will dramatically improve regional air quality, estimating it will avoid roughly $890 million in health impacts per year, and about 85 premature deaths, from poor air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This groundbreaking regulation will phase out the most polluting appliances in homes and businesses to protect Bay Area residents from the harmful air pollution they cause,\" Fine said in the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 public commenters, many voicing support for the new rules, spoke in rapid succession at Wednesday's hearing, including public health experts, renters and a group of eighth-grade students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I’m here because I have an 18-month-old grandson who's already using an inhaler,\" East Bay resident Bill Olson told the air board. \"These rules are future looking. ... I urge the board to help my grandson and all young people.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency said it hopes to implement the rules equitably and cost-efficiently, noting residents' concerns about the steep cost of buying and installing new electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/board-of-directors/2023/bod_presentation_031523_op-pdf.pdf?la=en&rev=d6dcb3bb2c0245859db97c5b880006e7\">A new, zero-NOx electric heater will cost roughly $8,030 (PDF)\u003c/a>, according to air district estimates released Wednesday. An electrical panel upgrade, if necessary, adds another $2,630 to the total price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a zero-NOx electric water heater costs about $2,820, plus roughly $960 for any needed panel upgrade, the agency estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/inflation-reduction-act-residential-energy-rebate-programs-california\">rebates for home energy-efficiency and electrification projects are currently available\u003c/a> through the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last summer, and will increase significantly in 2024, according to the California Energy Commission. They include an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-01-27/looking-for-inflation-reduction-act-rebates-to-go-green-get-ready-to-wait\">$8,000 rebate for heat pumps that can warm and cool homes, $1,750 for heat pump water heaters and $4,000 for electrical system upgrades\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED's Anna Marie Yanny and Laura Klivans contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11943668/bay-area-regulators-approve-rules-to-phase-out-gas-furnaces-and-water-heaters","authors":["1263"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_20628","news_32536","news_32538","news_32537"],"featImg":"news_11943706","label":"news"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.","airtime":"SUN 2pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.possible.fm/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"Possible"},"link":"/radio/program/possible","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"}},"1a":{"id":"1a","title":"1A","info":"1A is home to the national conversation. 1A brings on great guests and frames the best debate in ways that make you think, share and engage.","airtime":"MON-THU 11pm-12am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/1a.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://the1a.org/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/1a","subscribe":{"npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW","apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=1188724250&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/1A-p947376/","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510316/podcast.xml"}},"all-things-considered":{"id":"all-things-considered","title":"All Things Considered","info":"Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. 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Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.","airtime":"MON-FRI 3am-9am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/morning-edition"},"onourwatch":{"id":"onourwatch","title":"On Our Watch","tagline":"Police secrets, unsealed","info":"For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"On Our Watch from NPR and KQED","officialWebsiteLink":"/podcasts/onourwatch","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"1"},"link":"/podcasts/onourwatch","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw","npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/onourwatch","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"}},"on-the-media":{"id":"on-the-media","title":"On The Media","info":"Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us","airtime":"SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm","meta":{"site":"news","source":"wnyc"},"link":"/radio/program/on-the-media","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/","rss":"http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"}},"our-body-politic":{"id":"our-body-politic","title":"Our Body Politic","info":"Presented by KQED, KCRW and KPCC, and created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.","airtime":"SAT 6pm-7pm, SUN 1am-2am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Our-Body-Politic-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kcrw"},"link":"/radio/program/our-body-politic","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/our-body-politic/id1533069868","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9feGFQaHMxcw","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/4ApAiLT1kV153TttWAmqmc","rss":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/_xaPhs1s","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Our-Body-Politic-p1369211/"}},"pbs-newshour":{"id":"pbs-newshour","title":"PBS NewsHour","info":"Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.","airtime":"MON-FRI 3pm-4pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"pbs"},"link":"/radio/program/pbs-newshour","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/","rss":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"}},"perspectives":{"id":"perspectives","title":"Perspectives","tagline":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991","info":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991.","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Perspectives-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"/perspectives/","meta":{"site":"radio","source":"kqed","order":"15"},"link":"/perspectives","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives","rss":"https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"}},"planet-money":{"id":"planet-money","title":"Planet Money","info":"The economy explained. 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