After the fire in El Segundo, who is watching the refineries in California?

From Alejandro LazoCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

The explosion shook windows in nearby neighborhoods. Orange columns made of flames fired as bulging by stacks and pipes, uncontrolled.

The incident that shook El Segundo’s refinery of Shevron last week would once cause a federal investigation. Not anymore.

As the Trump administration is moving to weaken the US Chemical Safety Council, California has not yet said whether an agency, department or organ will take responsibility for a comprehensive investigation when a refinery breaks out – something that happened twice this year.

Separately, in response to the fears of higher gas prices, governor Gavin Newo and state legislators opened the door to More drillingAnd government agencies have slowed or moved to loosen new supervision measures.

“This raises the question of who is watching the refineries,” said Jamie Court, president of the consumer guard. “They are the most dangerous production facilities we have in our communities.”

Scientists and engineers, as well as local agencies and fence communities, have considered the current Council on Chemical Safety as a vital source of information in the causes of the main incidents in refineries. The Independent Federal Agency “was the gold standard for investigations of this type of incident,” said Greg Karas, an environmental defender and an independent consultant.

But the Trump administration claims that the council “duplicates significant responsibilities” of other agencies. In the first term of President Donald Trump, the White House suggested that the board be eliminated; In this second term, the employees of the executive branch again offered to reset their budget.

The California Environmental Protection Agency does not lead a broad, multi -regulatory investigation after the explosion on October 2. Instead, says Calepa spokesman Diana Ibrahim, the agency is ready to support the El Segundo Fire Service, which will lead a safety review.

Other state, regional and local agencies are investigating for their own goals – a Specialized unit of the California Department of Industrial Relationships for Workers’ Dangers, the South Coast Air Management area for pollution and the California Fuel Energy Committee – while Chevron conducts its own internal examination.

“This is quite enhanced,” said Earthjustice’s lawyer Oscar Espino-Padron. “It is often difficult to focus on a body that really helps to coordinate and compile all the necessary information.”

Earlier this year, an explosion in the Martinez refinery owned by PBF Energy wounded six workers and caused a shelter order. The incidents of Martinez and El Segundo are the latest in a series of almost a dozen major explosions and fires of the refinery in California over the last decade.

Some legislators and defenders are disappointed that the state has not yet outstripped the problem.

“A fire in El Segundo has to happen to … to wake up?” State Senis said. Lena GonzalezDemocrat from Long Beach, whose bill to create a state standard for air monitoring for Rafinery was Imposed by Newsom last yearS “It’s just so ridiculous.”

Guardians said they were fighting reding in the refineries

State and local agencies, which have launched after the fire after the fire last week, have fought to apply the rules of refinery in the past, according to observers.

In the five years leading to the explosion, inspectors for the quality of air quality in the south coast issued 46 notifications to violate Shevron in El Segundo. The most recent, issued on July 30, claims that the refinery Failed to control excess gas combustion in its isomax, which uses hydrogen, heat and pressure to break down the larger oils into lighter fuels as jet fuel. This is the same part of the refinery that started last week.

This notice has not yet been finalized, a process that may take months or years. Espino-Padron, Earthjustice’s lawyer, said the Air District supervision is often opaque, with residents having no easy way to understand when or how a violation notice is resolved. Sanctions also tend to be minimal, he said.

“The reality is that there are not enough staff to really provide adequate supervision of these operations,” he said. “What you see is not a significant, stable application.”

Rainbow Yeung, a spokesman for Air District South Coast, has rejected criticism of the practices of the inspection, application and transparency of the area. Yong said the area coordinated with other agencies on possible implementation actions “in view of the public protection.”

In the Chevron facility, Kalosha found 18 inspections for incidents and complaints over the last decade, ultimately issuing nearly two dozen violations. Kalosha’s most investigation began on September 11th.

Gareth Brown, a retired agency employee, said the inspection teams had short staff. The agency’s ability to investigate is “compromised”, he said in part because of recent turnover.

Dennis Gomez of the Ministry of Industrial Relations says that Cal/Osha “has constantly fulfilled its duties” by responding to the incidents with the refinery and “continues to strengthen its specialized workforce through active recruitment and training for the protection of workers and maintaining the leading program for the safety of the refinery in California.”

Safety standards are confronted

California has some of the most difficult rules for the safety of the refinery due to two more explosions -one in 2012 in the Richmond Refinery of Shevron and the other in 2015 in ExxonMobil in Torrance. The rules are built around the process safety concept, which requires refinery to identify and determine the dangers before accidents appear and to include workers directly into investigations when they do. The system is designed to prevent the type of cascade damage that caused the refinery explosions in the past.

But since the Western State Petroleum Association filed a rules to block them, calling them burdensome, Kalepa and other government agencies quietly regulate the case. Unions and defenders say the revisions of two provisions challenged by this agreement can weaken Main precautions.

The agency updated the Rapine Rafinery Running Program and has not yet finalized these revisions. So far, a rule of rule in the State Workplace Safety Agency has been unchanged; The regulators propose to update the rule next year.

WSPA spokesman Jim Stanley did not specifically comment on the rules of settlement or processes safety, but he claims that refineries in California follow some of the most striking rules of the industry.

“From Kalosha to the local air areas to California, the EPA Rafiners work closely with regulators at all levels of management and our labor partners to minimize the risk of accidents, keep workers and communities safe and comply with environmental standards,” he said.

But Mike Smith, chairman of the National Petroleum Negotiation Program United Steelworkers, said that the heart of the refinery safety has experts on site who can fully understand what is happening inside the plant.

“Obviously, any weakening of safety rules in the refining sector is not good,” he said.

Smith said the rules were threatened after the Union was excluded from negotiations to settle between the industry and the state because of these protocols.

“The foundation is really the participation of employees,” Smith said. “Plant experts play a role.”

The debate about these revisions comes when political priorities in California are shifted – from tightening the refinery supervision to maintaining fuel.

California relieves oil

In an effort to reduce gas prices and keep up with growing energy needs, democratic leaders in California have softened their position on the oil industry this year. For years, Newsom has blown up high gas prices refineries and has promised to remove the drilling. Faced with the threat of refinery closure, potentially impenetrable supplies and price increases, it also changed the course.

In 2024, two days after the signing of a measure Aimed at pricing and maintenance schedules, Phillips 66 announced that it would Close your refinery in Los Angeles By the end of 2025, citing doubts about the stability of the California market. In April, Valerro said he would close his refinery in Benisia next year, accusing a challenging regulatory environment.

Last month Newsom signed a bill This opened the way to new wells in Kern County. At the same time the Energy Commission delayed performance Of many of the measures that Newsom had previously been pressed as such as fuel stocks, delivery after interruptions, refinery maintenance and long -term discouragement Penalty to retrieve pricesS

Critics claim that these moves have left the country more exposed to price spikes after the El Segundo fire and without strong instruments for constant maintenance or holding of refineries. This is “very dangerous at times like this,” the consumer court said.

Stanley, a WSPA spokesman, said the rules for refinery and other measures were impractical.

After the fire, Shevron made adjustments to his operations to provide fuel delivery to Southern California, Reuters reported. Chevron spokesman Sean Komi told Calmatters that the refinery stopped the flow of output products of the refinery product at night of the incident, but restarted them after three hours.

The energy committee said it was focused on maintaining fuel reserves steadily and prices were decreasing. But in a key report Posted this summer, the commissioners have warned that years of insufficient investment and deferred maintenance have created “challenges of safety and reliability” in aging refineries. The report urged the state to stabilize fuel supplies through a combination of legislative and regulatory steps – including the postponement of the rules for termination of more closing.

Nicky Wuder, a spokesman for the California Energy Committee, said El Segundo’s fire is expected to hit jet fuel supplies harder than gasoline, with jet prices jumping around 30 cents on Friday and minor changes to the pump after the incident.

Although the pump prices have hardly moved, some experts warn that state efforts to preserve affordable fuel may come at the expense of safety. Environment Consultant Karas said the state should consider the safety of refinery as an economic problem.

“The state’s refinement fleet has reached the point where it simply cannot continue to explode without starting to import gasoline,” he said.

As the federal government has ignited and Trump’s recent budget is moving permanently aboard the US chemical safety, Karas said state leaders can still gather a strong independent investigation into El Segundo fire or former chemical safety experts.

“There is extensive experience and experience to investigate if the state leadership had political will,” he said.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.