Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District

The California Court of Appeal rejected challenges to an environmental impact report (EIR) prepared for an oil refinery project in the Los Angeles area. The petitioners had alleged that the EIR failed to disclose the increase in the amount of crude oil that would be refined at the facility and the full scope of impacts, including direct, indirect, and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. The appellate court ruled for the respondents on all four issues raised by the petitioners on appeal, including whether a proper baseline was used in the EIR, whether the EIR should have disclosed input crude oil composition, and whether the EIR was required to disclose the existing volume of crude oil the refinery processes as a whole or the refinery’s unused capacity.

On September 21, 2018, the California Superior Court ruled against Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), an environmental justice organization, in its California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit challenging the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s approval of a refinery project in Los Angeles County. CBE alleged that the environmental impact report (EIR) for the refinery project masked the underlying purposes of significantly increasing the amount of crude oil at the refinery and allowing the processing of dirtier crude oil. CBE asserted that there were numerous deficiencies in the EIR, including low estimates of local air pollution and failure to disclose direct, indirect, and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. The court found that substantial evidence supported the District’s determination that the project’s increase in crude storage capacity was not intended to and did not permit an increase in crude processing. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the EIR’s conclusions.