Communities for a Better Environment v. City of Paramount

Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court challenging the Paramount City Council’s environmental review for a biofuels project at an existing refinery site that the groups alleged was located in the middle of a residential area and adjacent to three schools. The groups alleged that the City violated the California Environmental Quality Act, including by failing to adequately address potential climate change impacts. In particular, the groups contended that the City failed to adequately evaluate “the environmental and climate impacts that will result from competition for limited quantities of feedstock and increases in oil crop production or foreign imports that are associated with current biofuel trends.” The groups said land use changes to produce feedstocks for biofuels could increase greenhouse gas emissions and cause other impacts. In addition, the groups alleged that the final supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR) used an outdated threshold to analyze the project’s climate change impacts. The petition also asserted that the final SEIR failed to adequately mitigate the project’s climate change impacts from greenhouse gas emissions during construction and operations and instead relied on California’s cap-and-trade program to mitigate the project’s emissions even after the program’s 2030 expiration date.