California Lawmakers Divided Over Polluters' Pay Plan to Combat Climate Crisis

Peering through an opening of a tree-lined fence on Castro Street earlier this month, Mishek, wearing a grey T-shirt and high-waisted jeans, said: “It’s very hard to turn down a deal like this,” even if the Richmond resident had wanted more from the company. “Half a billion dollars is pennies,” for big corporations, she said.

Chevron’s touch is all around Richmond. Oil tanks on hills loom over the community. Trains split the city. The company played a pivotal role in helping the city become an industrial powerhouse, stimulating the West Contra Costa County economy to the tune of approximately $1 billion each year, according to a report commissioned by the company. But advocates claim that having a refinery in town comes with significant health implications, like higher rates of asthma.

“What’s so insidious about environmental harm is it’s often invisible,” Mishek said.

A group of California Senate and Assembly lawmakers have now proposed a similar plan — the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025 — that would require companies to pay the state money retroactively for their oil production between 1990 and 2024, to address the damages they argue Californians are facing now and in the future as a result. Climate policy experts said that if the bill passes, it will become entangled in legal battles. The legislation already faces fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers and a slew of influential groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, the State Building Construction Trades Council and the oil industry.

The Western States Petroleum Association, in an email, called it “a misguided proposal to retroactively punish companies for providing a legal product that was, and remains, critical to our state’s economy.”

Marie Choi, communications director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which helped spearhead the ballot measure in Richmond, said state lawmakers should look to the campaign in that city — where organizers leveraged local support — as a guide as they pursue the controversial policy.

“There’s a reason that Chevron came to the table, settled and didn’t even want to see this go on the ballot because there was overwhelming support in the community,” she said. “For lawmakers in Sacramento who are inundated with oil lobbyists, it can be hard to remember that it is very much the reality of how people feel on the ground.”

‘Protecting all of California’

For bill author Sen. Caroline Menjivar, D-Panorama City, the policy is a personal matter.

January’s devastating Los Angeles fires destroyed thousands of homes and caused other damages that will cost north of $100 billion, according to early estimates. It was like climate change smacking her district across the face, she said.