This article was originally published on claudiajimenezforrichmond.com on August 14, 2024
Today, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously to approve an agreement in which the Chevron Corporation will pay the City of Richmond more than a half BILLION dollars in taxes over the next ten years!
I am proud to have served alongside Councilmember Doria Robinson and Mayor Eduardo Martinez on the ad-hoc committee that negotiated the terms of this historic settlement. Our committee bargained with Chevron until they raised their initial offer of $300 million to the final offer of $550 million and agreed with us that all decisions about spending will be made by the City Council alone. This is a victory for Richmond and a testament to what people can do when we organize.
How Did This Happen?
While things moved quickly as we approached the deadline for this settlement, a longer process led to this successful outcome. Back in June, with the input of community environmental groups and city residents, the Mayor and I brought forward a measure to increase taxes on the Chevron refinery. That measure, known as the “Make Polluters Pay” refinery tax, was unanimously approved by the council to be placed before voters in the November election.
During our August recess, Chevron initiated talks with the city and eventually offered a large settlement rather than face the vote that would create the new tax. The City Council held special meetings yesterday and today to discuss the terms of that offer, hear public comment, and vote on it. The agreement was approved unanimously by the City Council this afternoon. In exchange for the $550 million payout from Chevron, the Council has agreed to instruct the County to remove the refinery tax measure from the November ballot.
I know there are mixed feelings about removing the measure. It’s a great measure! While I am confident that Richmond voters would have approved it, and I would have truly enjoyed campaigning in favor of it, I was worried that the US court system would take Chevron’s side instead of ours in the inevitable legal battle over the tax. Given the risk of losing everything in the courts, as well as the time and the cost of litigation, when we saw an opportunity to guarantee that Chevron would start paying the taxes starting next year, we pivoted in that direction. You can read more about it in the agenda documents here and watch the meeting here once it is posted.
Gratitude for Our Team
Throughout this process, I have enjoyed working alongside city leaders that had the wisdom and political courage to unanimously approve both the original measure to tax Chevron and the settlement we reached with them this week. We were aided by the expertise of city staff in bringing this deal to life in a short time frame.
I also want to thank Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), their sister organizations CBE Action and APEN Action, and the many academics and outside counsel that helped us develop the ideas. We thank those who made phone calls and knocked doors to build support for it – we would not be here without this broad base of support. We are proud of the decades of deep community organizing in Richmond that was able to hold our biggest polluter accountable and to make polluters pay.
What’s Next?
By entering into this agreement, the city is guaranteed half a billion dollars in funds that will allow us to protect and grow essential city services, fund initiatives to help Richmond transition to a green economy, and set aside money for the day that the Chevron refinery stops operating and leaves a hole in the city’s revenue base. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that these funds are used both to meet immediate needs AND to invest in a just transition away from oil for refinery communities.