The city council has approved a resolution opposing a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline that would funnel the gas compound from Bay Area refineries, including Chevron’s in Richmond, and store it underground in Solano County.
The resolution, symbolic in nature as no project has come before the city, passed Tuesday, with council members Jamelia Brown and Soheila Bana abstaining and the five others voting in favor.
The vote makes Richmond the first city in the state to approve a resolution opposing a carbon dioxide waste pipeline, according to a group that’s fighting it.
Carbon pipelines have been controversial nationally, particularly in the Midwest, where such projects are facing lawsuits by landowners who have safety concerns and/or object to their property being seized via eminent domain. Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring colorless, odorless gas that can become dangerous in high concentrations because it displaces oxygen.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last year lifted a state moratorium on carbon removal projects, and last week environmental justice and climate groups said they met with California’s Office of the State Fire Marshal’s (OSFM) Pipeline Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) to discuss proposed draft regulations on carbon dioxide pipelines and to call on regulators to include vital public safety measures in its regulations, according to a press release.
The project, the Montezuma NorCal Carbon Sequestration Hub, by Emeryville-based Montezuma Carbon, plans to collect carbon dioxide from Bay Area refineries, hydrogen plants, and power plants and transport it via a 40-mile underwater pipeline to an injection site beneath the Montezuma Wetlands in Solano County, near Collinsville. Lawrence Livermore Lab said it received $3 million in funding toward the project and called it an opportunity to vet the technology and assess seismic risk.
Prior to the vote, Bana said she was confused as to why the resolution was brought to council and that, though she appreciated the environmental justice aspect of the resolution, she felt it was “hypothetical.”
“I’m totally puzzled about what this whole thing is about,” Bana said, adding that she would have liked to hear “the other side” so she can make a balanced decision.
“It’s hard for me to make a decision,” Bana said.
Claudia Jimenez said she brought the resolution because a number of residents expressed concern over the proposal. It’s also opposed by 85 organizations, according to 350 Contra Costa Action, an anti fossil fuel nonprofit, which says it’s concerned that safety guardrails proposed during the Biden administration won’t be implemented under President Trump.
“I think it is more of a prevention. It is not like it is going to happen right now but it is a preventing thing to know, that these kinds of projects, we are not going to accept in the city of Richmond,” Jimenez said.
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is the single largest proposed carbon dioxide source in the system, producing an estimated 4.1 million tons per year — roughly a quarter of the hub’s total projected capacity. Proponents of carbon capture argue it lowers emissions and say that California needs to add pipelines if it’s going to meet the state’s goal of capturing 13 to 20 million metric tons of the gas by 2030.
Chevron has said it has invested in a Santa Clara company called Blue Planet that last February announced it had successfully demonstrated the world’s first net zero embodied carbon concrete slab at its San Francisco Bay Aggregates Global Innovation Center in Pittsburg.
Proposed carbon dioxide pipeline has faced regulatory delays
Under the conceptual pipeline design, a 41-mile waste pipeline would run from the Richmond refinery east through the bay to the Montezuma injection site, making it the longest individual segment in the network. According to the Lab, the pipeline would transport and store 1 million tons of CO2.
However, the project has faced significant regulatory delays.
Montezuma, which doesn’t have a public company website, submitted an underground injection permit application to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2023, but the agency paused its technical review in August 2024 after determining the submitted materials were insufficient. A separate application to Solano County for a use permit to drill a test well, filed in January 2025, was similarly deemed incomplete.
The project also lost its managing partner, Jim Levine, who died in September 2025, leaving its technical lead, UC Berkeley seismologist Jamie Rector, to try to advance the proposal, according to reporting by the environmental publication Grist.
In a press release sent Wednesday, the nonprofit Food & Water Watch lauded the council’s vote, saying that leaks of similar pipelines have threatened communities.
“Leaks can be disastrous. When compressed CO2 leaks, it can lead to asphyxiation, seizures, loss of consciousness, and potentially death,” the press release reads. “Further, transporting CO2 in pipelines and injecting it underground is dangerous. CO2 reacts with trace amounts of moisture to form an acid that can corrode pipelines and put nearby drinking water sources at serious risk.”
