Los Angeles, CA—Two oil and gas lobbyists are refusing to have included into two carbon pipeline bills legislative language creating a safe buffer zone between communities and these pipelines, Consumer Watchdog has learned. No language on an adequate buffer zone has been added to the bills, according to environmental advocates.
“Assembly member Cottie Petrie-Norris and Senator Henry Stern must stand up to the oil and gas lobbyists wanting to exclude language creating a safe buffer zone between communities and carbon pipelines,” said Consumer Advocate Liza Tucker. “Should a carbon pipeline rupture near people, it can be a potentially lethal asphyxiant. It happened a few years ago in the town of Satartia, Mississippi, and the result wasn’t pretty. Some suffered convulsions and unconsciousness. It would be unfathomable for Senator Stern and Assembly member Petrie-Norris to lift the moratorium without a requirement for a safe setback zone, as well as other safety features, such as an odorant which would make a leak detectable to people.”
The two bills are AB 881 and SB 614 and passage would lift a 2022 moratorium on such pipelines that are dangerous and underregulated. Both the bills are waiting for floor votes and must be amended by Tuesday. If passed, the bills would help enable about 25 carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that have been proposed in California, according to project tracking data compiled by the Center for Biological Diversity. The CCS technology itself isn’t fully baked—it fails more than succeeds, captures a fraction of the carbon it purports to, and uses fossil fuel energy to work.
The two lobbyists, Virgil Welch of Caliber Strategies and Theo Pahos of Kemper/Pahos, represent oil giant California Resources Corp. and Calpine respectively. Calpine is the largest generator of electricity from fossil gas and geothermal energy in the US.
Welch exemplifies a revolving door at the California Air Resources Board. Between 2008 and 2021, Welch did two stints at the California Air Resources Board as Special Counsel and Chief Advisor to the board chair. He left to join the AJW lobbying firm between 2016 and 2017 where an association representing some of the world’s largest fossil fuel and energy distribution companies was onboarded. The International Emissions Trading Association advocates for market-based solutions to climate change including CCS and other carbon capture technologies. He returned to his old CARB job in 2017 and left for Caliber Strategies in 2021.
Welch also represents the California Carbon Solutions Coalition, which he also directs, that is pushing hard on including carbon capture storage projects that carbon pipelines will enable into pending cap-and-trade legislation. CRC and Calpine have CCS projects slated in California as does AERA Energy and Chevron. Welch succeeded in getting legislative language into AB 881 that offers an exemption to companies that started construction on carbon pipelines before July 1, 2025 for projects within a wholly owned property. CRC has such a pipeline at the Elk Hills oil field in Kern County and so would be exempt from the legislation.
“These lobbying firms have put hundreds of thousands of dollars into lobbying the legislature and key agencies on carbon capture and on pipeline legislation in the first six months of 2025,” said Tucker.
