California has reached a settlement with oil giant ConocoPhillips that requires the company to spend $10 million to offset greenhouse-gas emissions from a proposed refinery expansion in the state’s East Bay area. As part of the deal, the company will spend $7 million on as-yet-unspecified environmental projects in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as $2.8 million on reforestation in California, and about $200,000 on local wetland restoration. The projects are meant to offset an anticipated emissions increase of carbon dioxide at the refinery of about 550,000 tons. State attorney general Jerry Brown said the deal was the first time an oil company in the U.S. had agreed to mitigate carbon emissions due to a refinery expansion. Still undoubtedly on a litigious high, Brown nevertheless managed to keep a realistic view of the situation, admitting that “Relative to the problem [of global warming] we have a long way to go.”
