A familiar scene played out in the city council chambers of Richmond, California, on May 22, 2024. For the last twenty years, since members of the anti-Chevron Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) first got elected to the council, any measure before that body affecting the city’s largest employer and business taxpayer has been hotly debated.

Local environmental justice organizations, like Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) mobilize their working-class members to attend and sign up to speak during the time allotted for “public comment.” To rebut the resulting complaints about pollution and arguments for stronger health and safety protection, the $290-billion company that operates Richmond’s massive 122-year-old refinery deploys its own defenders. They include refinery managers, public affairs people, leaders of nonprofit groups funded by Chevron, and leaders of conservative building-trades unions, which represent workers employed by contractors for the oil industry.

The latest battle lines have formed around a proposal to impose a new excise tax on fossil fuel products from a facility that generates, according to one RPA analysis, about $2 billion a year in profit for the company.