Appeals court gives green light to clean-gas work at 2 oil refineries.

A federal appeals court has overturned the stop work orders a local pipefitters union, angry that L.A. County jobs may be going to out-of-state workers, had successfully convinced regulators to issue against clean-gas construction projects at local Unocal Corp. and Chevron Corp. refineries.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the orders for work at Unocal's Wilmington refinery and Chevron's El Segundo refinery in the last six weeks after receiving "detailed" letters from Adams & Broadwell, a San Francisco-based law firm which represents the Pipefitters Local 250, said Bill Glenn, EPA spokesman.

The law firm informed the EPA that the oil companies had begun work on clean gas projects before receiving environmental permits. The EPA ordered Chevron to shut down on Oct. 1 and Unocal to shut down on Nov. 4, Glenn said.

But a federal appeals court overturned the stop work orders against Chevron on Oct. 8 and Unocal on Nov. 3 and construction continues at both refineries. San Francisco-based Chevron has since received the environmental permit and Los Angeles-based Unocal expects to receive its permit any day, oil company officials said.

Nevertheless, both oil companies could face fines of $25,000 a day for the work that was done, Glenn said. The EPA was not aware that work was going on until informed by the union's attorneys, he added.

Chevron is spending $700 million and Unocal $500 million to retool their local refineries to produce reformulated, cleaner-burning gasoline, which is mandated under federal and state law.

Construction will take three years and a combined maximum of 2,900 workers will be employed at both refineries to build the new facilities.

But so far, the pipefitters union has been unable to sign a contract for any of the Unocal work and has secured a contract for only "a small portion" of the work at Chevron, said Tom Adams, attorney for the pipefitters.

Union workers have been watching the projects closely and, based on the license plates in the parking lots of Unocal and Chevron, believe that a significant share of the work is going not only to non-union workers, but laborers from other states, Adams said.

"Despite the high unemployment in the L.A. area, a large number of the license plates in the parking lots are from Texas, Louisiana, Utah and other states," Adams said. "My clients would like to see a reasonable share of the work. We're clearly upset that they're hiring out-of-state, non-union workers."

Adams said that based on reviews of license plates in the parking lots at the two refineries, 25 percent to 50 percent of the workers on the projects are from out of state. "You'd think these companies would be hiring local people. These companies should be helping the depressed economy in Southern California to recover," Adams said.

Unocal spokesman Barry Lane said, "I'm tired of hearing that stuff from them (the union)." He said the pipefitters have made "demands" for a certain portion of work.

Lane said Unocal's contractor, Irvine-based Fluor Corp., is in charge of hiring the workers. "I don't know where they're (Fluor) getting their workers from," he said. "I know they (the workers) are doing a fine job for us."

Chevron spokesman Rod Spackman said Chevron also hired Fluor as the main contractor on its project. Chevron, however, agreed with the local construction unions, including the pipefitters union, to give union members nearly 40 percent of the project work, he said.

Spackman said he did not know how many non-union or out-of-state workers had been hired for the project, but some workers from other oil-producing states have been retained.

"There are people that provide specialty work who come to us from the state of California and other states," he said.

Fluor spokesman Rick Maslin said about 70 percent of the 300 workers currently at the Chevron site are California residents. There are about 80 people working at the Unocal site, Maslin said, and he does not know how many are California residents.

"We hire at the gate and we hire the given people we need from a qualified standpoint," Maslin said. Some people who perform construction work at refineries are "nomadic" and change jobs every few years, he added.

Spackman said, "There will be a mix of labor here." He added that the work mix "shouldn't be a central issue here."

The central issue, Spackman and Lane said, is that the EPA's action in issuing stop work orders could delay the oil companies from meeting deadlines to produce the reformulated gas, which will cut automobile tailpipe emissions by 30 to 40 percent.

Unocal President and Chief Operating Officer Roger Beach said in a recent statement, "The Congress has mandated reformulated fuels. It is ironic that the EPA seems to want to stop us from complying with all rules and regulations."

Mike Holmes, general manager of the Chevron El Segundo refinery, said in a statement, "We want to meet deadlines for delivering cleaner fuels to the public. ... We thought EPA wanted that too."

Both Chevron and Unocal had permission from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to begin preliminary work at the refineries, such as building foundations for the refinery equipment which would be installed later, said James Lents, executive director of the AQMD. The AQMD staff interpreted the Clean Air Act to allow this kind of preliminary construction because it did not produce emissions, Lents said.

But the EPA has a "difference of opinion," Lents said. EPA and AQMD officials have been meeting to try to resolve this difference of opinion over whether the oil refineries may begin preliminary construction and a decision should be made by AQMD staff in the next several weeks, Lents said.

Glenn of the EPA said the oil companies "are starting work on a design that hasn't been approved. (The law) is very specific -- you can't build until you have a permit."

He added that EPA officials did not care what Adams & Broadwell's "motive" was in informing them about the activity at the site. The EPA got involved because agency officials believed the oil companies were violating the law, Glenn said.

Adams said union members are area residents and are therefore concerned about the projects' potential effects on the environment. Environmental groups Citizens for a Better Environment and Coalition for Clean Air are working with the pipefitters because they share those concerns, he added.

"These oil companies, they're trying to take a pot shot at the labor unions," Adams said. "I think we have taken a pretty responsible role in trying to protect the communities of our membership."