Coordinated Actions Expose Chevron's Destruction, Human Rights Abuses Before Shareholders Meeting

Richmond, CA – Imagine a corporation so notorious that there is an international day dedicated to exposing its violation of human rights, environmental devastation and complicity with genocide. That company is the oil giant Chevron.

As part of the international Anti-Chevron Day, climate justice advocates and community members across the Bay Area on May 21 organized simultaneous banner drops across freeway overpasses in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Richmond.

The banner drops took place as Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association spend unprecedented millions of dollars lobbying to fight the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act and other climate legislation in California.

“This action highlights Chevron’s role in supplying energy and millions of dollars in taxes to Israel as it commits genocide against 2 million Palestinians in Gaza – violence that Israel has rapidly intensified with a full-scale invasion and forced starvation campaign,” according to a joint press release from 4 human rights and environmental justice organizations. “This is the 12th year that communities across the world stand together to protest Chevron’s complicity in and direct perpetration of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. “ 

“Anti-Chevron Day is held one week before Chevron’s May 28 annual shareholders meeting. In response, local organizers are calling on individuals and institutions, such as universities and churches, to boycott and divest from Chevron because its profits come at the cost of genocide, apartheid, and the climate crisis,” the groups explained.

In Ecuador, Chevron dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater in order to save $3 per barrel, which poisoned the drinking and bathing water for thousands of people and entire communities, causing widespread cancer and miscarriages, the groups revealed.

“Israel’s genocide machine couldn’t run without power from Chevron,” the groups explained. “As Israel bombed hospitals, homes, universities, and UN schools in Gaza, the Chevron corporation supplied energy via the operation and co-ownership of Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land. Chevron also manages a pipeline that illegally runs from Israel to Egypt off the coast of Gaza, and is a key company implicated in supplying crude oil to Israel.”  

“In addition to its complicity in grave violations of Palestinian human rights and the rights of other Indigenous communities around the world, Chevron is failing to align with international commitments to phase out fossil fuels and limit global temperature rise. Among all investor-owned companies, Chevron has produced the most cumulative climate pollution in history. If the company were held partially accountable for the climate loss and damage caused by its pollution, it would owe $900 billion,” the groups reported.

The groups noted that tens of thousands of consumers have taken the pledge to boycott Chevron gas stations because its profits come at the cost of genocide, apartheid, and the climate crisis. They said dozens of groups around the world have led pickets and other actions at Chevron locations.

To date, at least three cities have divested from Chevron. Those cities include Hayward, Alameda and Richmond in the East Bay Area.

Representatives of the four groups detailed Chevron’s human rights abuses and environmental devastation around the planet, from Richmond, to Ecuador, to Gaza.

"Organizers across the world are holding over 30 actions from Ecuador to Europe to Turtle Island,”  said Ilonka Zlatar, Organizer with Oil and Gas Action Network and member of the Boycott Chevron global campaign steering committee. “Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we covered freeways during rush hour to educate our community of the connection between the harms in our backyards and those of faraway frontline communities.”

“We have five refineries in the Bay Area, including two that have been on fire in the last few months. The Chevron refinery in Richmond is responsible not only for higher rates of chronic illness, but also these refineries importing crude oil from the devastation of the Amazon rainforest, and many other harms around the world. We stand together to say: not here, not anywhere. We must phase out fossil fuels for a livable future,” she urged.

"I stand in deep solidarity with the families living next to this refinery,” said Donald Moncayo, President of the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron/Texaco in Ecuador (UDAPT), upon visiting the site of Chevron’s Richmond refinery on Anti-Chevron Day. “I know what it’s like – I was born into it, I’ve lived it, and I’ve lost loved ones because of it.” 

“This refinery looks old and unsafe, and I worry it could explode at any time. It should be shut down and moved somewhere it won’t harm anyone else. I know firsthand what it means to live next to the oil industry – and I know exactly what Chevron is capable of. Yet it is still afraid of us, because it has even covered its signs today to try to hide as we celebrate the anti-Chevron day. That truly shows that the company does not have the dignity to look us in the face,” he observed. 

Lazuli Trujano, Richmond Community Organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, said, “As a leader in the environmental justice movement, founder of the Beyond Chevron Campaign in Richmond, and key player in the success of the Richmond Polluters Pay initiative that forced the $550 million Chevron settlement, CBE and the Richmond community stand in bold resistance to Chevron’s destruction around the world.” 

Paul Paz y Miño, Deputy Director of Amazon Watch, emphasized that Chevron is the only multinational oil company with a global day of protest held annually against its abuses – and for good reason.

“Chevron has contributed more to global greenhouse gas emissions than any other investor-owned oil company in history,” Paz y Miño said. “When it pollutes and harms communities – as it did by dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon – it refuses accountability and instead deploys legal bullying tactics to silence its critics, adding insult to injury. This year marks twelve consecutive years of worldwide protests. Chevron and its executives must be held accountable.”

Why is Chevron able to get away with its sordid record of human rights violations, environmental devastation and complicity with genocide? It’s because of deep regulatory capture by Chevron and Big Oil in California and across the world.

The oil industry spent a record total of $38 million in lobbying expenses in California alone in 2024, shattering by 31 percent the annual state lobbying record of $26.2 million set in 2017, to thwart climate justice and other environmental legislation.

Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association spend more than any other corporate lobbying organizations in Sacramento every year. The Western States Petroleum Association placed first in the Big Oil lobbying spending spree with $17.4 million, while Chevron came in second with $14.2 million. Spending by the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron alone shattered the previous record, coming in at $31.6 million in 2024.   

The unprecedented lobbying spending spree by Big Oil that took place in 2023 and 2024 has continued into 2025 as the oil industry spends millions to stop the Polluters Pay Superfund Act and other climate legislation.  

The oil and gas industry spent a total of $9,139,655, according to disclosures on the California Secretary of State’s website. As usual, Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association spent more than any other organization lobbying in the state during the first quarter of 2025.

Chevron came in first with $3,758,914 spent, while the Western States Petroleum Association finished second with $3,471,879 spent. That’s well over $7 million between those two organizations alone.  .

Big Oil and their trade associations actively opposed legislation put forward by the Make Polluters Pay coalition, including SB 222, a bill that would have allowed climate disaster victims to seek compensation from the fossil fuel companies responsible. Those lobbying to kill the bill included Chevron, WSPA, Marathon, and Valero.

Most recently, the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act has faced fierce industry opposition. Ten oil companies, including Chevron, Marathon, ExxonMobil, Shell, and PBF Energy, lobbied against the bill that would hold fossil fuel corporations financially responsible for the damage they’ve caused.