Chevron Vs. California Analysis Essay

Chevron Vs. California
Student's Name
Institutional Affiliation
Chevron Vs. California
Introduction
Environmental injustice case studies shed light on the environmental risks, threats, and hazards affecting the people, plants, and organisms in their natural habitat. Environmental injustice is a series of discriminatory policies against a certain race, community, and power misuse by small and large organizations. These companies fail to honor their corporate social responsibility to protect and conserve the environment. Corporate social responsibility involves a company's commitment to protecting, preserving the environment during its operations. Through this, the company can ban mechanisms, processes, and products that are hazardous to the environment.
Description
After the highly publicized Chevron vs. The State of California court case in 1993 about the dangerous chemicals within its facility in Richmond, Chevron initiated plans to lift the area's chemical storage. Chevron is a thriving multi-million oil company with many branches worldwide with its parent factory and industrial plants in Richmond, California. Although the company is a massive supporter of the Clean Air mandates and advertises its products based on its commitment to environmental health, most of its activities are harmful and toxic to the environment. In its defense, the company stated that it is in the initial stages of implementing and conforming to the Clean Air mandates. The company argued that the chemical storage plant was part of a changing narrative about renewable energy. Still, the initiative's adverse effects have become a health concern to people living in the area. This issue depicted a clear case of environmental injustice and called for relevant authorities to intervene.
This elicited conflict as the public was determined to fight for their lives and right to a clean environment. Since 1986, Richmond people had endured the toxic chemicals and were in dire need of a solution. As a result, they formed communal groups to advocate for their homes' wellbeing, security, and future, with the help of an ecological group from San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate University of Law School also offers the community legal information and knowledge to the community group that cannot access the corporate lawyers (Corburn, Curl, & Arredondo, 2014).
Argument
This case shows the extent and natural chemicals released from the Chevron Facility affected the health, homes of the local people. The facility emits a high level of toxic chemicals that are harmful to the environment. Moreover, people are exposed to stressors and hazards such as low living standards, poor health outcomes (Vaz et al., 2017). Most of the people living in the San Francisco Bay area are marginalized communities that do not have healthcare insurance and therefore do not have access to quality healthcare. Therefore, the emission of toxic chemicals into the environment lowers their immunity, making them prone to diseases such as asthma and other respiratory diseases. Furthermore, this waste causes stunted growth as the introduction of toxic chemicals in the atmosphere affects plants' and organisms' growth.
Type of Justice
The Chevron vs. the State of California case reflects procedural and distributive justice. According to the US justice system, every citizen has a right to live, work in a clean environment, and anyone who poses environmental risks/hazards should be held accountable in a court of law (LeQuesne, 2019). In this regard, everyone has the right to fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens despite their race, political affiliation, color, financial income, national origin, formulation, implementation, and enforcement of environmental policies, laws, and regulations (Gwen, 2020). This is as mandated in the concept of procedural justice. Founded and practiced in the US, the idea of procedural justice is to resolve emerging legal, administrative, or public disputes in all areas of life to ensure fair and equal distribution of resources. The Chevron court case is a classic example of procedural justice as it requires the court to reinstate the people the benefits that denied for so long (Usmani, 2014). To achieve optimal reclamation of the benefits, the court has to rule in favor of the local public and summon the Chevron leadership and management to initiate compensation plans and sustainable environmental practices to prevent future environmental injustices.
Furthermore, the Chevron court case involves distributive justice. Distributive justice dwells on the concept that all the emanating benefits/ burdens from the social, economic, and political frameworks should be divided equally across society members (jraasakk, 2014). Distributive justice provides the moral compass and guidance for social, political, and economic processes and structures that affect the distribution of benefits and burdens in societies (corissajoy, 2016). For instance, there is a need to apply distributive justice principles in Chevron's case to augment the balance between the benefits and burdens of environmental laws and regulations (Lamont & Favor, 2017a). The facility should enact moral policies and guidelines that uph...