Newsom Signs Bills Restricting California Oil, Gas Operations

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 25 signed a series of bills into law that limit oil and gas operations across the state, prompting criticism from a member of the fossil fuel industry who says the measures will lead to higher costs for Californians.

The three bills are aimed at protecting public health and wildlife and empowering local communities to set greater protections around oil and gas activities in their neighborhoods, Newsom’s office said in a statement.

“Together, these laws mark another step forward in California’s ongoing efforts to cut pollution and protect communities,” the statement reads.

One of the bills, AB 3233, grants cities and counties greater authority to impose restrictions on oil and gas operations, including limiting or banning new oil and gas developments in their jurisdictions.

A second bill, AB 1866, imposes higher fees on oil wells that are no longer active but that have not been properly decommissioned. Newsom’s office said such wells pose a significant risk to both the environment and nearby communities.

The same law also enforces stricter regulations on oil companies to ensure they are held responsible for maintaining and safely plugging idle wells and preventing leaks and contamination.

AB 2716 bans the operation of low-oil production and gas wells within the 1,000-acre Inglewood Oil Field and imposes a $10,000 per month penalty on these wells until they are permanently plugged and abandoned.

Newsom’s office said the money from those penalty funds will be used for community projects such as park creation.

“These new laws allow local leaders to limit dangerous oil and gas activities near homes, schools, and other areas as they see fit for their communities, and give the state more tools to make sure that idle and low-producing wells get plugged sooner,” Newsom said in a statement.

“This builds off of our all-of-the-above efforts to protect communities from pollution and hold Big Oil accountable.”

The measures Newsom signed into law were supported by environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, which sponsored AB 3233.

“Legislators and Gov. Newsom have done right by clarifying and reaffirming communities’ right to protect themselves from oil industry pollution,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

Kretzmann said the law puts Los Angeles’s planned drilling phaseout “securely within the scope of local power.”

New Laws Could ‘Drive Up Costs for Californians’

The laws drew criticism from Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, who said they would “pile on mandates and drive up costs for Californians,” while simultaneously increasing dependence on foreign oil.

“These new laws do nothing to produce more oil here at home and, in fact, cost jobs while forcing us to bring in more oil from overseas,” she said in a statement.

“While the Governor cannot stop demonizing our industry, the truth is we prioritize community and worker safety too.”

The Newsom administration aims to phase out fossil-fuel-powered lawnmowers, cars, trucks, and trains, amid the state’s plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.

Last month, Newsom unveiled a plan authorizing the California Energy Commission to require petroleum refiners to maintain a minimum fuel reserve to “avoid supply shortages that create higher prices for consumers.”

According to a 2023 analysis by the Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit, 41,568 of California’s 100,696 wells are orphaned or idle and no longer producing oil. Closing these wells could cost nearly $23 billion, the report found.

“A recent report from CarbonTracker puts the price to plug and remediate all wells in California at $21.5 billion as of April 2022, including $10 billion for wells that are already orphaned and idle. Adjusting that number for the number of wells in the state’s inventory as of one year later, this report calculates that the total cost to plug and abandon all of the state’s wells currently stands at $22.9 billion,” the Sierra Club said.