After spending more than $25 million on canvassing and political advertising, California’s oil and gas industry announced it would withdraw a controversial referendum from the November ballot that would have removed restrictions on drilling near homes and schools.
California Independent Petroleum Association. announced this week that its members would abandon a costly effort to overturn Senate Bill 1137, a 2022 state law that would ban new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, parks and hospitals and natural gas wells. Shortly after the bill passed, oil and gas companies organized to collect enough signatures to put the state law on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
In recent months, however, Petroleum Assn. According to opinion polls, the recognition referendum does not have sufficient public support. It also encountered fierce resistance from a well-funded countermovement attended by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hollywood icon Jane Fonda.
And, in perhaps one of the last attempts to broker a compromise, Rep. Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) said he recently participated in negotiations with fossil fuel stakeholders and announced that if they withdraw from the agreement, he Financial penalties would be limited in another bill.
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The oil industry’s decision to withdraw the proposal marks an unexpected end to one of the state’s most expensive political races. In a state with more than 100,000 unplugged oil and gas wells, environmentalists say defending setback laws is critical to eventually phasing out fossil fuels that warm the planet and protecting residents who live near toxic fumes released from drilling sites.
Nearly one-third of those wells are within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and other sensitive areas, exposing nearly 3 million people to cancer-causing contamination. In addition to limiting new drilling, the law would ban maintenance and re-drilling to ensure old wells remain closed.
“This is a huge, historic victory,” said Cassie Siegel, senior adviser to the Center for Biological Diversity. “Victories like this don’t happen every day. The oil industry failed completely.
Siegel sees the development as the last gasp of oil and gas production.
“The industry is disappearing anyway,” she said. “What the state needs to do is monitor this ongoing decline and minimize the additional damage caused by this dying industry as it exits.”
But the State Petroleum Assn. It’s not admitting defeat — it’s vowing to fight California’s cap law and similar legislation in court.
“Californians do not want to further increase their dependence on expensive foreign crude oil when California workers can produce energy locally under some of the strictest regulations in the world,” said Jonathan Gregory, president of the California Independent Petroleum Association. He added: “We are moving from referendums to legal strategies because the government’s unlawful taking of private property violates the U.S. Constitution, especially when the government has formally permitted the action and all impacts have been mitigated.”
Although the oil industry has called the 3,200-foot drop “arbitrary,” the distance was determined by a panel of 15 health experts convened by the Newsom administration. The team concluded that rates of asthma, heart disease and adverse birth outcomes are higher for people living within areas of oil and gas development.
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The law is expected to bring huge health benefits to Southern California, where some of the largest oil fields border densely populated communities. Putting these protections in place is critical to Bryan, whose district includes the Inglewood Field—the largest urban oil field in the United States, located beneath Baldwin Hills, Culver City, Inglewood and Ladera Heights.
“I think this field will be completely obsolete within the next fifteen years,” Bryan said. “I think the health impact it will have on the surrounding communities will be immeasurable — longer life expectancy, lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of childhood asthma, and the ability to live without the toxicity of these wells near our homes and Opportunities for prosperity.
To that end, Bryan said he leveraged Assembly Bill 2716 in negotiations with oil and gas interests. The bill he co-authored would impose a $10,000 fine on anyone operating a low-production oil well within 3,200 feet of a sensitive site. During the negotiations, Bryan said that if the ballot measure was withdrawn, he would amend AB 2716 so that the daily fine would only apply to the Inglewood oil field.
