Oil Drilling Suspended on Federal Lands in California
Settlement is the latest development in a dispute that began in 2014 with the Obama administration’s plan to lease the land for oil development.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a federal moratorium on new oil drilling and fracking leases on public lands in Central California. The settlement with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management prohibits new oil and gas leasing while the Bureau conducts a supplemental environmental review. The settlement is subject to court approval.
The settlement ends a lawsuit that California filed in January 2020 challenging a Trump administration plan to open up 1.2 million acres of federal lands in Central California to oil and gas drilling, including fracking, without conducting an adequate environmental review. The lawsuit alleged that the Bureau’s environmental review of the project failed to evaluate fully the significant and adverse impacts on the communities and on the environment of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura Counties.
“Fracking is dangerous for our communities, damaging to our environment, and out of step with California's climate goals,” Bonta said in a statement. “The Trump Administration recklessly opened Central California up to new oil and gas drilling without considering how fracking can hurt communities by causing polluted groundwater, toxic air emissions, minor earthquakes, climate impacts, and more. In keeping with the Bureau of Land Management's mission to preserve the health of our public lands, it must reassess this Trump-Era mistake.”
The settlement is the latest development in a dispute that began in 2014 with the Obama administration’s plan to lease the land for oil development. The Bureau of Land Management agreed to environmental review in 2017, but the Trump administration moved forward with the 2014 plan without substantial changes.
The settlement also coincides with California’s efforts to ban oil drilling on state lands. In April 2021, Newsom issued an executive order that directed the Department of Conservation’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM), the state’s main oil regulator, to initiate regulatory action to end the issuance of new fracking permits by January 2024. Newsom also requested that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) analyze ways to phase out oil extraction across the state by no later than 2045 as part of the Climate Change Scoping Plan. In May 2021, CalGEM issued a draft regulation to ban all new fracking and other well stimulation permits starting in 2024.