Referendum on Oil Drilling Setback Qualifies for 2024 Ballot
A voter referendum challenging California’s oil drilling setback law has received the required number of signatures to qualify for the November 2024 ballot. S.B. 1137, which implements a 3,200-foot buffer zone around oil wells, was scheduled to take effect January 1, 2023. With the initiative now approved for the ballot, the law cannot take effect unless and until it is approved by the voters during the 2024 election. The California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) suspended its emergency regulations issued in January to implement the law.
S.B. 1137 implements a 3,200-foot buffer zone, known as a setback, between oil wells and schools, homes, daycares, parks, playgrounds, healthcare facilities, community resource centers, detention facilities, and businesses open to the public. The law also requires existing wells in these areas to meet additional health, safety, and environmental requirements by January 1, 2025.
The California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) spearheaded the signature gathering campaign. Opponents of the law argued that it endangers California jobs and threatens to further increase California’s gasoline prices by decreasing in-state energy supplies. (See Referendum on Oil Drilling Setback Likely to Make 2024 Ballot.)
In response to the qualification of the ballot initiative, Governor Gavin Newsom said: “It’s one thing for Big Oil to make record profits as they rip off Californians at the pump. It’s quite another to push to continue harmful drilling near daycares and schools and our homes. Greedy oil companies know that drilling results in more kids getting asthma, more children born with birth defects, and more communities exposed to toxic, dangerous chemicals – but they would rather put our health at risk than sacrifice a single cent of their billions in profits.”
“I proudly signed SB 1137 last year to stop new oil drilling in our neighborhoods and protect California families,” Newsom said. “Big Oil knows that California is moving beyond fossil fuels, so on their way out these corporations are doing everything they can to squeeze out profits as they pollute our communities. We’re not standing for it. California will hold Big Oil accountable, and it starts with passing our price gouging penalty to prevent extreme gas price spikes like the one we saw last fall.”
The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial, argued that “there is really nothing preventing California’s state oil and gas regulators from acting to prevent neighborhood drilling in the interim, by denying oil companies permits for new wells in these buffer zones.” It argued that Newsom should direct CalGEM “to use its administrative authority to adopt rules to prohibit new drilling in those areas.”