Out of all the Biden administration’s suite of executive orders on climate signed on Wednesday, advocates in California have latched on to one in particular: a promise to halt new oil and gas lease sales on public lands and offshore and to review existing leases.
Some of them hope that the move could inspire similar action by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which has so far approved more than 8,000 oil and gas permits on private and state lands.
The president’s order, which directs the secretary of the interior to pause on entering into leases, will itself not have a huge effect on oil and gas production in California; production on federal lands accounts for less than 10% of all drilling in the state. In December, the Trump administration sold leases on seven parcels of land totaling 4,133 acres, all in Kern County. It was the first federal lease sale in California in eight years.
California Oil, Gas Drilling Hits Historic Lows in 2020
New oil and natural gas drilling hit historic lows in California last year while a renewed emphasis on abandoned wells turned up a record high number of permanently sealed wells, the state Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) reported Wednesday.
The severe downturn in permitting and new drilling can be seen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, “but global commodity prices, our state’s economy and local judicial decisions in Kern County have all contributed to the decline,” said CalGEM spokesperson Don Drysdale.
Production data for the last two years showed in-state production met only about 32% of demand, according to the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA).
After Ventura County supervisors passed several new measures meant to mitigate harms caused by oil and gas operations, an overlapping network of fossil fuel interests sued to stop them from going into effect, Capital & Main has learned.
At least one of the suits, filed by a nonprofit trade association representing local business interests, may present conflicts of interest among its board members, who are also tied to other lawsuits.
Additionally, the largest oil company operating in the county, together with California’s largest trade association for oil companies, launched an in-person petition drive to collect tens of thousands of signatures amid spiking COVID-19 hospital visits in order to overturn new regulations on future oil extraction covered by permits issued to drillers decades ago.
Dec. 24—SACRAMENTO — In the same year Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that the state faced a “climate damn emergency” with wildfires, his administration approved far more permits to let companies drill new oil and gas wells.
California approved 1,646 drill permits in the first nin
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