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When it comes to fighting California’s ambitious agenda for curbing the use of fossil fuels, the state’s oil and gas industry is putting its money where its mouth is.
In the first quarter of 2021, the industry spent more than $4.3 million on lobbying, a significant portion of it to oppose legislation that would bolster the state’s progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, impose tighter regulations for industrial accidents and ensure justice for communities most impacted by pollution and climate change.
Nine companies or associations spent more than $100,000 lobbying in the quarter, including the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA). Two of them Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) spent more than $1 million. The vast majority of oil and gas companies in the state are represented by either WSPA or CIPA.
Email CalGEM, with a history of fossil fuel favors, has millions of Californians still waiting for public health protections
In this second installment of a series profiling some of the many ways that the fossil fuel industry exerts pressure across California’s government, we look at how the fossil fuel friendships inside one regulatory agency have corrupted its mission to protect public health and our environment.
The California Geological Energy Management Division (CalGEM) of the California Department of Conservation is a fairly obscure government agency for most Californians, and its Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk is generally not a household name. But both the agency and its supervisor’s decisions impact the health of millions of Californians and the environment. CalGEM has responsibility for the oversight of the oil and gas industry; however, it has a long legacy of cozy ties to fossil fuel interests including years of controversies of weak enforcement and close relationsh
California s move to stop hydraulic fracturing permits by 2024 will likely do little to speed up the current decline in output, but any crackdown on production would boost the state s dependence on imported crude.
California was once the third-largest oil producer in the US behind Texas and Alaska, according to US Energy Information Administration data. In the early 1980s, crude output in the Golden State reached 1 million b/d, behind Texas 2.5 million b/d and Alaska s 1.7 million b/d.
But as of January 2021, California ranks seventh among oil-producing states at 364,000 b/d, trailing Texas (4.66 million b/d), North Dakota (1.1 million b/d), New Mexico (1.09 million b/d), Alaska (464,000 b/d), Oklahoma (426,000 b/d), and Colorado (373,000 b/d).