Newsom cracks down on fracking
SACRAMENTO >> In a victory for critics of California’s oil drilling industry, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday stopped the approval of new hydraulic fracturing in the state until the permits for those projects can be reviewed by an independent panel of scientists.
Newsom also imposed a moratorium on new permits for steam-injected oil drilling in California, another extraction method opposed by environmentalists that was linked to a massive petroleum spill in Kern County over the summer.
“These are necessary steps to strengthen oversight of oil and gas extraction as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean energy sources,” Newsom said in a statement released Tuesday morning. “This transition cannot happen overnight; it must advance in a deliberate way to protect people, our environment, and our economy.”
Along with halting the oil extraction methods, the Newsom administration plans to study the possible adoption of buffer zones around oil wells in or near residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals and other facilities that could be exposed to hazardous fumes.
The actions come just weeks af ter Newsom signed a new law revising the primary mission of a state agency that regulates the oil industry, now called the Geologic Energy Management Division, to include protecting public health and safety and environmental quality.
Since taking office, Newsom has faced pressure from politically influential environmental groups to ban new oil and gas drilling and completely phase out fossil fuel extraction in California, one of the nation’s top petroleum-producing states.
The Democratic governor pushed back on that pressure, however, promising to take a more measured approach that addressed the effects on oil workers and California cities and counties that are economically dependent on the petroleum industry.
During his campaign for governor in 2018, Newsom vowed to tighten state oversight of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and oil extraction in California.
In July, Newsom fired California’s top oil industry regulator after news reports showed that the new governor’s administration was issuing permits for hydraulic fracturing permits at twice the rate of his predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown. Newsom at the time said he did not have the legal authority to impose a state moratorium on fracking.
Newsom on Tuesday halted all pending fracking permits currently under review by state regulators until they can be reviewed by independent experts from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
He also ordered the state’s process for issuing fracking permits to be audited by the state Department of Finance to determine if the process complies with state law and to recommend ways to strengthen the permitting process.
The steam-based, oil- extraction method halted by Newsom on Tuesday is different than fracking.
Cyclic steam injection pumps super- heated steam into wells to loosen and liquefy viscous crude oil. Hydraulic fracking involves shooting a highpressure mix of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to extract oil and natural gas.
Steam injection was suspected to be a factor in one of California’s largest oil spills in decades.
More than 900,000 gallons of oil and brine oozed from a Chevron Corp. facility this summer in McKittrick, a tiny town in oilrich Kern County. California regulators have fined Chevron $2.7 million for violations at the oil field.
The process also is considered hazardous for oil workers. In 2011, Chevron engineer David Taylor died while he was inspecting a steam-injected well near Taft. The soil caved in beneath him and he fell into a cavity that contained 190- degree water and hydrogen sulfide.
Distributed by Tribune News Service.