It might surprise many to learn that California is one of the biggest oil-producing states in the U.S. Drilling rigs dot the terrain of many counties, including Los Angeles and Kern counties, where residents are forced to co-exist with polluting extraction equipment, especially in low income and communities of color. Such proximity leads to negative health impacts such as asthma. There is currently no statewide limitation on the distance such equipment can be built from where people live.
Now Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, through the Department of Conservation’s Geologic Energy Management Division or CalGEM, has proposed a new rule that would establish a 3,200-foot buffer zone or setback prohibiting oil wells from being built near homes, schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other sensitive locations.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Matt Nelson, executive director of Presente.org, the largest LatinX digital organizing group in the U.S. The group, with more than 500,000 members, responds to a variety of human and civil rights issues. Presente is one of the organizations that’s now advocating for universal setbacks for both oil and gas development infrastructure, including existing wells and is calling for an emergency response to ban all new fossil fuel permits in California until the proposed final rules are in effect.
MATT NELSON: So, recently Gov. Gavin Newsom, after years of public pressure, has instructed CalGEM to establish rules that will protect people from the health impacts of oil and gas extraction. That’s what’s called setbacks. It means that if the proposed rule goes into place, there will be a 3,200-foot setback for new wells, existing wells from any what’s considered sensitive locations. So that would be homes, schools, and other sensitive locations where people are exposed to the disastrous impacts of fossil fuel extraction and proximity. And as we know, you can’t talk about climate justice without talking about racial justice and economic justice, so the people most impacted by fossil fuel extraction are Black, indigenous and other people of color, everyday people who are forced to live next to pollutants and toxins and all the other horrible things that are emitted from fossil fuel extraction.
CalGEM, the department that regulates this area, says they need to create a rule that includes a 3,200-foot safety zone. Now, the rule is currently being discussed, so our demands are to strengthen the rule. I think the governor has said he wants what is essentially a one-kilometer setback, which we think is a good starting point, but
the rule is not finalized until a fairly involved process. Right now we’re in the public comment period, so the proposed rule we think needs to be strengthened to include everything I mentioned, but now is the negotiation period.
MELINDA TUHUS: I didn’t think existing ones are included; I thought they were going to be grandfathered in, no?
MATT NELSON: You know, there are so many ways to also address current wells. So many of these are in disrepair; they have been abandoned by the oil and gas industry. And so, I think it’s not as clearcut as “new” versus “existing.” But I think what we’ve been clear about is that no site, whether or not it’s fully functional or has been abandoned by the oil industry, should be near where we live and where our children go to school, because right now it has been too weak and too vague and sort of leaving it up to, essentially, advocates to fight it out with the oil industry, to convince CalGEM to put forth and execute on the strongest rule possible. We really do think that this rule is just an opportunity to end all permitting of oil and gas extraction within the 3,200-foot setback.
And it’s another thing that the governor could do now. You asked about the timeline for this, and of course these rule-making processes take months and years to complete sometimes. That said, we know that the governor could make this happen now. There could be a moratorium right now, until the rulemaking is finalized. So there’s no reason why the governor would allow the extraction and the suffering associated with it would continue while the rulemaking process drags on.
MELINDA TUHUS: Does this rule only cover oil or does it also cover gas?
MATT NELSON: The gas extraction is another piece where the governor has committed and the state has committed to phase out fracking, so I think it’s a parallel track, but this setback is focused more on oil.
For more information, visit Presente at Presente.org.
