SACRAMENTO – On November 9, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Governor Gavin Newsom and two state agencies filed a protest challenging the proposed sale of seven oil and gas leases in Kern County by the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The proposed December 2020 sale involves seven parcels totaling 4,133.58 acres of Federal public lands and mineral estate within the Bakersfield Field Office.
Ironically, the protest against the BLM oil and gas lease sale takes place at a time when state oil and gas regulators under Governor Gavin Newsom have expanded oil and gas drilling in Kern County and other areas in California. Since January 2019, CalGEM, under the the Department of Conservation, has approved 7071 oil and gas drilling permits.
Becerra pointed out that more than 95 percent of federal drilling in California already occurs in Kern County, “often in close proximity to California’s most vulnerable communities.”
Instead of conducting a detailed environmental analysis of the leases, Becerra said the BLM “is relying on a flawed programmatic environmental review” finalized in December 2019 that opened more than one million acres of public lands in Central California to oil and gas drilling.
Becerra, Newsom, and state agencies are currently challenging the programmatic environmental review in court.
“Time and time again, the Trump Administration has worked outside the bounds of the law to advance the interests of industry polluters,” said Attorney General Becerra. “BLM is recklessly jamming through the sale of oil and gas leases in Kern County using a flawed environmental analysis that is being challenged in court. Rest assured, we’ll do whatever it takes to protect our public lands and uphold the rule of law.”
Becerra said the Kern County lease sale “builds on BLM's continued efforts to open federal lands in California to additional oil and gas development.”
On January 17, 2020, Becerra, Newsom, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Department of Water Resources, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), filed a lawsuit challenging BLM’s plan to open up more than one million acres of public lands in Central California to oil and gas drilling.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleges that “BLM’s programmatic environmental review of the project failed to fully evaluate the significant and adverse impacts on the communities and environment of eight Central California counties, and requests that the court set aside the decision.”
On August 26, 2020, BLM relied on the same flawed programmatic environmental review to propose seven parcels of land in Kern County for a lease sale in December 2020, according to a press release from Becerra’s Office.
In September, Attorney General Becerra and CARB submitted comments slamming BLM’s draft Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact evaluating the environmental consequences of selling the above seven oil and gas leases in Kern County.
In their comments, Becerra and CARB used the same arguments that climate and environmental justice organizations have used in the current campaign to stop new oil and gas drilling and fracking in California, arguing that the BLM decision “endangers California’s environment and the public health of its communities.”
“Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) causes pollution from the evaporation of toxic chemicals that return to the surface and has been tied to an increase in hazardous air emissions in already overburdened communities near oil and gas operations,” they said.
“In Kern County, excess pollution from existing operations has significantly increased the rates and risks of asthma, heart disease, lung disease, and cancer in nearby communities. Fracking also heightens the risk of well cracks that can contaminate underground sources of drinking water and creates millions of gallons of wastewater contaminated with heavy metals and chemicals,” added Becerra and CARB.
In the protest, Attorney General Becerra and state partners argue – as they did in the September comment letter – that “BLM’s draft Environmental Assessment is deficient and must be revised because it fails to fully analyze the significant effects of oil and gas leasing and relies on the flawed programmatic environmental review,” which:
- Significantly underestimates the percent of new wells that would be drilled using fracking;
- Ignores recent studies and best available science in evaluating the impacts of fracking;
- Does not consider or attempt to mitigate the impacts of oil and gas development on nearby environmental justice communities;
- Fails to analyze its proposed action for consistency with California state standards and policies, including California’s statutory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
- Fails to adequately analyze impacts to groundwater; and
- Fails to adequately consider or mitigate the significant climate impacts of opening up more than 4,000 acres of public lands to new oil and gas leasing.
A copy of the protest can be found here.
I’m glad that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Governor Gavin Newsom, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) are protesting proposed the sale of seven oil and gas leases in Kern County by the Federal Bureau of Land Management under the lame duck Trump Administration.
However, it would be even better if Becerra, Newsom, CARB and the CDFW also took action to stop new oil and gas drilling on land under the jurisdiction of the state of California also.
In a meeting and press conference regarding the California fires with President Donald Trump on September 14, Newsom told Trump: “The hots are getting hotter. The dries are getting drier. The evidence is all around us -- climate change is REAL.”
Yet Newsom’s words about the reality of climate change contrast dramatically with his actions. Since Newsom became Governor in January 2019, his regulators have approved a total of 7071 oil and gas drilling permits in California, according to Department of Conservation data analyzed by Consumer Watchdog and the FracTracker Alliance.
CalGEM, the agency in charge of regulating oil and gas drilling, has approved over 1540 new oil and gas drilling permits in 2020 to date. 185% more oil and gas drilling permits were issued in the first six months of this year than in the same six months last year under Governor Newsom, the groups reported.
In addition, 54 of the new oil wells permitted by state regulators so far this year are fracking operations.
The permit numbers and locations are posted and updated on an interactive map at the website: NewsomWellWatch.com
To get the message across to the public, the California Governor and other elected officials, the Last Chance Coalition launched a radio and billboard campaign in October to illustrate the dire health impacts to vulnerable communities living near oil and gas wells.
Radio ads started playing on on popular Sacramento stations, voiced by frontline leader Nalleli Cobo, who was sickened by oil wells across the street from her childhood home in South Los Angeles starting at age nine. Now nineteen years old, Nalleli is battling cancer.
"We hope that Governor Newsom will get the message loud and clear,” Nalleli said about the ads. “His announcement banning new gas-powered cars by 2035 doesn't provide the protection that millions of Californians living near oil wells need right now."
Cesar Aguirre, a community organizer in Kern County featured in another radio spot, lives around oil wells also.
Aguirre says in the ad, "You've expanded oil production in my community, where we breathe the industry's toxic pollution every day. California's frontline communities need real action."
The radio ads point out that Governor Newsom has expanded oil production in communities of color and call on him to phase out oil drilling.
The Newsom Administration is supposed to issue a draft health and safety rule before year's end. Member groups of the Last Chance Alliance have demanded a 2500-foot set back between oil wells and homes, schools and communities.
At this time, California is one of two oil and gas drilling states — the other is Alaska — that don’t have health and safety setbacks around homes, schools, hospitals and other facilities.
Listen to the radio ads: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1-yklc8Q24BqYzvQNz64fT-Y7w7S9HdHC
Background: The Big Money Behind Big Oil
Why have California regulators expanded oil and gas drilling in recent years? Well, it all comes down to Big Oil regulatory capture.
The Western States Petroleum Association, the trade association for the oil industry in the Western States and the most powerful lobbying organization in California, pumped more money into lobbying state officials than any other group in 2019, spending a total of $8.8 million. WSPA lobbies for Aera Energy, Chevron, the California Resources Corporation and other oil companies in the states of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.
The oil companies also spend many millions lobbying themselves each year, in addition to the money spent on their behalf by WSPA. Chevron pumped the third most money of any organization in California into lobbying in 2019, a total of $5.9 million. The lobbying expenses of Chevron and WSPA came to a total of $14.7 million.
In 2017, Chevron placed first in California lobbying expenses by spending $8.2 million, while WSPA placed second by pumping $6.2 million into lobbying.
During the first quarter of 2020, at the same time that the Newsom Administration approved 1,623 total oil drilling permits, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) spent $1,089,702 lobbying state officials.
Chevron spent even more: $1,638,497 in the first quarter of 2020 to influence legislators, the Governor’s Office and other state officials. The two oil industry giants combined to spend a total of $2,728,199 lobbying from January 1-March 31.
In the second quarter of 2020, WSPA spent $1,220,986 while Chevron spent $974,322 on lobbying in California, a total of $2,195,308.
Neither WSPA nor Chevron had posted their July 1 to September 30 lobbying expenses for 2020 by October 31, although Aera has posted its expenses up to September 30.
Aera Energy spent a total of $672,604 lobbying California officials in 2019. In 2020 to date, Aera spent $290,826 on lobbying from January 1 to March 31, $191,660 from April 1 to June 30, and $200,082 from July 1 to September 30, a total of $682,028, more than all of last year.
In addition to spending hundreds of thousand of dollars every quarter on lobbying, Aera Energy also has deep connections to Governor Newsom’s Office. “Aera has well-connected lobbyists in its corner who work for the firm Axiom Advisors,” acccording to Steve Horn in his June article in Capital and Main: https://capitalandmain.com/gavin-newsom-hands-out-fracking-permits-to-connected-driller-0619
“One of them, Jason Kinney, headed up Newsom’s 2018 transition team and formerly served as a senior advisor to Newsom while he was lieutenant governor. He is also a senior advisor to California’s Senate Democrats,” wrote Horn. “The other, Kevin Schmidt, previously served as policy director for Newsom when the latter was lieutenant governor. Aera paid Axiom $110,000 for its lobbying work in 2019 and, so far in 2020, has paid $30,000, lobbying reports reveal.”
The Governor’s close relationship with Kinney hit the news on November 13 when First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and people from several other households gathered outside this month at The French Laundry to celebrate Kinney’s 50th birthday. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the dinner at one of the world's most exclusive restaurants as coronavirus cases spiked in California and throughout the country.
Lobbying is just one of the seven methods that Big Oil uses in California to exercise inordinate influence over California regulators. WSPA and Big Oil wield their power in 7 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) working in collaboration with media; (6) creating alliances with labor unions; and (7) contributing to non profit organizations.