Communities across California, from Los Angeles to the San Joaquin Valley, have been fighting for more than a decade to stop oil companies from drilling in their neighborhoods and spewing unhealthy pollution into the air.
The passage of a landmark state law in 2022 banning new drilling within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, daycares and hospitals and establishing new health protections for existing wells seemed to be the victory they were looking for. They never imagined it could take nearly another decade for it to fully take effect.
Yet that is exactly what Gov. Gavin Newsom's office has proposed in the final days of this year's legislative session. The law was already delayed a year and a half when the oil industry filed a referendum against the law and then withdrew it from the November voteNow the administration wants to extend several oil industry compliance deadlines under the law.
As written, the law gives operators of wells near homes and schools until the end of this year to submit leak detection and response plans to state regulators, and until the end of 2026 to implement them. Newsom’s proposal would extend those deadlines to July 1, 2029, and July 1, 2031, respectively, among other delays.
Forcing communities that have already faced one obstacle after another to wait years longer for oil companies to fully comply with requirements designed to protect the public from their pollution is unreasonable and wrong.
Enough delays. Lawmakers should reject the Newsom administration’s last-minute proposal. The more than 2 million Californians who live within 3,200 feet of oil wells and who are at increased risk for cancer and other health problems deserve help now.
For years, the oil industry used its lobbying power in Sacramento to counter efforts by lawmakers to ban new oil wells and protect Californians from the health impacts of existing drilling operations. In 2021, Gov. Newsom announced that his administration would act without the Legislature to impose drilling restrictions, but regulation was so slow that it took a new law to finally get it done.
The ban on new drilling near homes and schools took effect immediately after the referendum was canceled in June. But under Newsom’s proposal, oil companies would have more than four additional years to comply with the law’s requirements to monitor and repair leaks from existing wells. “Leaking” is an understatement: Drilling operations are spewing benzene and other dangerous, cancer-causing pollutants into the lungs of children and adults who live, work or attend school nearby, and that must stop.
At least an 18-month delay would be understandable. That's how long the law was suspended because of the oil industry-backed referendum, and it should be enough time for state agencies charged with implementing the law to get back on track. But they don't need more than four years.
“It seems like a benefit to the industry and a detriment to the public,” Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles) said at a committee hearing last week. “This is taking many years without any political oversight.”
While oil companies will be the main beneficiaries of these delays, Newsom administration officials have insisted that state agencies need more time to hire staff and prepare to properly implement the law. The governor’s office said it did not reach any agreement with the oil industry in exchange for dropping the referendum.
We hope the attempt to delay the measure is not a sign that the governor has backtracked on his commitment to move the state away from fossil fuels, but it is not the only example.
The governor on Monday vetoed a bill to improve monitoring, reporting and public notification of air pollution at oil refineries, saying local air quality management districts, which supported the legislation, were already doing enough to protect communities. The administration has also requested a two-year extension on compliance with two major environmental laws Newsom signed last year that require large companies doing business in California to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks.
Assembly and Senate lawmakers should reject any delays other than minimal delays on such important protections for climate and public health. Pushing back compliance deadlines is not harmless. Living near oil and gas wells is linked to asthma, premature births, and reductions in lung function equivalent to living near a freeway or secondhand smoke. The population suffers ongoing health effects with every delay granted to the fossil fuel industry.
