Big Oil Expands Assault on California’s Health and Climate Laws – By Aaron Miguel Cantu (Mother Jones) / Feb 22, 2023
“It’s like I’m having PTSD,” says one activist.
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This piece was originally published by Capital & Main.
Over the last few years, as California has introduced stronger regulations on oil and gas drilling aimed at protecting public health, a pattern of events has started to emerge.
Here’s how it typically goes: After years of advocacy, environmentalists successfully push for new oil and gas drilling regulations. Then the industry fights back; companies pour money into an anti-regulation referendum, buying advertising and hiring canvassers to claim that they’re protecting jobs. Though they’re accused of misleading people into signing their petitions, the tactic works as regulations are suspended until voters have a final say.
That scenario—in which, for example, oil giants including Aera and Chevron spent $7 million to gather signatures and sway Ventura County voters, who elected to toss out local restrictions on oil drilling projects in 2022—is now being repeated, but on a much bigger scale.
This time, the industry is taking aim at California’s setbacks law, SB 1137, which bans new and reworked wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and hospitals and was signed with much fanfare by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2022. On Feb. 3, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified that referendum after canvassers collected 978,610 signatures. The state agency that oversees oil and gas drilling has since suspended the law pending the vote on the referendum on Nov. 5, 2024.
