Victory for Climate Justice in California! Big Oil Drops Effort to Overturn Drilling Restrictions
Written by Keith Nickolaus, CRBA Writers Team
California's environmental advocates have achieved a monumental victory! Big Oil has withdrawn its attempt to overturn Senate Bill 1137, clearing the way for the bill’s implementation. SB 1137 safeguards neighborhoods from toxic drilling and was a major target of the oil industry, making recent events a victory for coalition building and the fight for climate justice, for reducing fossil fuel extraction, and for putting the interests of public health before corporate greed. And, with big oil polluting the environment and tainting state politics for decades, is this week’s victory just one more battle of a long war, or does it herald big oil’s fading dominance?
“It’s a massive and historic win. Victories like this don’t come every day. The oil industry just backed down in total defeat.”
— Kassie Siegel, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity (Fossil fuel industry drops California ballot measure that aimed to undo drilling regulations. LA Times, 27 June, 2024)
This week grassroots advocates for environmental justice and public health and safety are celebrating a multi-year David vs. Goliath victory over oil lobbyists.
The upshot? The oil lobby will withdraw its proposed ballot measure clearing the way for SB 1137 to go into effect immediately. CA–SB 1137 restricts fossil fuel extraction and prevents drilling for oil in the vicinity of homes, schools, and businesses all across California.
Photo courtesy of AdmiralFox from Pixabay
Big Oil Backs Down
Climate justice activists are celebrating a victory over big oil in California.
In a significant turn of events, the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) has officially dropped their effort to use a ballot referendum to repeal Senate Bill 1137.
If passed by voters, the oil lobby measure would have reversed efforts to regulate oil drilling, by repealing SB 1137. Signed by Governor Newsom in 2022, SB 1137 bans new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, and businesses, and imposes strict pollution controls on existing drilling sites.
CIPA's decision to back off their $61 million campaign means this critical law will take effect immediately, said Bonnie Hamilton, Policy Action Committee Co-chair with Climate Reality Bay Area:
“Because there was a referendum to repeal the law, the law could not go into effect. But now it can! A big win for climate and the health of communities, particularly Environmental Justice communities.”
The Scope of SB 1137
Advocates see SB 1137 as legislation instrumental to improving public health and safety, while also serving to hasten the phase out of planet-warming fossil fuels:
In a state filled with more than 100,000 unplugged oil and gas wells, environmental advocates say that defending the setbacks law is essential to eventually phase out planet-warming fossil fuels and protect residents who live near the toxic fumes released by drill sites… Nearly one-third of these wells are within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and other sensitive areas, exposing nearly 3 million people to cancer-causing pollution. In addition to restricting new drilling, the law would prohibit maintenance and redrilling, ensuring that old wells remain closed (Fossil fuel industry drops California ballot measure that aimed to undo drilling regulations, LA Times, Climate & Environment, 27 June, 2024).
A 10-year Struggle to Limit New Oil Drilling in California
Senate Bill 1137, passed in 2022, was the culmination of a long and winding regulatory effort to improve neighborhood health and safety. The regulatory law establishes buffer zones in the form of zoning setbacks that will keep all new oil wells at least 3,200 feet — equivalent of 1 kilometer — from residential zones.
According to a 2023 environmental policy action blueprint co-authored by Adam Sweeney, a member of Climate Reality Silicon Valley, similar setbacks are already required in many states such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
In California, decades-old legislation committed lawmakers to establishing similar restrictions on oil drilling, well before 2022. However, multiple past efforts failed in the intervening years, when previous bills to establish limits on new oil drilling were successively defeated in the California legislature, in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
In fact, prior defeats are a reminder of just how powerful the oil interests are. As Cal Matters reported in 2020, it was the oil lobbyists who convinced lawmakers to kill the oil drill buffer zone legislation on the floor that year — pointing out that gas and oil lobbying groups spend almost as much on political influence peddling as Realtors, Teachers, and Health Care Industry groups combined.
“We may be dominated by Democrats, but many of us are wholly owned subsidiaries of the fossil fuel industry.”
SB 1137 Reforms
When SB 1137 became law in 2022, it set the stage for California to join a number of states using buffer zones between oil drilling sites and sensitive public facilities, such as public businesses or offices, homes, and schools…
The bill also put into place other oil-drilling related health and safety requirements, which Inside Climate News described this way:
“The new law includes safeguards for the millions of Californians who live within the roughly half-mile buffer zone of existing drilling operations, tightening restrictions on everything from disruptive noise and light to the release of toxic gases from wells and storage tanks. In addition, operators must provide regulators with analyses of chemicals in any wastewater transported from existing drilling sites and, by January 2027, implement a plan to rapidly detect and fix leaks of noxious gases and the climate super-pollutant methane at these sites.”
“The Ink Had Hardly Dried…” and Court Battles to Come…
Almost as soon as SB 1137 passed, however, big oil dollars were funding an effort to undermine it by placing a measure before voters to get it repealed. As Governor Newsom said at the time, “They just filed a referendum yesterday, Big Oil. These guys aren’t going away.”
Furthermore, while dropping its bid to put a referendum on the ballot, CIPA — in this instance as well — is still not going away.
The oil lobbying group has publicly stated its plan to pivot to using legal challenges to undo SB 1137 and characterizes the regulatory measures as unconstitutional legislative overreach:
While CIPA is confident in its ability to be successful at the ballot box, we also recognize the likelihood of the Legislature simply introducing other similar bills, driven by the same unfounded narratives and lack of sound science. Therefore… CIPA and other opponents of the energy shutdown effort are pivoting from pursuing the referendum to instead pursuing a legal path to demonstrate that SB 1137, and any future legislation of its kind, is not legally sound… Shutting down these permitted assets, into which companies have invested millions of dollars without any proven environmental harm, constitutes an illegal taking under Article 5 of the US Constitution. It also violates due process and equal protection given that entities with much higher proven emissions that exist in the setback zones such as landfills, ports, water treatment and other industrial facilities, are not shut down by this or any other law.
CIPA’s plan to challenge SB 1137 in the courts, means the law’s future could still be uncertain.
It’s also a sobering reminder that even prominent victories on the political front can be thwarted by courts, especially under the shadow of the rapid-fire conservative legal precedents and anti-regulatory rulings being churned out by the current majority on the US Supreme Court.
A United Front for Health and Safety
Whatever the future may hold for SB 1137, the current victory is being celebrated as a testament to the power of grassroots activism and community resilience.
Here’s a snapshot of the impact of grassroots organizing and advocacy in the battle to get SB 1137 on the books:
Local, grassroots advocacy work fueled public awareness of the need for action on oil drilling in the state.
Engaged community activists concerned about healthcare, safety, global warming, and environmental justice focused on strategies for long-term success, including intentional coalition-building and spotlighting real-life stories about the known health effects suffered by Californians living near active drilling operations.
Grassroots outreach efforts eventually drew high-profile influencers into the fray, luminaries with large megaphones such as Jane Fonda and former California Governor Arnold Schwarznegger, who amplified the messaging and further increased public awareness.
When Big Oil poured big money into its effort to undermine SB 1137, grass roots organizers and concerned citizens did not back down.
The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California mounted a massive organizing effort that drew support and endorsements from literally hundreds of environmental justice groups, labor unions, community and faith leaders, and concerned youth — all in a shared effort to push back against the oil interests.
In effect, it’s for good reason that environmental justice leaders from around California see the victory as a vindication of public interests over the greed of the fossil fuel industry!
“This is a tremendous victory for Kern County communities and environmental justice advocates who have been fighting tirelessly for over a decade. With CIPA’s withdrawal of their deceitful referendum to overturn SB 1137, our neighborhoods are finally protected from the toxic impacts of oil drilling. This win is a testament to the power of grassroots activism and the resilience of our communities in the face of Big Oil.”
Political Maneuvering
In what might be termed a more behind-the-scenes effort to secure the survival of SB 1137, political maneuvering also contributed to the final defeat of CIPA’s referendum efforts, according to reporting by the LA Times.
Once advocacy groups had successfully raised awareness and cultivated an upswell of public opposition to efforts to repeal SB 1137, Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) made the fossil fuel lobbyists a proposition they felt compelled to accept, pulling the ballot initiative and clearing the way for implementation of SB 1137 restrictions, in return for limits on financial penalties related to the regulations, slated for passage in a separate bill:
“Bryan said he leveraged Assembly Bill 2716 in negotiations with the oil and gas interests. The bill he co-authored would charge a $10,000 penalty for operating low-producing wells within 3,200 feet of sensitive sites. In negotiations, Bryan said that if the ballot measure was withdrawn he would revise AB 2716 so that the daily penalty would apply only to the Inglewood oil field.”
What This Means for Our Communities
With SB 1137 now in effect, communities across the state will enjoy more robust protections from the toxic impacts of oil drilling. This law establishes the largest health and safety buffer zone around drilling in the country, ensuring cleaner air and a healthier environment for Californians, especially those living near drilling sites.
Democratic Assemblyman Issac Bryan (Los Angeles) looks forward to SB 1137 helping accelerate the demise of toxic oil fields that threaten health and safety. Bryan said he expects “longer life expectancies, lower rates of heart conditions, lower rates of childhood asthma and the opportunity to live and thrive without the toxicity of these wells right next to homes.”
Martha Dina Argüello, Executive Director for Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles, described the defeat of CIPA’s referendum a major healthcare victory:
SB 1137 will go into immediate effect, bringing us one step closer to ensuring that frontline communities can breathe cleaner air. Today, we celebrate this as a public health victory for all Californians living in the shadow of oil drilling.
More Battles to Come or A “Last Gasp” for Big Oil in California?
Gavin Newsom seems confident the oil industry’s choke hold on California lawmakers won’t diminish any time soon.
But some environmental advocates sounded a more optimistic note.
In an interview with the LA Times, Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity painted the development as a last gasp for oil and gas production.
“This is an industry that’s going away anyway,” she said. “What the state needs to do is oversee this ongoing decline in a way that minimizes the additional damage that this dying industry does on its way out the door.”
What’s your outlook?... On the future of SB 1137? On the enduring or waning influence of big oil in California politics?...
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While we celebrate this win, our work is far from over. There are still many challenges ahead in our fight for environmental justice. We encourage you to stay engaged, continue advocating for strong environmental policies, and spread the word about our achievements.
Together, we are making a difference. Let’s keep the momentum going and ensure a brighter, healthier future for all Californians.
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