A new law requires new oil wells to be at least a kilometer away from homes, schools and hospitals. Columnist hiltzikm writes California oil drillers have 'mounted a multimillion-dollar campaign to overturn the law at the ballot box.'
The oil and gas industry, which has been accustomed to getting its own way from California regulators for decades, suffered a rare defeat this year.requires a minimum distance
Instead, they’ve mounted a multimillion-dollar campaign to overturn the law at the ballot box. On Wednesday, they crowed that they hadTo date, their war chest weighs in at more than $20 million, raised chiefly from independent oil and gas drillers. You can expect it to swell much, much more because of how much is at stake; California produced about 146 million barrels of crude oil in 2021, worth roughly $10 billion to $12 billion at current prices.
That suggests that the law would close existing wells and forbid new ones, which isn’t at all true: SB 1137 applies the minimum distance rule only to new and reworked wells, and only requires more extensive environmental reporting from existing wells. Nothing is being “shut down.” The referendum campaign launched by the California Independent Petroleum Assn. is merely the latest in a string of efforts by big business to override California laws at the ballot box.
Also in 2020, the bail bond industry — comprising huge international insurance companies masquerading as mom-and-pop storefronts — succeeded in repealing a California law eliminating cash bail. The repeal was a blow for efforts to reform a feature of the judicial systemThe 2024 state ballot is likely to see a challenge by the restaurant industry against a 2022 state law establishingfor fast food workers.
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