After a seven-year round of legal battles the California Supreme Court on August 3 affirmed that the state is in charge of oil and gas drilling and exploration, and not counties, a judgment environmental activists said makes it harder to prevent ecologic degradation.
Though they lost the latest round, activists vowed to continue to fight against what they said are the twin threats from pollution and global warming.
The Western States Petroleum Association was not a litigant in the ongoing round of legal battles. However WSPA President Kevin Slagle told the Northern California Record the High Court’s decision is for the best.
“Bans and mandates are never the right answer to complicated energy and climate issues,” he said. “Even as more new renewable energy is brought into California, we continue to need energy provided by oil and natural gas. Producing this energy in-state, under the toughest environmental standards in the world, is better than relying on imports to fuel our economy and life.”
Laura Solorio a retired Salinas doctor and president of Protect Monterey County an environmental nonprofit was unavailable for comment. But in a prepared statement she said her group's members were deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s Decision.
“So many Monterey County residents worked long hours in 2016 to pass Measure Z,” she said. “Our goal was to protect our community’s health and also our water from oil industry pollution. This decision doesn’t deter us. We’re fighting for our children and future generations. We must stop the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, oil and gas companies.”
The California Chamber of Commerce took more of a neutral stance.
“The California Chamber has long been focused on ensuring we meet our energy needs in a way that is technologically neutral so we can meet our energy demands in the most cost effective means possible,” said Chamber Policy Advocate Brady Van Engelen.
Activists in Monterey County led the effort to pass Measure Z, an initiative in 2016 that voters approved by a margin of 56 to 44%. If it had been enacted it would have banned new oil and gas development countywide. In particular Measure Z was aimed at fracking, use of high-pressure injected liquid to split rocks underground and extract oil and gas.
Monterey County is home to some of the most spectacular scenic and iconic coastal vistas in the country as well as being a National Marine Sanctuary.
Oil companies including Chevron and related industry plaintiffs filed lawsuits soon after Measure Z’s passage. Heard in Monterey County Superior Court in 2017, Judge Thomas Wills upheld a fracking ban in Monterey County but stripped Measure Z of further restrictions, allowing oil companies to continue their operations. In that case as well as in a subsequent appellate court judgement, Measure Z was determined to be invalid because its restrictions conflicted with a state law enacted in 1961, known as Public Resources Code Section 3106.
That law says, “The [state oil and gas] supervisor shall so supervise the drilling, operation, maintenance, and abandonment of wells and the operation, maintenance, and removal or abandonment of tanks and facilities attendant to oil and gas production…”
After the lower court decisions Protect Monterey County members filed a petition to the California Supreme Court in November of 2021 asking it to overturn the lower court rulings.
According to CBS News and the California Dept. of Conservation, Monterey County is the third largest oil producer in the state particularly in its South County, producing 5.1 million barrels annually. The top producer Los Angeles County produces approximately 8 million barrels yearly, followed by Kern County in second place.
A Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation report said there are 51,390 oil wells in California. The state ranks fourth in the country for oil production, accounting for 174 million barrels or 5.3% of U.S. output, far behind Texas with 272 million barrels. North Dakota and Alaska also produce more oil than California.
California ranked 15th nationally in the production of natural gas.
“While U.S. oil production has been increasing, oil production in California is moving in the opposite direction with three consecutive years of decline,” the report said. “This is a long-term decline since the late 1980’s when the number of barrels produced was 394 million barrels versus 174 million in 2017. That’s a 56% decline.”
Edward S. Renwick an attorney with the law firm of Hanna & Morton represented the California Chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners, a group of property owners who are paid by oil companies for the right to drill on their land. He said Measure Z would have restricted oil technology procedures needed to extract oil from old worked-over wells.
He explained that the original disparate lawsuits were consolidated into one suit under the Chevron banner and indicated that oil drilling is not the easy-to-make gushing spout that people think it is.
“Today you don’t just poke a hole in the ground,” Renwick said. “There’s still a lot (oil) in the ground but it’s harder to get out. Engineers today have gotten good at secondary (oil) recovery.”
One of the oil development methods Renwick said Measure Z would curtail is the use of steam injection to maintain heat underground to coax the oil to the surface.
“This is a method,” he said. “If you stop drilling the well will collapse. The California Supreme Court said the decision is up to the supervisor of oil and gas (state). He permitted it (drilling methods). Counties can only legislate on a local level.”
Renwick said the economy still needs oil and gas.
“(President) Biden is in Saudi Arabia asking them if they’ll produce more,” he said.
Renwick credited a Monterey attorney Jacqueline Zischke for her work in helping to strike down Measure Z.
Hollin Kretzmann is an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity ‘s Climate Law Institute. He told members of Protect Monterey County in the communique that the wording of the state law 3106 and the decision of the California Supreme Court prevents Measure Z from protecting against dangerous oil drilling.
“Californians suffering from extreme heat, destructive wildfires, and health problems from asthma to cancer know the urgency of phasing out deadly fossil fuels,” he said. “The legislature should build on its important public health and climate measures by continuing to modernize oil and gas law to ensure that people are protected from this destructive industry.”
However, Frank Ingriselli, CEO of the Trio Petroleum Corp., a Bakersfield-based oil and gas company with operations in Monterey County said Measure Z would have stalled needed oil projects, like the company's South Salinas Project, a 9,000-acre oil and natural gas development project in the San Ardo Oil Field in South Monterey County. That project began in July.
“Everyone knows that California is a challenging regulatory environment for the oil and gas industry," Ingriselli said in a prepared statement. "Eliminating Measure Z is good for Monterey County and the state of California and simplifies our path forward, which we welcome.”
The wrangling over oil drilling in California, however, comes at a time the state's leadership is pushing to shut it down for good within the next two decades.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is currently pursuing a shut-down of all oil and gas drilling in the state by 2045.
A report in the Journal Record said environmental activists in the wake of the final defeat of Measure Z indicate they will attempt a different strategy, to further restrict oil production in California in the meantime. A new initiative at the state level for the 2024 election would prohibit gas and oil wells from being positioned near homes, hospitals and schools. Oil industry officials are just as likely to oppose it with a counter initiative set before the voters.