Today, Governor Newsom directed the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) to initiate a regulatory action to ban new permits for fracking by 2024 and asked the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to analyze pathways to phase out oil extraction across the state by 2045.
Meanwhile, the state is simultaneously poised to make a decision on oil companies’ requested Cat Canyon Aquifer Exemption, which could open the door for a massive expansion of dangerous steam injection operations in the Cat Canyon Oil Field in Santa Barbara County. This exemption from federal drinking water protections would allow oil and gas operators to inject steam and millions of gallons of toxic wastewater into aquifers beneath Cat Canyon. Injections of oil field fluids threaten to contaminate drinking water relied on by over 150,000 County residents.
“The governor’s acknowledgment today that ‘California needs to move beyond oil’ is exactly right, but we must move quicker, and a fracking ban is only one piece of the puzzle,” said Tara Messing, staff attorney with the Environmental Defense Center. “We can’t risk another two decades of dangerous oil extraction, like cyclic steam injection and steam flooding, that threaten our communities’ water and air, and our state’s mosaic of natural resources.”