Frontline Community Groups Urge Governor And Legislature to Swiftly Reject CalGEM Proposal to Delay Landmark Law Creating Common Sense Health and Safety Measures for Neighborhood Oil Wells
CA vs Big Oil Coalition Led By Community Leaders Vows to Never Stop Fighting To Protect Schoolchildren and Neighborhoods From Toxic Oil Drilling
SACRAMENTO – Yesterday, a budget trailer bill was unveiled containing a new proposal to delay by four years critical public health protections that will better protect schoolchildren and neighborhoods from toxic chemicals spewing from nearby oil wells. CalGEM, the state regulatory agency funded in part by millions of dollars in permits and fees from the oil industry, is behind the proposed delay that would seem to come straight from the oil industry’s playbook. The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California, a coalition led by community leaders and environmental justice groups, immediately called on the legislature and Governor to act swiftly to reject Big Oil’s delay tactics and end the free reign Big Oil has enjoyed sacrificing the health of communities of color for decades.
In 2022, after Big Oil unsuccessfully lobbied the Legislature against SB 1137, the landmark public health protection laws for neighborhoods adjacent to toxic oil wells, the oil industry sought to delay implementation and overturn the law with an unsuccessful ballot referendum campaign. Just a few weeks ago, Big Oil was forced into an embarrassing public surrender of that ballot referendum after a yearlong campaign led by frontline community leaders and environmental justice groups. CalGEM’s new proposal is seeking to give Big Oil a victory by delaying SB1137’s public health protections for four additional years. This would double the time the oil industry has to comply with the law and continue to allow their toxic wells to spew pollutants into surrounding homes and schools.
"We are disappointed in CalGEM and their inability to protect community health and safety. Community leaders have been forced to stand up and fight for ourselves to earn basic public health protections from toxic oil drilling near our homes and schools - drilling permitted by CalGEM. We stopped Big Oil from delaying justice just a few weeks ago, and we certainly are not going to back down from CalGEM’s proposed change in legislative direction. We will not stop until California children are no longer poisoned for Big Oil’s profits,” said Darryl Molina Sarmiento, CSHC Steering Committee Member and Executive Director of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE).
If CalGEM and Big Oil are successful in their latest gambit, they would be allowed to continue to pollute neighborhoods without public health safeguards in place all the way until 2031. That would mean a delay of justice for nearly 10 years after the Legislature and Governor passed the public health protections that prohibit new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of where nearly 3 million Californians live, while also requiring existing wells to meet higher safety standards to help protect schoolchildren and neighborhoods from toxic pollutants.
“CalGEM’s new leadership and charge of responsibility to protect community health provided optimism to counter decades of Big Oil’s money and influence in our regulatory agencies,” said Mabel Tsang, CSHC Steering Committee Member and Political Director for the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA). “We urgently call on the Legislature to reject CalGEM’s stall tactic and we need Governor Newsom to step in again and help us by forcing them to immediately and fully implement SB 1137 without delay. We need to honor those who have come before us to fight with their lives against Big Oil, and we demand that California neighborhoods be protected from toxic polluters.”
Organized as the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California, the group led by community leaders and environmental justice organizations has grown to a massive statewide coalition organized as CAvsBigOil.com and includes doctors, nurses, faith leaders, artists, and labor organizations united to protect California from Big Oil’s toxic pollution.
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Press Contact:Robin Swanson, robin@swansoncomm.net