A judge delivered a blow to a Los Angeles City Council ordinance to phase out new oil drilling in L.A., ruling that only the state has the power to regulate oil drilling.
In a 16-page ruling dated Sept. 6, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin overturned the city’s ordinance to ban new oil drilling and phase out existing drilling within the city limits.
Environmental groups have long advocated halting oil drilling within the city limits where it has disproportionally impacted communities of color.
“This is very disappointing,” said Tyler Earl, senior staff attorney for Communities for a Better Environment. “It’s very frustrating, especially after so much hard organizing from communities and groups. To see it overturned like this is very frustrating.”
Ashley Hernandez’s home is 400 feet from oil wells drillingin Wilmington on Thursday, September 8, 2022. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Representatives for Warren Resources, which filed a lawsuit against the city over the ordinance, didn’t return a request for comment.
The ruling comes about two years after the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved an ordinance, which went into effect last year, to halt new oil and gas extraction amid outcry from communities living near urban wells. The ordinance directed the city to phase out all oil and gas extraction activities by banning new oil and gas extraction and ceasing existing operations within 20 years.
In 2022, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors green-lighted a similar ordinance to ban new oil and gas extraction in L.A. County.
In the ruling against the city, the judge wrote that the state agency CalGEM is “tasked with overseeing the state’s drilling, operation, maintenance, and plugging and abandonment of oil and gas wells.”
The judge added, “The fact that state law leaves room for some local regulation of oil drilling, such as zoning regulations identifying where oil drilling will be permitted in a locality, does not mean that the city has the authority to ban all new wells.”
More than 500,000 Los Angeles County residents live within a half-mile of an active oil well.
Activists and community groups had long lobbied city elected officials to stop oil drilling, citing the harm it has on communities that is disproportionately felt in working-class communities and communities of color.
A USC study published in 2022 linked living near oil and gas wells to wheezing and reduced lung function. The respiratory harm from living near urban wells equals the daily exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke or living beside highways spewing auto exhaust, according to the study, which focused on drilling sites in two South L.A. neighborhoods — Jefferson Park and North University Park.
Still, there is a chance the ruling could be reversed.
A new bill that passed in the state legislature, AB 3233, is on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. If signed, the bill would give the authority to cities and counties to ban and phase out oil drilling.
A representative for L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian said the councilmember declined to comment on pending litigation.
When it comes to whether Newsom will sign AB 3233, Earl said he was “cautiously optimistic.”
Daniel Villasenor, a spokesman for Newsom, wrote in an email that the deadline for the governor to take action on AB 3233 is Sept. 30.