The U.S. is currently the world’s top oil and gas producer and largest net exporter of petroleum. Why then, has the Federal Government insisted on opening up 850,000 new acres on the Central Coast to oil and gas drilling?
The answer is one that everyone on both sides of the aisle already knows.
President Trump and his “Drill, Baby, Drill” administration are attacking the Central Coast because it is a place in “blue” California where local governments have both recognized the need to combat climate change and been effective in shutting down oil and gas development in their jurisdictions.
As example, Santa Barbara County’s Climate Action Plan aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of 2018 levels by 2030. The plan focuses on reducing emissions via energy efficiency improvements to residential and commercial buildings, converting to all-electric systems, electrifying government fleet vehicles, and bolstering county resilience to climate change-driven events like sea-level rise, wildfire, and extreme weather. In line with this, the County Board of Supervisors is looking to prohibit new oil and gas development, and sunset 1,039 active onshore wells and 2.4 million barrels of oil production annually to lower Santa Barbara County’s GHG emissions.
Likewise, the City of Santa Barbara’s Climate Action Plan establishes a goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. The city is not starting from scratch in its quest for carbon neutrality, as many policies, programs, and projects have already been set in motion which will support the Climate Action Plan. For example, the city’s Green Building Policy is currently being implemented to reduce natural gas consumption in the city’s buildings and implementation of the city’s Zero Emission Vehicle Acquisition Policy is well underway.
Given this local government leadership to mitigate GHG emissions and the Central Coast’s legacy as having birthed the modern environmental movement following the 1969 oil spill, it’s not surprising the Trump administration is targeting us for unnecessary oil and gas development.
However, the state of California, Central Coast governments, and local environmental organizations are responding to this federal oil and gas leasing attack through litigation. Indeed, state officials are actively challenging a litany of federal directives in court, citing overreach of authority, as well as environmental and public health risks.
In particular, California has enacted Senate Bill 1137, which establishes “health protection zones” preventing new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of sensitive areas such as schools, hospitals, and homes. Because recently proposed federal lease areas overlap with these pre-existing zones, the state can deny or delay oil and gas operating permits based on public health violations.
Another avenue through which California can fight back is AB 342 (passed in 2019), that prohibits the leasing of state lands for the construction of infrastructure that would support new oil and gas leases on federally protected lands. Drilling on federal land isn’t profitable if the oil cannot be transported to refineries.
In addition to these laws, state leaders — including the California Attorney General — are pushing back through the judicial system. California has repeatedly sued the federal government and the Department of Energy over orders that bypass environmental reviews, arguing these actions intrude on state jurisdiction and ignore coastal protections.
At the local level, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and Santa Barbara City Council can pass ordinances that strictly prohibit or restrict new onshore oil and gas drilling operations, or deny land-use permits needed to construct necessary processing and pipeline infrastructure within county and city borders.
And finally, the family of Central Coast environmental organizations can, and should, mount campaigns in support of all these approaches. With some luck, this important work may just be able to keep the “Drill, Baby, Drill” administration out of the Central Coast.
