Legislature delays oil well monitoring by more than 3 years, restores funding

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Leak detection at oil wells near residential areas in California will be delayed by more than three years in a compromise hammered out in the Legislature today hours before the end of the year’s legislative session.

In a separate vote, lawmakers also reinstated funding this year for three state agencies to enforce the two-year-old law that requires oil companies to monitor oil operations within 3,200 feet of homes and schools to detect leaks into the air and water.

The two bills will now go to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature.

Two weeks ago, the Newsom administration floated a plan to extend the law’s various deadlines — by more than four years for leak detection reporting — because state officials needed more time to implement them. Environmentalists supported a two-year delay. In the end today, the Legislature settled on three and a half years, setting a new deadline of July 2030 for leak monitoring; the original law’s deadline was January 2027.

The Assembly passed the budget bill in a 42 to 15 vote and the bill changing the deadlines in a 45 to 14 vote. The Senate voted 31 to 9 and 30 to 9, respectively.

Through the two bills, state agencies will receive nearly $15 million in this year’s budget to begin implementing the oil well rules.

“After thorough deliberation and negotiations, I am pleased to see a consensus reached on the implementation of this vital law to protect California families from the dangers of oil drilling pollution,” State Sen. Lena A. Gonzalez , a Long Beach Democrat who authored the law,  said in an emailed statement.

More than 2.5 million Californians live within 3,200 feet of an oil or gas well , predominantly in low-income communities of color. Research has linked an array of health effects, including a higher incidence of premature and low birthweight babies , to proximity of wells.

Implementation of much of the 2022 law was suspended for 18 months when the oil industry launched a campaign to overturn it with a ballot measure. The industry, however, abruptly withdrew the measure in June.

Then earlier this month, another complication emerged: A Department of Finance official told legislators that the law’s deadlines didn’t give the state agencies responsible for overseeing the rules sufficient time to hire staff and to ensure that technologies to monitor the air and water are reliable.

The Newsom administration’s plan for a four-and-a-half year delay of the monitoring requirements met with vigorous opposition from environmental groups and others. At the time, Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute for the nonprofit environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, called that delay “indefensible. It is a huge gift to big oil, and we need our agencies to protect the public.”

Then last week, Newsom withdrew that proposal but also withdrew the funding to implement the law, which prompted the Legislature today to restore it. The two bills will now need Newsom’s approval.

Oil company executives say the oil well law will eliminate jobs, drive up gasoline prices and increase California’s dependence on imported oil. Complying with the law will cost them about $40 million over the first two years, the industry estimates.

Earlier this month, Rock Zierman, chief executive officer of the California Independent Petroleum Association, said the delays make sense because the ballot proposition process paused implementation, so a new starting point is necessary.

He said a main focus of the law, prohibiting new wells or work on existing wells within the buffer zone, is already in place.