Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the agency that regulates oil and natural gas drilling in California to stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024.
Newsom’s directive to the Department of Conservation’s Geologic Energy Management banning new permits was announced on Friday, as was his request that the state’s Air Resources Board look for ways to phase out oil extraction altogether in California by no later than 2045.
“The climate crisis is real, and we continue to see the signs every day,” the Democratic governor said in a press release. “As we move to swiftly decarbonize our transportation sector and create a healthier future for our children, I’ve made it clear I don’t see a role for fracking in that future and, similarly, believe that California needs to move beyond oil.”
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The move on fracking permits comes after Newsom insisted last fall, while facing pressure from environmental activists, that he couldn’t unilaterally ban the method as governor.
NEW: California is now the first state to declare an end to oil extraction in the country.
Today, we’re announcing that we will phase out all oil extraction — as part of a world-leading effort to achieve carbon neutrality — and ban fracking by 2024.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) April 23, 2021
“We simply don’t have that authority. That’s why we need the Legislature to approve it,” Newsom told reporters on Sept. 23.
State Sens. Scott Wiener and Monique Limon, a pair of Democrats, introduced a proposal on Feb. 17, more ambitious than Newsom’s, that failed to pass out of committee on April 13. The bill sought to halt the issuance or renewal of fracking permits beginning Jan. 1, 2022, and would have prohibited fracking, as well as acid well stimulation treatments, cyclic steaming, and water and steam flooding in California entirely beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
In addition to the end of fracking permitting by 2024, Newsom announced that the California Air Resources Board will examine the “economic, environmental and health benefits and effects of eliminating oil extraction” as the state seeks to become completely carbon-neutral by 2045.
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The Friday announcement adds to a list of executive actions that Newsom has taken on climate change in recent months. On Sept. 23, Newsom ordered a ban on new gas-powered vehicle sales starting in 2035. Two weeks later, on Oct. 7, he signed another executive order setting a goal to conserve 30% of California’s lands and coastal waters by 2030.
