Petition Circulators Are Telling California Voters that a Ballot Measure Would Ban New Oil and Gas Wells Near Homes. In Fact, It Would Do the Opposite.
Signature gatherers stationed at California grocery stores for the last several months have been asking shoppers to sign a petition regarding a law that bans new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of the places people live, work and play. They have told passersby that the petition would protect people from neighborhood oil drilling. But in fact, it aims to do the opposite: overturn a recently enacted law boosting health and safety regulations on neighborhood oil and gas drilling, an Inside Climate News exclusive found. Simply qualifying for the ballot freezes enforcement of the law creating buffer zones, buying oil companies almost two full years to expand or continue drilling in those areas…
Beth Harvey had just finished grocery shopping when someone asked her to sign a petition outside a Trader Joe’s in an affluent Oakland neighborhood. The petition would keep oil companies from drilling near homes, schools and other sensitive sites, the canvasser told her.
“I was relying on what he said,” Harvey recalled. “I was putting my groceries in the trunk, and so I just very hurriedly said, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll go for that.’ And I signed it.”
Harvey, an outpatient case manager at a children’s mental health clinic, thinks others who signed the petition in this progressive Oakland community probably thought it would prevent neighborhood oil drilling too. “Rockridge isn’t really known for its pro-oil stance,” she deadpanned.
That may be why the signature gatherer told Harvey that the petition would protect people from oil drilling when in fact it aimed to do the opposite: overturn a recently enacted law boosting health and safety regulations on neighborhood oil and gas drilling.
The landmark law, Senate Bill 1137, banned new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of places people live, work and play. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law, which also tightens oversight of existing operations, on Sept. 16, a Friday. By the following Monday, an oil industry representative had filed a referendum to overturn SB 1137, which is scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1.