State Files Suit Over Feds’ Fracking Plan

SACRAMENTO – California today filed suit against the Trump Administration’s plan to open up more than one million acres of public space in the state’s central counties to oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

The lawsuit alleges that the environmental review of the project conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to fully evaluate the significant adverse impacts the project would have on the area's communities and environment and urges the court to nullify BLM’s decision.

The BLM plan includes land in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura counties.

“BLM’s decision to advance this half-baked proposal isn’t just misguided, it’s downright dangerous,” said Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “The risks to both people and the environment associated with fracking are simply too high to ignore. But that’s essentially what BLM is doing. We won’t ignore the facts and science when it comes to protecting our people, economy, and environment – and we’re taking the Trump Administration to court to prove it.”

The Attorney General is joined in the suit by Governor Gavin Newsom, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR).

Earlier this year Patch reported that the Attorney General, CARB, CDFW, and DWR had all submitted comments on BLM’s draft environmental impact statement, urging BLM to withdraw its proposals and prepare a new analysis that gave full weight to all the contrary research and knowledge. (“State Condemns Trump Admin Decision to Impose Fracking”, December 12, 2019.) Despite that request, BLM has now moved forward and confirmed its decision.

Fracking is a procedure in which oil and gas producers inject water, sand, and certain chemicals at high pressure into tight rock formations to extract oil and gas. While most of the fluid is water, the process also involves the use of toxic chemicals that can pollute nearby groundwater and release air toxins when flowing back to the surface.

A growing body of evidence from both the U.S. and Europe points to a significant link between fracking activity and earthquake events. In Oklahoma where the state has actively encouraged fracking, earthquakes are occurring 600 times more frequently than they did before the activity began. On average, Oklahoma has at least two earthquakes per a day with a magnitude of three or greater, a higher incidence than even California experiences.

The lawsuit contends that BLM failed to adequately consider these and other issues related to fracking, such as significant water and air pollution problems, harm to imperiled species, and the ongoing threat of land subsidence and sinking.

Further, the state contends that BLM has improperly assumed that only four wells per year will utilize fracking, an underestimate that grossly distorts the Bureau’s ability to give true consideration to the project's environmental impacts.

In their suit the state’s officers charge BLM with endangering California’s environment and the public health of its communities; increasing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; damaging water resources and infrastructure; and failing to protect the state’s endangered species and habitats.

Currently more than 95 percent of federal drilling in California occurs in Kern County, much of which fails to meet environmental and air quality standards. Pollution in that part of California is known to significantly increase the occurrence rates of asthma, heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.

Moreover, the suit decries BLM’s decision for interfering with California’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are supposed to be down to 1990 levels by 2020, and 40 percent lower than 1990 levels by 2030. In addition the state is slated to switch 100 percent of its electricity sales to renewable energy and zero-carbon resources by 2045; plans BLM’s decision would make unattainable.

The lawsuit asserts that BLM’s final environmental impact statement violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in several ways:

• Fails to carefully address the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of the proposed action and relies upon incorrect assumptions regarding the frequency of fracking on public lands;

• Ignores the impacts and danger to millions of people living near the oil and gas wells. Seven of the eight counties in the planning area already do not meet air quality standards for particulate matter, ozone, or both;

• Disregards alternatives and mitigation measures that could reduce the impacts of fracking, including closing off areas near disadvantaged communities, ecologically sensitive areas, and areas with low or no potential for oil and gas development;

• Fails to consider the conflicts of the proposed action with state laws and policies; and

• Unlawfully restricts the public’s ability to comment on the proposal by restricting the comment period, failing to accept oral comments, and refusing to provide interpretive services at public meetings.

In 2018, Attorney General Becerra also filed a lawsuit against BLM over its decision to repeal the 2015 Fracking Rule, the rule which governs the fracking of oil and gas wells on federal and Native American Tribal lands nationwide.

Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles.

The complaint can be viewed in full at: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/1%20Complaint.pdf