Last Chance Alliance

Environmental justice, health Indigenous and climate organizations urge Gov. Newsom and CalGEM to protect frontline communities over polluters’ profits

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— The oil industry sued to overturn California’s fracking ban, and a Kern County judge’s tentative ruling now puts one of the state’s most important environmental justice victories at risk. Chevron, Aera Energy and the Western States Petroleum Association are asking the courts to wipe out a protection that frontline communities fought for years to win. Environmental justice, health, Indigenous and climate organizations from across California are demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) defend it.

The tentative decision, issued October 8, finds that CalGEM’s 2021–2024 practice of denying every fracking permit was unlawful and that the 2024 regulation is invalid because the state’s rulemaking record did not adequately support it. If finalized, it would send denied and pending permit applications back to CalGEM for individualized review. The court did not order any permits issued and did not decide whether the state can ban fracking through a properly supported regulation.

“The fracking ban finally gave protection to the families in Kern County who have lived next to wells that for decades have poisoned our air and threatened our water,” said Cesar Aguirre, Director of Air and Climate Justice Campaign at the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “This ruling hands that protection back to the oil companies. The fracking ban was a sign showing that California was ready to stop treating our communities as sacrifice zones. The price of big oil using the Courts to undo progress is paid for with the health of our children and communities.”

The science on fracking is not in doubt. Fracking uses toxic chemicals, including benzene and formaldehyde, that are known to cause cancer, and the industry has used “trade secret” claims to hide the identities of others. It releases smog-forming pollutants, fine particles and hydrogen sulfide into the air that nearby families breathe. 

In California, a 2021 study of nearly 980,000 births found that fracking within about half a mile of a mother’s home was linked to higher rates of low birth weight, preterm birth and small-for-gestational-age babies. Other research ties living near fracking to asthma attacks and hospitalizations, heart disease hospitalizations and early death among older adults. A 2022 study in Pennsylvania found a two- to three-fold increase in leukemia among children who lived near a fracking well during their mothers’ pregnancies or early in life.

“California’s fracking ban is a critical public health and environmental protection grounded in years of scientific evidence,” said Gabriela Facio, Policy Strategist at Sierra Club California. “This ruling comes right after recently extended permitting for oil and gas extraction, which will have significant consequences for frontline communities. These same communities will now have to face yet another added rollback that will only put their lives at a greater risk. If this ruling is finalized, the state must take action immediately to protect communities from the dangerous and polluting oil and gas industry.”

California’s conditions make the risks worse. About three-quarters of the state’s fracking was shallow, in wells less than 2,000 feet deep, and some of it was permitted directly beneath drinking water aquifers. Fracking was concentrated in already overly impacted communities, including in Kern County.

“Permitting fracking in California’s already heavily developed oil fields would be a high-risk, low-reward proposition,” said Kyle Ferrar, Western Program Director at FracTracker Alliance. “Unlike other basins, the state’s geology simply won’t yield meaningful production gains from well stimulation. Meanwhile, the dangers of groundwater contamination and surface blowouts are already mounting due to downhole communication between wells and increasingly tight well spacing—risks that would only intensify under fracking.”

According to state estimates, the ban reduces production by only about 4% over ten years, a sliver of output weighed against harms that fall hardest on communities of color already living next to wells. This is a fight over whose health comes first: families breathing the air, or oil companies counting profits.

“Governor Newsom and CalGEM have a duty to protect California’s environmental justice communities by strengthening the administrative record with scientific evidence supporting the fracking ban,” said Wilder Zeiser, Richmond Organizer at Communities for a Better Environment. “Our communities deserve protections that can withstand oil industry legal challenges.”

The organizations are urging the Governor and CalGEM to strengthen the record with the science on fracking’s harms and to act immediately to protect communities if the ruling is finalized. The tentative ruling begins a process of additional filings leading to a final decision, which is usually issued within about 50 days of the tentative order. 

Members of the Last Chance Alliance and allies said the following:

“Frontline communities across California, primarily made up of communities of color, are already bearing the brunt of adverse health effects caused by oil production,” said Tanvi Kardile, Coalition Manager at VISION. “This dangerous ruling would put our communities even more at risk for the sake of corporate interests.”

“Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples opposes Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking which is exactly what it sounds like: breaking through rocks and soil while contaminating water with the chemicals injected into the earth,” said Jessa Calderon, Director of Environmental Health and Creative Wellness at Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. “This process not only disturbs and contaminates water and soil, but it also causes habitat disruption, increases the chances of earthquakes, and contributes to long-term health issues in our communities. We support ending the fossil fuel economy as it stands on our ancestral homelands.”

“If this tentative decision is finalized, it’ll put fracking pollution back on the table five years after it should’ve ended,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Gov. Newsom’s fracking ban is one of the most important health and environmental achievements in California’s history and it’s backed by strong science. If the judge doesn’t change his mind, the state should immediately appeal and do everything in its power to keep protecting Californians from this dangerous, dirty business.”

“Fracking is a shameful, harmful practice that puts us at risk of toxic air and water contamination – especially those who are living near this polluting infrastructure. It has no place in California’s energy future,” said Nicole Ghio, California Director at Food & Water Watch. “Instead of allowing Big Oil to push us backwards for their financial gain we must instead invest in the future Californians want: clean air, clean energy, clean water and a livable climate.”

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LCA LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We acknowledge that Bakersfield is the traditional home of the Kitanemuk people of the Tejon Tribe. Part of our commitment to decolonizing ourselves, our language, and our organizations is a commitment to learning and better understanding the history of Indigenous Peoples of so-called California, including the history of contact, colonization and the extraction of resources from Indigenous lands which has been part of the continuation of modern colonization.

The post California Groups Call on State to Defend Fracking Ban After Tentative Court Ruling appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.

Federal auction of 43 parcels, including land inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, puts California’s landmark public health law in the crosshairs of Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda

SACRAMENTO, CA — As the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) set a Dec. 1 date to auction off oil and gas drilling rights on roughly 35,000 acres of California public land — the largest oil and gas lease sale since 2009 — 75 environmental justice, health, faith, Indigenous and conservation organizations representing millions of Californians are asking Governor Newsom to protect Californians from federal overreach. 

In a letter sent to Governor Newsom, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sarah Swig and State Oil and Gas Supervisor Douglas Ito, the coalition warns that the Trump administration has launched “an all-out attack on our state’s health and environment” by opening up acres of land for oil drilling on the state’s federal land. It urges the Newsom administration to uphold his commitment to the progress he made during his two terms by locking in the protections of SB 1137, the landmark law that prohibits oil drilling within 3,200 feet of communities, and California’s fracking ban before his term ends.

BLM announced today that it will offer 43 parcels in Kern, Kings, San Luis Obispo and Fresno counties at an online lease sale on Dec. 1, 2026. A 30-day public protest period opened today and closes Nov. 2. BLM itself notes that leasing is only the first step, and that no development can begin until an operator applies for a permit to drill, a process in which BLM coordinates with state partners, including CalGEM. That state permit is where California has the power to say no.

“In Kern County, we already live next to thousands of oil wells. BLM calls leasing ‘just the first step.’ We know where those steps lead: to more asthma, more cancer, more families breathing in someone else’s profits. The state permit is the last line of defense, and it has to hold.” said Cesar Aguirre,  Director of the Air & Climate Justice Team Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN).

“The federal government just put a date on the calendar to auction off drilling rights next to California homes and schools. Governor Newsom has two months to make sure that when those leases are sold, the state’s answer to new wells in our neighborhoods is already written down: no.” said Ilonka Zlatar, California Climate Justice Organizer with the Oil and Gas Action Network (OGAN).

A federal lease sale that reaches into health protection zones

In June, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened more than a million acres of California public land to new oil and gas leasing, including fracking. More than 175,000 people submitted comments opposing it, but BLM made virtually no changes and continues to ignore California’s related laws. Its proposed December 2026 lease sale covers 44 parcels, roughly 36,000 acres in the Bakersfield and Central Coast regions. The sale includes:

• Nearly 3,800 acres inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, the 3,200-foot buffers that keep new wells away from homes, schools, daycares and hospitals
• Nearly 13,000 acres bordering Carrizo Plain National Monument
• More than 1,300 acres within the Lokern-Buena Vista and Chico Martinez Areas of Critical Environmental Concern & habitat for endangered species

“These public lands are precious wild spaces that belong to all Californians, not the polluting oil industry,” said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Trump’s nonsensical fossil fuel frenzy is no excuse to sacrifice California wildlife, communities and the climate. We won’t let this reckless land grab stand.”

BLM’s environmental assessment found “no significant impact” to the drilling expansion. It also found, preliminarily, that no historic properties would be affected, even though the land is within the ancestral homelands of the Chumash, Yokuts and Salinan peoples and near Painted Rock, one of the most significant Indigenous sacred sites in North America.

“This land holds our ancestors’ stories. This 36,000 acre oil lease is on the ancestral homelands of several Tribal Nations, including the Yokuts, Mono, Shoshone, Chumash, Kawaiisu, Tejon, Salinan, and Tübatulabal relatives. For the federal government to claim that drilling near Painted Rock would affect no historic properties shows how little regard it has for Indigenous Peoples. This affects the health of millions of community members, as well as the health of the lands, waters, and natural relatives. California must not rubber-stamp it,” said Starry Insixingmay, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. 

The lease sale comes as the U.S. Department of Justice, representing BLM, continues its lawsuit to overturn SB 1137’s health protection zones. On March 31, 2026, a federal court refused the administration’s request to suspend the law while the case proceeds, finding that the federal government “has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed” on the merits. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

No oil or gas well can be drilled in California, whether on federal, state or private land, without a permit from the state’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM). That permitting process is discretionary. The coalition is asking the Newsom administration to:

1. Direct CalGEM to require full review under the California Environmental Quality Act for any permit tied to this lease sale or any future federal lease, instead of relying on BLM’s federal environmental assessment.
2. Affirm that SB 1137’s health protection zones apply in full to every well permit, whether the land or mineral rights are federal, state or private.
3. Confirm that the state will enforce its fracking ban on all drilling projects, including those on federal leases.

The groups ask the administration to put these directives in writing through rulemakings, policies, executive orders or guidelines, so the protections outlast the current administration.

“Frontline communities fought for years to win SB 1137. We can’t let a federal agency erase it with a ‘no significant impact’ finding. The Governor has the authority to stop this, and we’re asking him to use it before he leaves office.” said Tanvi Kardile, Coalition Manager for Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighbourhoods (VISION). 

The coalition points to Santa Barbara as a warning. There, the Trump administration moved to restart Sable Offshore’s long-dormant, failed pipeline over the objections of the state agencies responsible for protecting the coast. “Just as the state is fighting that action,” the letter says, “it must do everything it can to defend SB 1137 and the state’s fracking ban.California led the nation in protecting communities from the harms of oil and gas drilling,” the letter concludes. “We are asking all of you, together, to use that time and that authority now — this is your legacy to protect.”

Signers include Voices In Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods (VISION), the California Environmental Justice Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Sierra Club California, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, Oil Change International, GreenLatinos and others. The full letter and list of signers are available here.

The post As Trump Sets Largest Oil & Gas Lease Sale in Almost 20 Years, 75 Groups Urge Gov Newsom: Protect California Before You Go appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.