CALIFORNIA—On August 1, the California Attorney General announced a Moratorium he and Governor Gavin Newsom signed with the Federal Bureau of Land Management, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Department of Water Resources, ending former President Trump’s plan to utilize 1 million acres of public land for the fracking/drilling for oil in central California.
In 2019, former President Trump opened up the acres of oil-rich land to fracking to get consumers to buy American oil than having to be reliant on other countries. According to reports, fracking 1 million acres brought the price of gas down and created numerous jobs. AG Bonta and Governor Newsom challenged the plan in a January 2020 lawsuit.
“Fracking is dangerous for our communities, damaging to our environment, and out of step with California’s climate goals, The Trump Administration recklessly opened Central California up to new oil and gas drilling without considering how fracking can hurt communities by causing polluted groundwater, toxic air emissions, minor earthquakes, climate impacts, and more. In keeping with the Bureau of Land Management’s mission to preserve the health of our public lands, it must reassess this Trump-Era mistake,” said AG Bonta in a statement.
The Bureau of Land Management has not held a lease sale on the land since a 2013 judgement ruling that the land was being leased illegally, and without an environmental study being done on the effects that fracking would have on the land.
Environmentalists applaud California’s decision to end fracking in Central California. One commenter suggested a thank you note to President Biden writing:
“We all wonder why we are paying high prices at the pump still instead of the $2 dollars and change that we paid during the Trump administration. Well here is the answer if Americans can not pump American oil we are forced to buy expensive foreign oil and pay the high transportation cost to get it here if they can find a refinery that isn’t retooling to do biofuel we should all write thank you letters to the Biden administration for paying dearly for his climate agenda that will not work but will bankrupt America.”
One commenter said, “Remember Newsom and Bonta [on Election Day] in November.”
West Texas drills for oil utilizing fracking rights for decades. One commenter wrote on social media:
“Meanwhile, in Texas… West Texas is booming with new drilling as well as uncapping already drilled wells to get them productive. Gas in Texas (Dallas) is heading for 3.50 and soon we’ll see sub 3.00 pricing,” and “2.99 all the time.”
