The ruling comes a day after environmental advocates announced a plan to try to enshrine a state law banning new gas and oil wells near homes, schools and hospitals as the oil industry vies for voters to overturn it. Voters could face dueling measures on the November 2024 ballot.
“We need to really pressure legislators to develop better regulations to ban new oil and gas drilling in the state,” Solorio said. Proponents of Measure Z remain hopeful the ruling will not have a rippling effect on other local measures. The Los Angeles city council voted last year to ban new oil and gas drilling. In San Benito County, which is south of the San Francisco Bay Area, residents voted to ban fracking in 2014.
Passing Measure Z was a way for voters to implement “popular and common-sense health protections” after the county board of supervisors rejected a fracking ban, said Hollin Kretzmann, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. California has made itself known for setting ambitious goals to transition toward renewable energy sources, as in the goal to remove as many carbon emissions as it releases by 2045. But while the state produces about half as much crude oil each day as it did in the 2000s, it is still also among the top oil producers in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. It trails behind states that include Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota.