PD Editorial: Oil well regulators get caught looking the other way

A recently released audit of the California Geologic Energy Management Division should anger Californians. It found that regulators ignored health and safety rules and approved hundreds of oil and gas wells without required environmental reviews.

The audit, conveniently released right before Thanksgiving when it would receive as little notice as possible, was ordered after a Palm Springs Desert Sun investigation found that officials with the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, or DOGGR, were using empty placeholder files to circumvent extensive reviews required for steam injection wells.

The federal Safe Drinking Water Act and recently strengthened state regulations require lengthy, extensive environmental reviews of wells that use cyclic steam blasting. But the newspaper’s investigation found that “dummy” folders — folders that should have contained detailed forms, diagrams and signoffs, but were actually empty — allowed oil companies to avoid that upfront review.

The audit conducted by the state Department of Finance confirmed that hundreds of wells had been issued permits inappropriately.

This must be fixed. The process for issuing permits must be reformed to ensure that all required health and safety reviews are arduously conducted. Wells that were permitted without proper review should be shut down.

Beyond that, the state needs to find out why this was happening. Was it bureaucratic incompetence? Is CalGEM yet another regulatory agency in the pocket of the industry it is supposed to oversee? Or is the Newsom administration somehow beholden to these special interests?

Environmentalists have long had mixed feelings about Gov. Gavin Newsom and his commitment to fighting climate change. While his administration has taken major steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, his cozy relationship with oil and gas lobbyists makes some nervous.

These concerns were heightened early in Newsom’s term when it was discovered that fracking permits were being issued at twice the rate as under former Gov. Jerry Brown — and amid allegations that DOGGR employees owned stock in the companies they were regulating.

Newsom’s attendance at a birthday party for longtime adviser Jason Kinney at the French Laundry last month drew heated criticism, both because it set a bad example during a pandemic and because of Kinney’s work with Axiom Advisors, a lobbying group whose largest client is Marathon Petroleum. Kinney and Newsom have a relationship dating back to the beginning of Newsom’s political career in San Francisco.

Californians could be forgiven for wondering if this has something to do with the state’s split personality when it comes to fossil fuels. Efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions and transition to greener fuels are widespread, but the number of permits issued for oil and gas wells continues to rise. In the first half of 2020, the number of new wells drilled was 9.2% higher than in the first half of 2019, according to data analyzed by Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance.

Meanwhile, Californians see the impact of climate change on their lives — most dramatically in the form of catastrophic wildfires.

The people of this state deserve a government that works to protect them harder than it works to protect the profits of a dying industry. Newsom needs to take concrete action to fix the problems revealed by this audit.

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