Did you know this: “An oil and gas-related lawsuit filed against state government Wednesday challenges a landmark law banning new drilling or well maintenance within 3,200 feet of sensitive sites such as homes, potentially affecting 15,000 wells statewide.
The plaintiffs, two Long Beach royalty owners, allege a 2022 state law known as Senate Bill 1137 violated their constitutional right to due process and amounted to an illegal taking of private property. They are demanding a jury trial.”
Move forward to the end of 2026. Several refineries will be closed, 15,000 oil wells closed down. The car you buy is dictated by Sacramento. California has committed suicide—the eulogy will be needed for the start of 2027.
Lawsuit challenges state’s landmark oil-field setbacks law
BY JOHN COX, Bakersfield.com, 4/16/25 https://www.bakersfield.com/news/lawsuit-challenges-states-landmark-oil-field-setbacks-law/article_189ce61c-643d-4f1f-9322-33d9ff241641.html?utm_source=bakersfield.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3Femail-scrape%26-dc%3D1744894812&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read%20more
An oil and gas-related lawsuit filed against state government Wednesday challenges a landmark law banning new drilling or well maintenance within 3,200 feet of sensitive sites such as homes, potentially affecting 15,000 wells statewide.
The plaintiffs, two Long Beach royalty owners, allege a 2022 state law known as Senate Bill 1137 violated their constitutional right to due process and amounted to an illegal taking of private property. They are demanding a jury trial.
The complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court has come 10 months after the California Independent Petroleum Association trade group switched tactics on the eve of a key deadline, saying it would sue the Newsom administration instead of using California’s voter referendum process to try to overturn SB 1137.
Defendants named in the case are the state of California, its Department of Conservation and the agency’s oil industry regulatory arm, known as the California Geologic Energy Management Division.
A spokesman for CalGEM said the state had not been served with the suit and would not comment on pending litigation.
SB 1137 represented a major loss for the oil industry and a big win for environmental justice groups contending oil field activity causes pollution that endangers the health of people living or working nearby.
Plaintiffs Monte Beard Sr. and Merry Vanderwaal, a brother and sister receiving about $3,600 each in royalty income per year, say in the lawsuit they inherited property rights to subsurface oil and gas reserves purchased by their maternal grandfather in 1929.
Their suit alleges the so-called setbacks law violates procedural and substantive due process, equal protection under the law and represents inverse condemnation.
It goes on to say SB 1137 effectively prohibits them from reworking or maintaining existing oil and gas wells or development of new ones. It asserts the law is not based on facts or science and is “wholly arbitrary.”
The complaint requests that the court order the state to halt enforcement of the law and compel the Newsom administration to issue all necessary oil permits.
It asks the court to find that SB 1137 is unconstitutional and unenforceable because it goes against the U.S. and state constitutions’ guarantee of due process, as well as equal protection and taking of property for public use without just compensation.
The suit by Beard and Vanderwaal estimates that half a million individuals in California, and their families, receive oil and gas royalty payments.
SB 1137 imposes monitoring requirements and leak detection devices on oil facilities located within the 3,200-foot buffer zones. It limits how much noise, light and dust may come from wells and petroleum production facilities.
The suit alleges studies commissioned by different state and regional government agencies to assess potential health risks from exposure to oil and gas pollution “categorically do not support statewide imposition of a 3,200-foot setback.”
It says that as the oil and gas wells on the plaintiffs’ property age, they require maintenance, along with redrilling and sidetracking to keep producing petroleum.
“Without the ability to repair and replace inoperative wells, (the plaintiffs) will lose the ability to extract the underground hydrocarbons, and in turn, the petitioners and other royalty owners will be directly harmed by the taking of their property interest and the right to all or substantially all economic benefit from their property.”
California is going for clean air. Oil, gas and coal have no place in California. Neither do middle income earners. The low income earners will be subsidized so they will have all electric homes. The rich can afford all electric homes or they can lawyer their propertied to get exceptions. The middle class will just have to be content to pony up the dollars or ride off into the sunrise!
The Supreme Court may be what stifles our so-called governor’s plans.