WASHINGTON - The Trump administration signed off on an order Thursday that’s intended to open up more than 1 million acres of land in California, from the Central Coast to the San Joaquin Valley, to fracking and conventional oil drilling.

The Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Land Management, released the record of decision that ends a five-year moratorium on public land fracking and drilling.

Fracking is short for “hydraulic fracturing,” where drillers shoot a high-pressure stream of water or other chemicals into rock in order to crack it open to extract the oil or gas within.

The Thursday decision opens up for leasing 1.2 million acres of land in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties.

In the lead-up to the decision, federal officials held public meetings in Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Those meetings drew hundreds, who turned out to protest any new drilling or fracking.

At a hearing in San Luis Obispo, BLM Bakersfield Field Manager Gabe Garcia acknowledged that there were “a lot of very impassioned folks” and said he would take their comments into consideration.

Officials also received thousands of written comments from concerned parties.

“Public comments resulted in the addition of clarifying text to the final (environmental impact statement), but did not warrant or suggest further supplementation or change,” BLM deputy state director Danielle Chi concluded in the decision document.

The decision drew protest from environmental advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We won’t let California’s stunning public lands be fracked and drilled without a fight,” Clare Lakewood, an attorney at the center, said in prepared remarks. “Trump and the oil industry want to expose our communities and wildlife to more toxic pollution. The future of our state and our fight against the climate crisis depend on stopping this vast fracking expansion in its tracks.”

Lakewood said that the center is “looking into all of our options” when it comes to responding to the federal decision.

The decision comes less than a month after California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that his administration would crack down on fracking projects with a moratorium on new high-pressure steam injection wells and scientific review of all fracking permit applications.

“These are necessary steps to strengthen oversight of oil and gas extraction as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean energy sources,” Newsom said in a written statement. (Source: The Sacramento Bee)

Story Date: December 15, 2019