California Oil and Gas Report

ExxonMobil, which holds permits to drill off the coast of California, has asked the court for permission to intervene in a lawsuit that challenges the federal government’s authority to approve offshore drilling.

The Environmental Defense Center (EDC), a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit law firm, sued the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) of the Department of the Interior in  December of 2014. The lawsuit claims the agency did not adequately consider the environmental impacts of proposed wells in the Santa Barbara Channel when it approved their development.

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The Monterey County Board of Supervisors rejected a ban on hydraulic fracturing, opting instead to rely on state regulations that implement Senate Bill 4. The county is a significant producer of oil and gas.

The Board found “no evidence of an immediate threat to public health.” Supervisor Simon Salinas, whose district includes active oil and gas operations, said ‘We can’t regulate the industry county by county. I think we ought to give (the state) a chance and then monitor it.”

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The Obama administration has proposed the nation’s first federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing.

The new rules apply only to oil and gas wells on public lands. According to the Department of Interior, that is about 100,000 wells. The large majority of fracked wells are located on private land.

“Current federal well-drilling regulations are more than 30 years old, and they simply have not kept pace with the technical complexities of today’s hydraulic fracturing operations,” said the interior secretary, Sally Jewell.

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