LOS ANGELES, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) traveled to Baldwin Hills to sign legislation restricting oil and gas facilities — and removing the pumpjacks behind him, ending a century of the oil and industry’s role in the area.
AB 2716 will close the Baldwin Hills oil facilities, which existed prior to the surrounding area becoming developed for residential use, but which now sit inside what has become L.A.’s most prominent middle-class black neighborhood.
AB 3233 will give local authorities more power to prohibit oil and gas drilling. AB 1866 will expand on existing law and increase and accelerate the penalties for not capping idle wells within existing oil and gas production facilities.
Earlier this year, the oil industry abandoned efforts to put a referendum on the 2024 ballot to reverse a 2022 law, SB 1137, that created buffer zones around schools and homes to…
