July, 06 2020, 12:00am EDT

With New Permits, Newsom Ramps Up Fracking in California
Gov. Gavin Newsom's oil and gas regulatory agency has approved 12 new permits for Chevron to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Lost Hills Oil Field in Kern County.
The authorizations -- issued late Thursday afternoon, just before the holiday weekend -- will allow Chevron to frack these wells 168 times.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
Gov. Gavin Newsom's oil and gas regulatory agency has approved 12 new permits for Chevron to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Lost Hills Oil Field in Kern County.
The authorizations -- issued late Thursday afternoon, just before the holiday weekend -- will allow Chevron to frack these wells 168 times.
"It's outrageous that Gov. Newsom is handing out fracking permits during a pandemic that disproportionately harms polluted communities," said Hollin Kretzmann, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The governor needs to stop recklessly approving fracking and new oil and gas drilling. Instead of restarting fracking in areas already suffering from dirty air, Newsom should direct oil companies to start plugging these dangerous wells to create jobs and move us away from polluting fossil fuels."
Newsom ended a moratorium on fracking permits in April when the California Geologic Energy Management Division approved 24 new permits for Aera Energy LLC. Including Chevron's new permits, Newsom has now granted a total of 48 fracking permits since ending the moratorium.
Because each permit allows an operator to frack the same well multiple times, the actual number of fracking events authorized is 360. The fracking will occur in Kern County, which already suffers from some of the poorest air quality in the nation.
Newsom has also approved drilling permits for more than 1,400 new oil and gas wells so far this year. According to a California Council on Science and Technology report, it would cost more than $9.2 billion to properly plug California's existing oil and gas wells, and operators have not set aside nearly enough money to pay for this legally required cleanup. On Thursday, 12 of those new drilling permits went to California Resources Corporation, even though multiple reports state that the company will soon be forced to file for bankruptcy.
"Approving these permits is especially dangerous now, after multiple studies have shown air pollution increases our vulnerability to coronavirus," Kretzmann said. "Each new well and fracking event is another step backwards for public health and climate change."
Studies have linked fracking and oil extraction to a variety of air pollution problems, including increased smog levels. Researchers have found increased rates of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases in places with higher air pollution.
In June, the Center submitted one of more than 40,000 public comments calling for the state's oil and gas regulator to adopt a health and safety buffer that would require a minimum distance of 2,500 feet between oil and gas operations and sensitive receptors such as homes, schools, and hospitals. The Newsom administration has yet to release a set of proposed health and safety regulations.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
'Everyone Is Welcome Here' Signs Banned From Idaho Schools as 'Political' Statement
"To say that 'Everyone is Welcome' in a public school system is not political, it's the law," said one Idaho teacher.
Jul 02, 2025
The Idaho attorney general's office has declared schools in the state will no longer be allowed to post signs declaring that "Everyone is welcome here" on the grounds that they are purportedly a political message aimed at criticizing the policies of President Donald Trump.
Idaho Ed Newsreported Monday that the office has found that signs stating "Everyone is welcome here" violate Idaho House Bill 41, a law passed back in March that bars schools from flying flags or displaying signs that represent "a political viewpoint, including but not limited to flags or banners regarding a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender, or a political ideology."
In explaining its rationale, the Idaho attorney general's office claimed that "these signs are part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump" and added that "since that time, the signs have been used by the Democratic Party as a political statement. The Idaho Democratic Party even sells these signs as part of its fundraising efforts.”
The signs became an issue after Sarah Inama, a teacher in Idaho's West Ada School District, had refused to take them down from her classroom in the wake of Idaho House Bill 41's passage because she did not believe that a sign welcoming students regardless of their race or ethnicity should be considered political.
In a statement to Idaho Ed News, Inama once again expressed bewilderment that anyone could find the signs to be a political statement, especially given that government institutions are already legally barred from engaging in racial discrimination.
"To say that 'Everyone is welcome' in a public school system is not political, it's the law," Inama told the publication.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Fight Is Not Over': Progressives Launch Last-Ditch Push Against GOP Budget Monstrosity
"This country deserves better than this dumpster fire of greed, cruelty, and cowardice."
Jul 02, 2025
Progressives within and outside of Congress are mobilizing and working to rally public opposition on Wednesday as House Republicans moved to put the final stamp of approval on a budget package that includes unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance—alongside trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
"This fight isn't over, and we're not backing down," Andrew O'Neil, national advocacy director of Indivisible, said following the Republican-controlled Senate's narrow passage of the budget reconciliation bill on Tuesday, a vote so close that Vice President JD Vance was forced to intervene to push the measure over the finish line.
The GOP's margins are similarly thin in the House, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) only able to lose three Republican members amid unanimous Democratic opposition.
Indivisible and other advocacy organizations are driving calls and emails to House Republicans on Wednesday urging them to vote down the Senate-passed legislation, which is significantly more expensive and contains more aggressive Medicaid cuts than the bill the House approved in May. Medicaid cuts are highly unpopular with the U.S. public, including among Republican voters.
The phone number for the U.S. House switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
"Your Republican representative could be the deciding vote," Ezra Levin, Indivisible's co-executive director, said in an appearance on MSNBC late Tuesday. "We've got about 26 Republican targets. We need four of them—we just need four. And this is not a done deal."
While a House vote on the legislation could come as soon as Wednesday, far-right hardliners in the Republican caucus are threatening to prevent a quick advance of the bill, pointing to projections that it would add trillions of dollars to the nation's deficit over the next decade.
Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) reportedly headed to the White House on Wednesday to meet with Trump administration officials, who have urged Republican holdovers to drop their objections and help pass the budget legislation.
Progressive lawmakers in the House, meanwhile, are united in firm opposition to the bill, which they warn would have catastrophic impacts on vulnerable Americans nationwide.
"No way will I allow [President Donald] Trump and the GOP to rip healthcare and food away from millions of Americans just so he, [Elon] Musk, and their billionaire buddies can get a tax break," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said Wednesday, declaring that he will vote "hell no" on the Republican bill.
Today the Senate passed the biggest betrayal of working people in modern history.
It rips health care from 17 million, slashes food aid, and showers billionaires with tax breaks.
Next stop: the House. Progressives will be voting HELL NO. https://t.co/qd4Q13YiNa
— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) July 1, 2025
House Republican leaders are hoping to get the bill to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature before the July 4 holiday on Friday.
If passed, experts say the GOP legislation would spark the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history.
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said Tuesday that the Republican bill "steals from the poor to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy."
"If the Republicans wanted to add $4 trillion to the national debt, they could have instead written a $12,000 check to each and every adult and child in the United States," said Shierholz. "However, this grotesque bill would cause the bottom 40% of households to lose income on average. This country deserves better than this dumpster fire of greed, cruelty, and cowardice."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Defenders Denounce Trump-DeSantis Alligator Alcatraz as 'Direct Assault on Humanity'
"This facility echoes some of our nation's darkest history," said a civil liberties advocate.
Jul 02, 2025
Civil liberties advocates expressed horror on Tuesday after President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a joint press event at a massive new detention facility in the Florida Everglades known as "Alligator Alcatraz."
The facility was first announced last month when Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier unveiled a plan to renovate the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport and transform it into a mass detention center for immigrants. During a press event touting the new facility, DeSantis boasted that detainees being held at the facility had little hope of ever escaping given that it was surrounded by miles of alligator-infested swamps.
"What'll happen is you'll bring people in there, they ain't going anywhere once they're there unless you want them to go somewhere, because, good luck getting to civilization," he explained. "So the security is amazing—natural and otherwise."
Civil liberties advocates were appalled by the new facility, which is lined with razor-wire fence and is projected at least initially to house 5,000 beds for immigrants awaiting deportation. Bacardi Jackson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, accused Trump and DeSantis of engaging in wanton cruelty with their touting of the new facility and said it harkened back to dark chapters in American history.
"Building a prison-like facility on sacred indigenous land in the middle of the Everglades is a direct assault on humanity, dignity, indigenous sovereignty, and the constitutional protections we all share," she said. “Our laws—both U.S. and Florida—prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. Yet, this facility echoes some of our nation's darkest history, all while trampling the very land that indigenous communities have long fought to protect."
She added that "the facility's opening also comes as Congress is poised to authorize $45 billion in funding to expand the harmful mass immigration detention machine, right on the heels of multiple deaths in detention facilities" and further said that the project "dehumanizes people, strips them of their rights, and diverts public dollars from the services our communities need."
Guardian correspondent Robert Tait, meanwhile, described the press event surrounding the facility's opening as a "calculatedly provocative celebration of the dystopian" in a place that was designed to be "a location of dread to those lacking documentary proof of their right to be in the U.S."
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta delivered an even more scathing denunciation of the facility on his Substack page, labeling it a "gulag in the swamp" that was intended to distract Trump supporters from the Republican Party's efforts to take an axe to Medicaid spending in their budget bill.
"Trump knows he can salvage a bad news cycle in conservative media if he can find new and, in this case, medieval ways to torment immigrants," Acosta explained. "Distract the base from Medicaid coverage they're going to lose or the skyrocketing deficits plaguing future generations by conjuring up the fantasy of terrified migrants being eaten by alligators—a prospect that seemed to delight Trump when speaking with reporters Tuesday morning."
Amid growing condemnation of the facility, Trump adviser Stephen Miller encouraged other states to pitch their own ideas for migrant detention facilities during a Tuesday night Fox News appearance. What's more, Miller said that accepted proposals from states would receive funding from the very same GOP budget bill that is projected to slash Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion over a 10-year period.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular