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The state\u2019s coastal watchdog agency voted against the Southern California fracking proposal. Photo: Steven Pahel\/\/Unsplash<\/p>\n
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On Thursday, August 13, the California Coastal Commission voted to reject an oil company\u2019s proposal<\/a> to start fracking on existing oil platforms off the coast of Ventura, California. The decision does not mean the proposal is killed, but it creates an obstacle amid the federal government\u2019s push to increase oil production in federal waters off Southern California.<\/p>\n The proposal is centered around increasing oil production at 16 wells on Platform Gilda, which sits nine miles southwest of Ventura in federal waters (state-controlled waters only extend three miles from the coast). The company behind the proposal, DCOR LLC, says fracking would increase production at the site from 1,100 barrels a day to 4,000<\/a> and prolong the facility\u2019s lifespan by several decades.<\/p>\n The Coastal Commission\u2019s decision supports its staff recommendation in a June report<\/a> that says the fracking plan \u201cwould increase the likelihood and severity of an oil spill\u201d and that measures in the proposal to avoid spills have proven to be \u201cineffective in preventing (them) in the past.\u201d The commission accuses the federal government of attempting to open the door for more drilling by circumventing California restrictions that have prohibited fracking in federal coastal waters since 2018 and require environmental reviews.<\/p>\n The environmental advocacy nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity issued a statement<\/a> backing the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so glad the commission rejected this risky fracking plan. Californians are lucky to have such a strong champion standing up for the health of our coast,\u201d Brady Bradshaw, a senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. \u201cOffshore fracking would raise the risk of an oil spill off California\u2019s coast, and that threat to our marine wildlife and beautiful ocean environment just isn\u2019t worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, is the process of injecting high-pressure fluid and chemicals into subsurface rock to reach oil reserves that are difficult or inefficient to extract via traditional methods. Opponents of fracking cite water and soil pollution, health concerns via chemical exposure, decreased air quality, and even increased earthquakes as adverse side effects.<\/p>\n According to analysis by the SF Chronicle<\/a>, the Coastal Commission decision inserts new roadblocks for the project. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management can\u2019t authorize the fracking if the issues raised are not resolved. Otherwise, it can turn to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for approval, which would probably lead to more litigation.<\/p>\n The decision comes amid a greater federal push to increase oil production in California. President Donald Trump has posted on social media to promote reopening a pipeline in Santa Barbara that could purportedly increase offshore oil production by 550 percent. Trump called California climate laws \u201cradical\u201d<\/a> and said the state is conducting \u201ccoordinated regulatory attacks on American energy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state\u2019s coastal watchdog agency voted against the Southern California fracking proposal. Photo: Steven Pahel\/\/Unsplash On Thursday, August…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,19731,153704,8390,5875,19017],"class_list":["post-433087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-drilling","tag-fracking","tag-oil","tag-santa-barbara","tag-ventura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}