{"id":468959,"date":"2026-09-19T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468959\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:14:09","slug":"residents-harmed-by-oil-drilling-may-soon-receive-reparations-under-new-california-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468959\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents Harmed by Oil Drilling May Soon Receive Reparations Under New California Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared on Capital B<\/a> and is part of the Climate Desk<\/a> collaboration.<\/p>\n

As a child in the 1950s and \u201960s, Regina Martin became so used to the oil pumpjacks near her home that she assumed every child lived beside them. Everyone was made \u201csick to [their] tummy\u201d by the sulfurous, rotten-egg smell that never seemed to leave, she thought.<\/p>\n

Only until she was grown did she begin to see a possible connection between growing up on top of the nation\u2019s largest urban oil drilling<\/a> field and her own sickness and the asthma that affected her sister.<\/p>\n

For over a century in Los Angeles and across the nation, Black people have been disproportionately likely<\/a> to live near oil wells, the machinery that draws oil from deep underground. The pollution from these drilling sites are connected to birth complications, child development issues, respiratory illnesses, and cancer.<\/p>\n

Now, a new California state law moves to turn that lived experience into a broader public-policy question: What does a state owe communities exposed to pollution for generations? And what happens when you can\u2019t offer support to every family that has struggled through the harm?<\/p>\n

California lawmakers have passed AB 1661, which would steer $5 million collected from penalized oil wells in Inglewood into direct cash aid for 1,000 nearby households with qualifying respiratory or reproductive health impacts. Some of LA\u2019s Blackest suburbs and city neighborhoods, including Inglewood, Ladera Heights, and Baldwin Hills, surround the oil field.<\/p>\n

The legislation, introduced by Assemblymember Isaac G. Bryan, is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom by October. It sets aside enough money for payments of up to $5,000 for 1,000 impacted households under its initial structure. The money would come from the state\u2019s community repair and reinvestment fund for people living nearest the oil field.<\/p>\n

For Black communities living nearest to refineries, highways, landfills, and oil wells, this fund may signal something larger than one oil field or payment. It asks whether money can begin to repair harms accumulated across generations: lives cut short by illness, household wealth drained by medical bills and depressed property values, and the anxiety of raising children amid pollution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bryan and other supporters are calling it environmental reparations and say it is a model that could be replicated to make industrial companies help repair the damage borne by people living closest to polluting sites.<\/p>\n

To Tianna Shaw-Wakeman, the environmental justice program director with Black Women for Wellness<\/a> in LA, the law could provide a national organizing model. \u201cMy hope has always come at the community level, at the grassroots level,\u201d she said. \u201cI see how grassroots organizing has created long-term change in our local communities, and I see that that can be and is being replicated all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bryan, who represents the communities surrounding the Inglewood Oil Field, the cash-assistance program is part of a longer fight over the field\u2019s legacy<\/a>. Bryan, the first Black legislator to chair the California Assembly\u2019s Natural Resources Committee, said his constituents have faced lower life expectancies and higher rates of asthma and heart conditions for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company has essentially just been extracting from the community with no investments in the community, no care in the community and what feels like no regard at times for the broader community,\u201d Bryan told Capital B. \u201cThe community \u2026 [is] due this repair, and it\u2019s been long overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Capital B<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story originally appeared on Capital B and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As a child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,184615,109308,8390,18913,2211],"class_list":["post-468959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-climate-desk","tag-inequality","tag-oil","tag-pollution","tag-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468959","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=468959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}