The Trump administration\u2019s efforts to bring back oil and gas drilling were denied by a California federal\u00a0judge this week.<\/p>\n
The administration wanted to pause enforcement of a 2022 California law that prohibited drilling in areas near schools, hospitals and homes. But U.S. District Judge\u00a0Dena Coggins\u00a0ruled Monday<\/a> that California\u2019s law was a \u201creasonable environmental regulation\u201d and that the Trump administration had failed to show likely \u201cirreparable harm\u201d from letting the law stand.<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornians can breathe easier knowing that the state\u2019s protections against oil and gas drilling are still in place,\u201d said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity\u2019s Climate Law Institute, in a Tuesday news release<\/a>. The center was among a coalition of advocacy groups that joined California in opposing the administration\u2019s request.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the start of his second term, President\u00a0Donald Trump vowed to bring back aggressive drilling to the U.S., with disregard for the environmental and human impact. He famously declared \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d in his 2025 inauguration speech, reviving the idea that the country has a vast fuel supply compared with the rest of the world, and it should be extracted.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s energy policy led the Bureau of Land Management to sue California earlier this year in an attempt to supersede state regulations on drilling.<\/p>\n The administration argued that federal laws overrode the state\u2019s law, Senate Bill 1137, which created 3,200-foot protection zones<\/a> that prohibit oil drilling near schools, hospitals and residences, as a way to protect the health and safety of communities neighboring federal lands. An estimated 3 million low-income Californians live within 3,200 feet of active oil wells, and drilling has affected their health<\/a>. The state also created a mapping tool<\/a> to identify prohibited sections.<\/p>\n