oil and gas

Environmental advocates in California are launching a campaign to ask voters to ban new oil and gas wells near homes, schools and hospitals. The oil industry has already qualified for a referendum that could overturn a similar law.

California officials unveiled a plan to permanently seal some of the state’s more than 5,000 orphaned oil wells, including dozens nestled among Kern County neighborhoods that have been the focus of advocate attention for decades.

The bill was among dozens scrapped in the legislature's suspense file hearings Thursday.

An expert used California regulators’ methodology to estimate the cost of cleaning up the state’s onshore oil and gas industry. The study found that cleanup costs will be triple the industry’s projected profits. 

The state Assembly passed a bill on Monday that would empower state regulators to punish oil companies for profiting from price spikes.

In a recent visit to the Valley, federal and local officials touted the benefits of carbon capture, a technology seen as pivotal in the fight against global warming.

The Newsom administration announces it will go through the state Energy Commission instead of the Legislature for a penalty on windfall profits of oil refiners.

The fast food and oil industries are only the latest to seek a referendum to stop, or at least delay, a law passed by the state Legislature. The return on investment can be huge — so much money that some are calling for changing the referendum rules in California.

The state could become the first to fine big oil companies for making too much money, a reaction to the industry's supersized profits following a summer of record-high gas prices.

The state and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management agreed to put a moratorium on any sales of oil and gas leases on federal land around Bakersfield until the appropriate environmental reviews are completed.