Monica Embrey
The Trump administration is attempting a massive expansion of oil and gas drilling on California’s public lands, but our communities are fighting back.
In April, Trump’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a draft plan to reopen more than a million acres of public lands in central California to oil drilling and fracking, ending a five-year moratorium on leasing federal public lands in the state to oil companies. As if that weren’t enough, just a few weeks later BLM finalized a separate plan to open 725,500 acres in Northern California to new drilling.
Despite the fact that the central California plan would affect communities across eight counties in the central valley and central coast, the BLM scheduled just three public hearings in Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara for communities to weigh in. Along with partners like Center for Biological Diversity, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Fresnans Against Fracking, and many more, our team mobilized members and supporters to attend each of these hearings to demand the BLM keep our public lands in public hands and not open them up for oil and gas leasing.
At the hearings, BLM did everything it could to restrict opportunities for public input. The agency refused to provide translation services for Spanish speakers or accommodate speakers who brought their own translators. They also went so far as to refuse to collect any of the oral testimony at the hearings. Our coalition got creative in response, and hired a court reporter to attend the hearings and make sure these comments could be officially submitted as part of the public record.
Despite these attempts to suppress public testimony, hundreds testified in opposition to expanded drilling in California. Folks shared powerful stories about the current health impacts of oil and gas drilling across the central valley, and expressed concerns about how BLM’s plans would further exacerbate the environmental injustice in the region, pollute communities’ air and water, threaten local wildlife, and drive the climate crisis.
This month of organizing culminated in the delivery of more than 90,000 written public comments opposing drilling to BLM’s Bakersfield office. At the rally, Tehipite Chapter member Ron Martin delivered a powerful speech on behalf of the Sierra Club, highlighting how this plan poses a grave threat to the environment, to local communities that already bear a disproportionate burden of pollution, and to our climate's future.
The Trump administration didn’t make it easy, but Californians weren’t deterred. Across the state, communities turned out in force to send a strong message of opposition to selling off California’s public lands to the fossil fuel industry. We won’t give up the fight to protect our public lands, communities, and climate from Trump’s dangerous drilling plans.