Menifee appoints Travis Hickey as new chief financial officer
Man who shot 3 in Perris pleads guilty, gets 9 years in prison
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Thursday, October 05-October 11, 2023
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‘A setup for disaster’: California legislation requiring companies to pay for oil and gas well cleanup in limbo By Mark Olalde, ProPublica
Chevron oil pump jacks drawing oil from the Lost Hills Oil Field in the San Joaquin Valley in Central California. | Photo by Richard Masoner CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
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he California Legislature recently passed a bill that would provide the state’s taxpayers some of the strongest protections in the nation against having to pay for the cleanup of orphaned oil and gas wells. But Gov. Gavin Newsom has not indicated if he will sign it. AB1167 would require companies that purchase idle or low-producing wells — those at high risk of being left to the state — to set aside enough money to cover the entire cost of cleanup. Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, a Los Angeles Democrat who authored the bill with the support of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment California, said it’s needed to “stem the tide” of orphaned wells.
Newsom has until Oct. 14 to make a decision. A spokesperson declined to comment, saying the governor would evaluate the bill “on its merits.” The state’s Department of Finance released a two-page analysis opposing it. It costs more than $180,000 to clean up an average orphan well in California, the state told the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2021, according to documents ProPublica obtained via a public records request. This includes plugging the well with cement, removing aboveground infrastructure like pumpjacks and decontaminating the site. But bonds, which are financial instruments guaranteeing to pay for cleanup, cover only a tiny fraction of that cost. A ProPublica analysis
of state data found that oil and gas companies have set aside only about $2,400 per well. (State oil regulators are currently reevaluating companies’ bonds to increase them within existing law, which does not mandate that they cover the entire cleanup cost.) Left unplugged, many wells leak climate-warming methane, brine and toxins that were used in the drilling process. “It’s a setup for disaster,” said Ann Alexander, a Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney. The bill follows ProPublica’s reporting on the exodus of oil majors from the state’s declining industry — one sale last year saw more than 23,000 wells move from Shell and ExxonMobil to a little-known German asset management group called IKAV — and on the multibillion-dollar cost to clean
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Kaiser health care workers go on strike By City News Service
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housands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers began a three-day strike Wednesday in what according to their union is the largest action of its type in U.S. history after contract negotiations failed to produce an agreement. The nationwide strike began at 3 a.m. on the East Coast, and strikes started at 6 a.m. in California. Late Tuesday afternoon, a Kaiser spokesman told City News Service that talks were continuing "and could last into the night." According to Kaiser "several agreements over specific provisions have been reached" with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, and the health system's negotiators were prepared to meet around the clock "until we reach a fair and equitable agreement." The union, however, continued circulating plans for picketing — with 75,000 Kaiser workers expected to take part across California and several other states. "Kaiser executives are refusing to listen to us and are bargaining in bad faith over the solutions we need to end the Kaiser short-staffing crisis," Jessica Cruz, a licensed voca-
up the industry. ProPublica’s work was repeatedly cited by the Legislature and the bill’s supporters. Despite its green reputation, California has a long history of weak oversight of its oil and gas industry, which has left behind an estimated 5,300 orphaned wells. Many are scattered across Los Angeles, complicating redevelopment. Others spew methane in Kern County’s huge oilfields. Companies have little incentive to plug wells; it’s cheaper to sell or to walk away and forfeit the small bonds currently required by the state. “It’s too easy for them right now to offload those unproductive oil wells to newer or less-resourced companies that may turn around and go bankrupt and that don’t have the adequate financial capacity to do the job of cleaning
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Use of ARPA funds for Coachella housing project draws criticism By City News Service
he Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved allocating $3.5 million in federal taxpayer funds to support an affordable housing project underway in Coachella, which several Riverside County residents questioned, stemming mainly from concerns over proper use of public money. The unanimous vote in favor of appropriating 2021 American Rescue Plan Act dollars for the Placita Dolores Huerta Housing Project was preceded by a brief discussion based on the reservations expressed by two board speakers — Roy Bleckert of Moreno Valley and Brad Anderson of Rancho Mirage. "We should have the best of everything, but we're not getting it here," Bleckert complained, pointing to what he viewed as a general lack of sound financial stewardship on the part of the board. "Which side of history do you want to be on? These votes are going to show that." Placita Dolores Huerta is slated for completion before