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February 17, 2017 marked the deadline by which legislators had to introduce bills for the first half of the 2017-2018 Legislative Session.  The Stoel Rives’ Oil & Gas Team has been and will continue to monitor bills throughout the current two-year session and will provide periodic updates as to the status of those bills.  Below is the current status and summary of some of the bills Stoel Rives is monitoring.

Please also reference our Renewable + Law post summarizing bills related to energy law here.

AB 55 (Thurmond, D):  Refineries: turnarounds

STATUS: Introduced December 5, 2016; referred to Committee on Labor & Employment on January 19, 2017

The California Refinery and Chemical Plant Worker Safety Act of 1990 requires every petroleum refinery employer to submit to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health a full schedule for the following calendar year of planned turnaround every September 15th. The employer is also required, upon the request of the division, to provide the division with specified documentation relating to a planned turnaround within a certain period of time. This bill would require the documents to be provided to the division upon request also include all documentation necessary to demonstrate compliance with the above-described skilled and trained workforce requirements.  A violation of the bill’s requirements would be a crime.Continue Reading Oil & Gas Related Bills Introduced in the 2017-2018 Legislative Session

Today, July 30, the Center for Biological Diversity (“CBD”) filed a complaint in Sacramento County Superior Court against the Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (“DOGGR”). CBD claims, among other things, that DOGGR failed to comply with Senate Bill 4 (“SB 4”) by releasing its Final EIR regarding oil and gas well stimulation treatment prior to the release of a state-mandated Independent Study.

This lawsuit strikes us as more of a shout out to the Legislature and the Governor to highlight CBD’s ongoing disappointment with SB 4, more than anything else. CBD mistakenly construes SB 4 to require DOGGR to analyze and incorporate the Independent Study’s findings into its Final EIR, when no such requirement is found in the law. Indeed, by its terms, SB 4 only requires DOGGR to comply with the following requirements relating to the EIR:

  • The EIR shall be certified by the division as the lead agency, no later than July 1, 2015.
  • The EIR shall address the issue of activities that may be conducted as defined in Section 3157 and that may occur at oil wells in the state existing prior to, and after, the effective date of this section.
  • The EIR shall not conflict with an EIR conducted by a local lead agency that is certified on or before July 1, 2015.

(Pub. Resources Code, § 3161.) The Legislature, not the Sacramento County Superior Court, is the proper body to which this additional request should be made, as there is currently no law mandating it.
Continue Reading Activists ask Court to Scrap EIR and Stop Fracking

On July 14, a complaint was filed in Sacramento County Superior Court against Governor Brown and the Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (“DOGGR”) Supervisor Steve Bohlen.  The lawsuit claims Governor Brown and Supervisor Bohlen have adopted regulations that result in racially disparate impacts from well stimulation on minority students.

State regulators recently implemented…

Yesterday, July 7, the State Water Resources Control Board (“Water Board”) adopted new requirements (“Model Criteria”) for groundwater monitoring in areas where oil and gas stimulation activities occur, such as hydraulic fracturing. The Water Board was required to develop these requirements pursuant to Senate Bill 4 (“SB 4”).

The requirements cover a wide…

The State Water Resources Control Board (“Water Board”) has recently released recommendations from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (“LLNL”) on Model Criteria for Groundwater Monitoring. Pursuant to Senate Bill 4 (“SB 4”), the Water Board is required to develop regulations for sampling, testing, and monitoring groundwater during hydraulic fracturing operations. The bill requires groundwater monitoring at scales from single well monitoring to regional monitoring.

The recommendations are designed to assist the Water Board in taking a scientifically credible approach in developing groundwater monitoring regulations. The authors acknowledge the immense challenge of developing a set of regulations to govern well stimulation in California due to the unique and dynamic nature of each oil field.

The report recommends a tiered approach to groundwater monitoring where higher quality water is monitored more intensively than lower quality water. The monitoring would be conducted through one upgradient and two downgradient wells within a one-half to one-mile radius of the stimulated oil well.
Continue Reading State Water Board Receives Groundwater Monitoring Recommendations from Experts

On Friday, February 27, 2015, Citadel Exploration, Inc. (“Citadel”) filed suit against San Benito County in the County’s Superior Court, arguing that state law preempts Measure J, a county ordinance that prohibits hydraulic fracturing.  Hydraulic fracturing, included in the definition of well stimulation treatment, is being regulated by California’s Senate Bill 4 (“SB 4”). …

California Assemblymember Das Williams (D-Carpinteria) has introduced an oil and gas bill to ensure that the state comes into compliance with the Class II underground injection (“UIC”) requirements under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (“SDWA”).  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”), California is currently out of compliance with certain requirements for some Class II injection wells (oil and gas wastewater disposal wells) because fluid from these wells is being injected into non-exempt aquifers, which is prohibited.  Assembly Bill 356 (“AB 356”) was introduced on February 17, 2015 following publication of a letter from the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (“DOGGR”) to the USEPA addressing California’s Class II UIC program.

The bill authorizes the DOGGR Supervisor to require operators to implement a groundwater monitoring program for underground oil production tanks, facilities, and disposal and injection wells.  In addition, AB 356 would require operators to submit this monitoring plan, with a schedule for monitoring and reporting groundwater quality data, to the local regional water quality control board.  Data would then be submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board for inclusion in the geotracker database.  The purpose of the bill is to protect underground drinking water sources from potential  contamination arising from oil and gas operations.Continue Reading Proposed Assembly Bill 356 Would Require Additional Groundwater Monitoring by Oil & Gas Operators

Today saw two significant developments for oil and gas operators utilizing well stimulation treatments in California.

Pursuant to SB 4, the Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources released a statewide programmatic Draft Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) analyzing the potential environmental impacts associated with well stimulation treatments, including hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”).…

The California State Bar, Environmental Law Section hosts an annual conference which welcomes attorneys and students from across the state to learn and discuss cutting edge environmental law issues.  This year’s Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite featured an insightful panel on hydraulic fracturing regulation.  The panel, held on Sunday, October 19, was titled “Recent Developments in the Regulation of Fracking at the Federal, State, and Local Level.”  The four panelists each shared their experience and differing viewpoints in relation to their law practice.

Kassie Siegel, Senior Counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, focused on hydraulic fracturing regulation at the federal level.  She noted the lack of meaningful federal regulations and pointed out that fracking is exempt from several federal laws including the Clean Water Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.  Thus, fracking is not highly regulated by federal agencies and currently depends more on state and local oversight.Continue Reading State Bar, Environmental Law Section Presents Update on Fracking Regulations

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