California fracking ruling could unleash one billion barrels of oil

A tentative court ruling could reopen the door to fracking in Kern County, giving oil producers hope of tapping massive reserves that have remained out of reach under California’s ban.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Bernard C. Barmann Jr.’s preliminary decision comes two years after the state formally banned the practice and five years after it stopped approving fracking applications.

In his tentative ruling, Barmann Jr. took aim at the state’s fracking ban, finding that regulators had failed to follow the legally required process when imposing the restrictions.

The judge described the prohibition on well stimulation treatments, including fracking, as an “invalid underground regulation” that was “adopted without the rulemaking the Administrative Procedure Act requires.”

“The permit denials were arbitrary and unsupported because they rested on a climate-change rationale that was not in fact the operative basis for the ban,” Barmann wrote.

He also challenged the state’s environmental justification for the ban, arguing that the evidence did not support claims that it would help curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The state agency’s “determination that a categorical ban is reasonably necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not supported by substantial evidence and lacks a rational connection to that purpose,” he wrote.

Barmann pointed to the agency’s own findings that the restrictions could actually drive up global greenhouse gas emissions by forcing California to rely more heavily on imported oil.

The ruling has drawn praise from the oil industry and opposition from environmental advocates, who argue that California already allows more drilling without reversing the prohibition.

Fracking involves pumping liquid underground at high pressure to fracture rock and release trapped oil and gas.

Chad Hathaway, CEO of Hathaway Oil, told KGET that Kern County’s diatomite formation contains substantial oil reserves of up to one billion barrels that cannot be extracted without it.

“The rock is too tight. So maybe we unlock a lot of production in California, actually, in Kern County, specifically, not necessarily California,” Hathaway said.

The Western States Petroleum Association welcomed the ruling, arguing that regulators should assess individual applications rather than reject the practice outright.

“We were extremely pleased to see the ruling,” association President Jodie Mueller told KGET. “We felt it was an incredibly common sense decision and recognized that hydraulic fracturing applications should be evaluated on their merits and really not blocked with a blanket denial that’s truly based on politics.”

But Cesar Aguirre of the Central California Environmental Justice Network said legislation passed last year, SB 237, already provides a path to approve up to 2,000 new drilling permits.

“So we don’t need to remove a ban on fracking to increase production. There’s already something that exists because of SB 237,” Aguirre said, according to KGET.

He argued that allowing fracking would primarily benefit corporations seeking to extract oil from wells nearing the end of their productive lives, while adding to the environmental toll of drilling.

The tentative ruling begins a review process ahead of a final decision, typically issued within 50 days. An expected appeal could extend the legal fight for years.

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