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Oil country: Kern County could nearly double its production 

Oil-fields-at-Lost-Hills-in-Kern-County

Oil fields off Highway 46 in Lost Hills, Kern County.

–Grist Magazine reports–

–Kern County, just 30-miles east of Paso Robles, produces 80-percent of California’s onshore oil and gas; it’s currently home to 78,000 operating oil and gas wells. Now, an ordinance set to be reviewed this week by the Kern County Planning Commission could nearly double that number over the next 20 years by fast-tracking the permitting process for 67,000 new wells.

This is not the ordinance’s first life — it was drafted in 2015 by oil industry consultants and implemented the same year. The ordinance functioned as a blanket assessment of environmental impacts for any oil and gas permit, allowing oil and gas wells to bypass individual environmental review. In 2020, the ordinance was struck down by a California appellate court for not sufficiently considering environmental impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Before the original ordinance was deemed illegal, however, Kern County approved more than 18,000 permits to drill new wells or rework existing wells between 2015 to 2019.

Read the full story at Grist Magazine

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The news staff of the Paso Robles Daily News wrote or edited this story from local contributors and press releases. The news staff can be reached at info@pasoroblesdailynews.com.