After five-year moratorium, Trump administration opens up California’s central coast to drilling
Credit: iStock
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has ended a five-year de facto moratorium on oil and gas leasing on 725,000 acres of federal land along California’s central coast. Drilling was stopped there for a reason: In 2013, a judge ruled that the BLM failed to consider the risks of fracking and its excessive water use to the California landscape and its water supplies—which already face severe shortages. But since the Trump administration took office, the BLM has released insufficient environmental impact statements in order to rubberstamp the reopening of drilling leases to Big Oil and Gas.
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