Gov. Newsom leads on public health, except when it comes to the oil industry

Earlier this month, as Californians ended a third long week of social distancing, the Newsom administration granted approval for 24 new fracking permits in a sudden reversal of the governor’s previous moratorium on fracking in California. As a public health researcher in Kern County and an environmental justice organizer in Wilmington, we know firsthand that this is a bad deal for community members and the environment alike.

The decision to permit a dangerous extraction technique that threatens public health is in direct contrast with the leadership that Gov. Gavin Newsom is showing in tackling COVID-19. Gov. Newsom’s administration has translated the recommendations of scientists and public health professionals into clear, actionable directives that are keeping Californians safer at home.

While California has acted swiftly to address the spread of COVID-19, we need the governor to apply this same public health leadership to the state of environmental health in California.

In Kern and South L.A., it’s easy to see how the oil industry threatens our communities’ health. Abandoned equipment and pump jacks sit just next door to our homes, schools, parks and elder care facilities. Other impacts are more dangerous and more hidden still: deposited in our lungs, hearts and bodies. Even before this pandemic, our respiratory systems faced multiple pollution burdens – from oil wells to freeways – that have led to disproportionately high rates of asthma, cancer risk, heart complications, and other health impacts.

While our families shelter at home next to these same oil wells, with little protection. As community members forgo paychecks, California’s oil industry is taking advantage of the crisis. Their activities continue to pollute our soil, air and water – and threaten our climate future.

Now, the oil industry is taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to send letters to California’s air and oil regulators to slow or stop regulatory rule-making processes meant to protect public health.

Last week, the California Independent Oil Producers Association (CIPA) sent a letter to the Newsom administration, presenting coronavirus as a reason the governor should abandon plans to hire 128 new positions at California’s oil regulating body intended to focus on enforcement. Newsom’s decision to pursue new fossil fuel extraction should be seen as a sign that industry lobbying is deadly.

The American Petroleum Institute also sent a letter to the national Environmental Protection Agency successfully requesting that the federal government waive health and safety compliances it deemed “burdensome.” With the federal EPA freezing public health regulations, we need California to lead the way now more than ever.

As a pandemic targeting people with existing respiratory issues spreads through our communities, it becomes even more obvious that our public health and climate justice are inextricably linked. The same communities who are sacrificed by and to the oil industry, who bear the health impacts of air pollution, are the same ones at-risk from the most severe impacts of coronavirus.

We need to hear that our health and well-being are essential priorities for Gov. Newsom and CalGEM – whether that’s in the face of coronavirus, fossil fuel pollution, climate change, or, most likely, all of those things combined.

We urge Gov. Newsom to lead California toward a Just Recovery. We need the administration to address both coronavirus and the root causes of the pre-existing conditions that make it so deadly for communities like ours: fossil fuel pollution.

We need leadership that won’t cherry-pick the necessary action in a time of crisis when many low-income and frontline workers are being let go during a pandemic. Gov. Newsom must double down on the public health leadership he is showing around COVID-19 and protect the communities most vulnerable to this pandemic due to the oil industry.

This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 6:00 AM.