- California, the seventh-biggest U.S. oil-producing state, on Tuesday unveiled new regulations for drillers as it seeks to wind down its reliance on fossil fuels.
The announcement by Governor Gavin Newsom underscored the sharp differences between the heavily Democratic state and the Trump administration’s energy dominance agenda, which has sought to ease oil and gas regulations and boost U.S. production. Of the 160 million barrels per year of oil produced in California, about 8 million come from the high-pressure cyclic steaming affected by the moratorium, according to Don Drysdale, spokesman for the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources .
The state has already been in the midst of an audit of its permitting processes since July. The audit was prompted by a report earlier this year that found that oil well approvals had risen under Newsom.