Assemblymember Issac Bryan, who represents a portion of the Westside including Baldwin Hills, Culver City, Ladera Heights, View Park, and Windsor Hills, has introduced two important pieces of legislation this year.

The Low-Producing Well Accountability Act

The Assemblymember introduced this bill on March 19. It would charge $10,000 per day to oil companies whose wells produce less than 15 barrels per day within a half-mile of any community.

Nearly 18 million individuals live within one mile of a well, disproportionately including communities of color, people living below the poverty line, older individuals, and young children in many counties with active drilling across the US, according to research from the Environmental Defense Fund.

Approximately 2.7 million Californians live within 3,200 feet of an oil well. The bill brought forth by Bryan takes aim at wells in zones that are adding significantly to health risks such as higher rates of respiratory illness, prenatal defects, and cancer while producing only small amounts of oil.

“Oil drillers would rather keep these low production wells running and poisoning communities than pay the cost to plug them,” said Bryan in a statement. “There needs to be accountability for reckless drilling in communities when there is almost no economic benefit and people pay the price with their health.”

Wells that produce less than 15 barrels of oil per day are classified as “stripper wells” because they are considered to be at the end of their economically useful life. It is cheaper for drillers to keep them running with low production than to plug them at a cost of $100,000 or more per well.

According to the Energy Information Administration, half of the country’s oil and gas production between 2012 and 2022 came from wells that produced between 100 and 3,200 barrels per day.

The Green Amendment – ACA 16

ACA 16 would amend the California Constitution to declare that people have a right to clean air and water and a healthy environment, and would constitutionally mandate that all government officials in the state protect the environmental rights of all Californians equitably, including future generations. The self-executing amendment will allow legal compensation when these rights are violated by government action.

The amendment would protect the rights of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomics by establishing an enforceable environmental right to drive better government decision-making at all levels of government and to prevent situations or conditions in which land becomes too contaminated, water becomes too polluted, and air too dirty to support healthy lives, including a healthy economy.

Some things ACA 16 will do if enacted are:

• Place rights to a clean and healthy environment legally on par with our most treasured freedoms such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to due process
• Ensure government decisions and actions prioritize environmental protection and pollution prevention as compared to prioritizing pollution permitting and management
• Fill the gaps in environmental laws and provide a legal basis for securing water, air, and environmental protection even in those situations where there is no state law or regulation to provide protection
• Strengthen the healthy economic growth that avoids the costs of environmental harm including illness, cleanup costs, flooding, drought & declining property values by ensuring government actions avoid environmental degradation rather than responding to it after the fact

If ACA 16 passes in the legislature, a proposition will appear on the November ballot this year. Voters would be able to decide whether to follow Pennsylvania, Montana, and New York in enshrining and codifying environmental protections into their constitutions.