It’s Tuesday, December 6, and LA has officially banned oil and gas drilling.
In a historic victory for Los Angeles communities, the LA City Council voted unanimously on Friday to ban new oil and gas drilling in the city and phase out existing wells over the next two decades.
“The half a million Angelenos who live within a quarter mile of our remaining oil wells suffer greater adverse health effects,” said City Council President Paul Krekorian in a tweet. He said the 12-0 decision, which finalizes an ordinance that’s been in the works since January, “may be the most important step toward environmental justice” that the city council had taken in recent memory.
Los Angeles is home to the country’s most extensive network of urban oil drilling infrastructure, which is disproportionately concentrated near low-income communities and communities of color. As a result, these demographics suffer greater exposure to a suite of pollutants that are linked to respiratory disease, cancer, and other health problems.
Grassroots organizations have spent years lobbying the city for an end to oil drilling, but it wasn’t until recently that their efforts began to pay off in a big way. Complementing the City Council’s efforts to phase out oil and gas drilling within city limits, the LA County Board of Supervisors approved a similar ordinance in October banning oil and gas drilling in unincorporated areas within the county and requiring existing operations to be phased out over the next 20 years.
“The future of LA will be free from fossil fuel extraction,” Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling – LA, a coalition of community groups and public health organizations, said in a statement following the City Council vote. The group called the decision “a major opportunity” to overhaul racist land-use and planning systems so that they “benefit all communities,” but stressed that further action is needed to address systemic racism throughout LA. Specifically, the coalition reiterated calls for Council Members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo to resign after a recording of them making racist remarks was made public in October.
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