California’s Fracking Ban
A Blueprint for Success
Before the ban, fracking was documented in 10 California counties — Colusa, Glenn, Kern (the state’s major oil-producing county), Los Angeles, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Kings, and Ventura. Oil companies also fracked offshore wells hundreds of times in the ocean near California’s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa Barbara Channel. Fracking pollution and development threatened local groundwater, air quality, and endangered species like California condors, San Joaquin kit foxes, and blunt-nosed leopard lizards.
So we stepped in to stop it.
Over the course of a decade, we took a multipronged approach:
- In 2013 we cofounded and started leading the Californians Against Fracking coalition, which unified hundreds of organizations to advocate for a statewide prohibition.
- We brought legal actions against state regulators under the California Environmental Quality Act and other laws, challenging the do-nothing approach as fracking escalated in the state.
- We supported successful local anti-fracking ordinances and ballot measures in several counties to ban the practice at the local level before statewide action was taken.
- We called out Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration for failing to protect the public from fracking. Our advocacy continued with the Newsom administration, which announced a halt to new fracking approvals in 2021.
Successes:
- Public opinion shifted as more people became aware of the dangers of fracking.
- Gov. Newsom voiced his opposition to fracking.
- The state’s oil and gas regulator began denying fracking permit applications after considering the environmental harms and public concern.
- The statewide ban officially took effect in October 2024.
Learn more about fracking across the United States and check out our Fracking FAQ.
