Jane Fonda and the Governors Take on Big Oil

As pump jacks operated in the background, right next to the park, playgrounds and homes, Fonda, and Newsom, Schwarzenegger discussed Senate Bill 1137, against the health impacts from oil and gas wells. (Photo by Frank Fastner, California State Archives)

Martin Wahl

At a March 22 press conference, Jane Fonda, joined by California’s Democratic Governor Newsom and former Republican Governor Schwarzenegger, called on voters to reject the referendum to overturn the California law prohibiting oil well drilling within 3,200 feet of residences and public spaces.

While the major California oil wells are in the San Juaquin Valley, many are sprinkled around populated areas including in the Los Angeles basin. They held the press conference near the Inglewood Oil Field in Los Angeles, the largest urban drill site in the U.S. Although not as notorious as Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, areas surrounding oil wells, morbidly called “sacrifice zones” in the industry, are near the homes of approximately three million Californians, who experience elevated rates of respiratory diseases and cancers.

Numerous studies have documented the deleterious effects on the health of people living in proximity to oil well drilling and operations. Unsurprisingly, the populations experiencing impacts are disproportionately low-income and people of color. The culprits include carcinogens and volatile organic compounds contributing directly to diseases and indirectly to respiratory ailments through air pollution from excessive ozone production, among other causes.

So, what’s the fuss about?

Responding to complaints about the health effects, California passed Senate Bill 1137, signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2022, prohibiting California’s Geologic Energy Management division from approving new oil well permits within a Health Protection Zone, and requiring operators to implement leak detection and response plans for all existing wells within these zones by 2027.

Predictably, the industry objected to the law, claiming it would increase fuel prices, cost oil workers their jobs, and increase dependence on foreign oil producers. The well-funded (pun intended) California Independent Petroleum Association campaign quickly gathered almost a million signatures to register the “Stop The Energy Shutdown” petition with the Secretary of State to put the referendum on the November 5, 2024 ballot.

The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California has responded with promotions to keep the law, with Jane Fonda recruiting numerous celebrities including John Legend, and sponsoring a benefit art auction at Christie’s with Larry Gargosian.

The “Governator’s” Green Energy Bona Fides

As Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger led a number of significant initiatives to combat climate change and protect the environment, including:

• AB 32, the 2006 California Global Warming Solutions Act:

  • Made California the first state in the nation to cap greenhouse gas emissions, codifying reduction goals of 1990 levels by 2020 and a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases

  • Established the world’s first Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), to reduce carbon intensity of California’s passenger vehicle fuels 10 percent by 2020. It established targets for the use and production of biofuels and biogas and directed several state agencies toward the widespread use of renewable energy sources.

• With the governors of Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, created the Western Climate Initiative to set a shared regional goal for carbon emissions reduction.

• Formed the world’s first International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) with a coalition of European Union countries, U.S. states, and Canadian provinces.

• Signed SB 375, the nation’s first law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by controlling sprawl.

• Signed SB I, the Million Solar Roofs Initiative to provide California with 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3 million tons.

• Announced the first-in-the-nation mandatory Green Building Standards Code (CALGREEN).

And Governor Newsom

Gavin Newsom gets an 80% rating from ecovotes.org for his performance as Governor in 2023. Long a climate advocate, Newsom has had to balance environmental concerns with political realities, ensuring, for example, that the rolling blackouts which were the coup de grace for Governor Gray Davis, do not recur under his watch. Pundits note that he may have national political aspirations that temper his environmental advocacy as well.

And Jane Fonda?

A fixture in American advocacy politics, anything she touches gets outsized recognition, including the Ferrari she and actor Alain Delon sported around Paris in which sold for $18.5 million in 2015 despite its damaged condition. Environmentalists count her as a major asset:

• Established the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, an environmental political action committee in 2022

• Runs Fire Drill Fridays with Jane Fonda in conjunction with Greenpeace

• At the age of 86, participates frequently in environmental events, having been arrested five times over the years.

What about closer to home?

Meanwhile, legislative and legal actions to hold the oil industry to account are underway in G.E.T.’s readership area:

• Vermont’s Senate Bill 259, enacted in May:

  • Establishes a Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program to assess and collect funds from those who “engaged in the trade or business of extracting fossil fuel or refining crude oil and is determined by the Agency to have attributed more than one billion metric tons of covered greenhouse gas emissions” from 1995 through 2024.

  • Funds are to be used to pay for climate adaptation projects in the state.

  • The oil industry is expected to challenge the law in court.

• New Hampshire, in support of oil-producing states and in-state oil distributors has joined 18 Republican-led states asking the Supreme Court to block lawsuits filed by states against fossil fuel companies:

  • Attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island claim oil companies knew, and misrepresented, the environmental risks of fossil fuel use, and demand that the companies help fund recovery work necessitated by climate change-caused extreme weather events.

  • The Republican-led coalition claims that the issue is federal, because regulating interstate air pollution and emissions can only be regulated by the federal government

  • It is unusual for a suit to be brought directly to the Supreme Court instead of rising through the court system.

• Mixed signals from New York:

• • The Assembly failed to pass the NY HEAT Act, which would have eliminated the 100-foot rule requiring utilities to install gas lines to dwellings within 100 feet of existing supply. While free to the owner, the 100-foot rule costs ratepayers $200 million per year. Electric utility service is cheaper to implement than gas and the HEAT Act would have supported NY’s 2019 Climate Act goal of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

  • The Assembly did pass the Senate’s S2129B – similar to Vermont’s Superfund bill – establishing a climate change adaptation cost recovery program requiring companies that have contributed significantly to the buildup of climate-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to bear a share of the costs of infrastructure investments needed to adapt to climate change.

After a career in data product management, Martin Wahl has worked in biofuels since 2006, currently with Lee Enterprises Consulting, a large bio-economy consulting group. Dividing his time between California and New Hampshire, he serves on Corte Madera, California’s Climate Action Committee and is a Newfound Lake Region Association member.