Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced an immediate suspension of permits allowing new hydraulic fracturing and steam-injected oil drilling – the latest in a series of moves in the past week underscoring California’s determination to be seen as a leader in climate change efforts.

“These are necessary steps to strengthen oversight of oil and gas extraction as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean energy sources,” Newsom said in a statement released by his office.

While Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, also used his job to promote the Golden State as a leader in the effort to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions believed to be a primary cause of global warming, he opposed a fracking moratorium. Brown’s aides noted the economic benefits of being the third-largest oil-producing state – home to 72,000 wells and 350,000-plus good-paying oil-related jobs. Brown may also have been intrigued by disputed reports in 2013 that the Golden State was sitting on massive oil reserves larger than those of Saudi Arabia.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, pushed back hard at Newsom’s assertion that California had no choice but to crack down on unsafe drilling practices.

“Multiple state agencies already validate our protection of health, safety and the environment during production,” she said in a statement. Reheis-Boyd joined several Republican officials in warning of severe economic consequences of what they depicted as an end to new oil drilling.

State may require buffer zones around many oil wells

But the obstacles Newsom plans to add to gas and oil exploration don’t stop with a ban on the two extraction techniques. The Los Angeles Times reported that he “plans to study the possible adoption of buffer zones around oil wells in or near residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals and other facilities that could be exposed to hazardous fumes” – a move with the potential to sharply add to regulatory burdens of owners of the wells.

Other moves that Newsom has announced in the last week include:

• The state will no longer purchase gas-powered sedans. Law-enforcement agencies are exempted.

• The state will only buy vehicles from automakers that agreed to follow California’s vehicle-emission rules rather than the weaker rules backed by the Trump administration. So far, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW have sided with California. General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai, Kia and Fiat Chrysler last month said they would follow the weaker federal standards.

• The Newsom administration has formally asked the California Public Utilities Commission to permanently close the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in Porter Ranch as soon as feasible. The facility has been the target of intense protests by its neighbors and environmentalists since a 2015 disaster resulted in among the largest releases of methane gas in world history – an immense leak that took nearly four months to stop and forced the evacuation of nearly 3,000 households.

Environmental groups hailed Newsom’s series of moves – especially what they depicted as the beginning of the end of fracking in the state.

Livermore lab experts must OK new fracking permits

But the governor’s announcement left open the possibility that new fracking permits could be – if independent experts from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory attested to their safety.

That’s not necessarily a long shot. Even as greens spent years depicting hydraulic fracturing as dangerous and destructive, several Cabinet members in the Obama administration said it was akin to other heavy industries – mostly safe if properly regulated.

In 2015, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED, the Northern California PBS channel, that local moratoriums on fracking approved by several cities in the state were the “wrong way to go.”

“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” she said. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”

But Newsom said he didn’t agree with this benign view of fracking while campaigning for governor in 2018 and promised a crackdown if elected.

California’s utility companies have unveiled a plan to allocate $1 billion to a statewide charging station program, designed to meet the state’s rigorous emissions standards and extend the reach of electric and hybrid vehicles throughout the state. 

“Three major California utility companies are following the lead of the state’s clean transportation and emission-reduction goals by offering multiple programs to promote EV adoption by citizens and deployment by public and private agencies,” Digital Trends reported. “California Electric Transportation Coalition members Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric submitted applications to the California Public Utilities Commission for a variety of significant programs. All of the programs are aimed at moving the state closer to its zero-emissions vehicle goals.”

Keeping up with change

But environmentalist plans have not been the only driver of the state’s broad push toward more alternative energy-fueled transportation. Driverless vehicle technology, which could soon transform the business models of shipping and automotive companies, pairs naturally with zero-emissions technology. But the regulatory landscape, even in California, has not changed as swiftly as technological advances have progressed. 

“The overall goal is to facilitate the addition of tens of thousands of plug-in vehicle chargers at homes and businesses across the state, while further spurring the adoption of electric vehicles, particularly as a replacement to gas- or diesel-powered delivery trucks or buses,” Autoblog noted. “As it is, California accounts for almost 12,000 of the approximately 40,000 publicly accessible plug-in charging outlets in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Bigger batteries

In pushing for an all-in approach to rechargeable technology, California’s utilities sharpened a two-prong approach to the opportunities and challenges facing the state on alternative energy. While the widespread use of charging stations could help swiftly drive Californians toward the economic lead in new transportation infrastructure, utilities officials have also focused in recent years on trying to achieve a breakthrough in the stubborn problem of scaling up battery storage to meet state needs.

State engineers, the New York Times recently reported, “brought three energy-storage sites close to completion to begin serving the Southern California electric grid within the next month. They are made up of thousands of oversize versions of the lithium-ion batteries now widely used in smartphones, laptop computers and other digital devices.”

“One of the installations, at a San Diego Gas & Electric operations center surrounded by industrial parks in Escondido, Calif., 30 miles north of San Diego, will be the largest of its kind in the world, developers say. It represents the most crucial test yet of an energy-storage technology that many experts see as fundamental to a clean-energy future. Here, about 130 miles southeast of Aliso Canyon, the site of the immense gas leak in 2015 — the global-warming equivalent of operating about 1.7 million cars over the course of a year — 19,000 battery modules the size of a kitchen drawer are being wired together in racks. They will operate out of two dozen beige, 640-square-foot trailers.”

What’s more, the paper noted, former longtime state energy policy czar Susan Kennedy has been “keeping a close eye on the Southern California battery efforts,” although the energy storage startup she now runs did not participate in the Aliso Canyon project. 

Shifting sales

Beyond environmental or technological justifications for its new charging station plans, California’s utilities have simple self-interest in play as well. “The utility industry is looking to electric car-charging as one of the few areas of growth as the increased use of rooftop solar panels and energy-efficient appliances weakens power sales,” Automotive News observed. “Last month, regulators approved a scaled-down version of PG&E’s plan to invest in charging stations.”