Family challenges California ban on oil, gas wells near 'sensitive receptors'

(CN) — Two California siblings have sued their state over a law prohibiting the drilling of new oil and gas wells near certain spots, arguing it’s an uncompensated taking of their private property.

John and Melinda Morgan claim Senate Bill 1137, passed in 2022, infringes the property rights their family has held for generations. They say California has forced them to absorb the cost of its climate policy in violation of their Fifth Amendment rights.

The siblings ask a federal judge to stop the state from implementing the law.

“SB 1137 is the latest apex of a long line of attacks on the use of natural resources within California to further the state government’s quest to curb anthropogenic climate change,” the pair says in their suit, filed Tuesday in the Central District of California. “SB 1137’s ban on drilling new wells on two of the parcels containing the Morgans’ minerals and returning the existing wells to production effectively prohibits any productive use of these two mineral estates.”

The law prohibits people from drilling new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of “sensitive receptors,” which include homes, schools, hospitals and businesses open to the public. Existing wells are grandfathered in, though the siblings say they’ll ultimately disappear because permits for redrilling, deepening or altering casings are banned.

Additionally, the setback requirement is one-way. If someone builds a qualifying sensitive receptor within 3,200 of a well, that well would fall under Senate Bill 1137’s restrictions, the pair says.

The Morgans’ history in California stretches back to the early 20th century, when their grandmother’s husband drilled several oil wells in the Los Angeles area. Some of those mineral rights have been passed down to the Morgans.

The siblings hold mineral rights for two Santa Barbara County parcels in Cat Canyon Field, an area with a history of oil production. In 2019 — some three years before Senate Bill 1137 was signed into law — an operator submitted a proposal to drill almost 200 new wells in the field.

“As a result, SB 1137 prohibits the Morgans from developing their oil and gas reserves on the subject parcels,” they say.

They wanted to use those rights and get royalty payments, using them in their retirement before passing them to their own children.

“This desire to use natural resources on one’s own private property for the benefit of future generations drove early settlers to America, early Americans to expand the nation westward, and lies at the very heart of the American Dream,” they say.

Instead, they’ve had to grapple with California’s “draconian” environmental laws. They’d hoped new operators would lead to productive mineral rights, though Senate Bill 1137 destroyed those dreams. The law virtually prohibits any use of their two mineral estates, they said.

According to the Morgans, Governor Gavin Newsom touted the new law as an essential part of his climate proposals and a massive step toward fighting the climate crisis.

The siblings say the law violates the Fifth Amendment, which bans the government from taking private property for public use without proper compensation.

They point to the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, which ruled that a regulation exceeds its scope when it restricts all economic beneficial use of a property.

“The balance of the hardships weighs in favor of enjoining SB 1137’s ban on issuing permits for new wells, the redrilling or deepening of existing wells, or permanently altering the casings of existing wells,” they add.

Senate Bill 1137 is one of a handful of environmental bills the Legislature has passed in recent years. In 2024, Newsom signed three such bills in an outdoor ceremony with oil rigs in the background.

Those new laws impose higher fees on idle oil wells, prohibit low-oil production wells in any field within the Inglewood Oil Field, and give cities and counties more power over oil and gas production in their jurisdictions.

Anthony Martinez, with Newsom’s communications office, said in a statement that California would continue to defend its communities.

“SB 1137 creates a science-based buffer zone so kids can go to school, families can live in their homes, and communities can exist without breathing toxic fumes from oil wells that cause asthma, birth defects, and cancer," he added.

Jeremy Talcott and others from Pacific Legal Foundation represent the Morgans. Another attorney from the foundation, Jeffrey Jennings said by email: “California can choose scarcity if it wants — but it cannot force individual families to subsidize that choice for free. When the government blocks all productive use of land, the Constitution calls that a taking. Environmental slogans don’t change that reality.”