Trump Opens 850,000 Acres Of The California Coast To Drilling And Fracking, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That A Parcel Next To A School Was Still Only A Parcel Next To A School

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. The Bureau of Land Management announced Tuesday that it had opened roughly 850,000 acres of central California public land to oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, resolving a long-standing federal concern that a parcel of ground next to a Carpinteria high school was still, at this late date, only a parcel of ground next to a Carpinteria high school.

Under the finalized leasing plan for the agency's Bakersfield Field Office, which manages public land from Fresno south to Ventura County, land bordering Lake Cachuma, a public park in Lompoc, and the acreage abutting Cate School will now be available to the fossil fuel industry, an outcome officials described as the natural fulfillment of President Trump's February 2025 order 'Unleashing American Energy.' The BLM assured the public that any effects on air quality, drinking water, wildlife, and human health would be 'minimal,' a determination it reached after reviewing the more than 175,000 comments Californians submitted urging it not to do this and then proceeding to do it.

'We focused on taking a hard look,' the agency said, referring to the environmental analysis a federal court had previously found it failed to take a hard look at. Sources within the administration confirmed that the phrase 'hard look' now refers to the specific act of looking directly at 850,000 acres of oil and choosing to lease it.

The decision arrived alongside a companion proposal to shorten the public comment period on individual lease sales from 90 days to 10, resolving a related concern that the public was being given nine-tenths more time to object than the administration found convenient. Officials noted that the compressed window would allow leasing to advance before most objections could be finished being typed.

California, which bans fracking and maintains health-protection zones barring new wells within 3,200 feet of schools, homes, hospitals, and churches, has pointed out that the federal parcels overlap those very zones. The Trump administration has responded by suing California, taking the position that a setback designed to keep drilling away from children does not apply on federal land, where the children are presumably federal.

At press time, the BLM had scheduled the first lease sale for December and reminded residents that roughly half the resulting royalties would be returned to the state of California, to assist in its recovery.