Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 342 into law, making it illegal to have oil and gas pipeline leases on state owned land.
AB 342 marks a halt in a recently enacted policy in Washington that allows drilling and related infrastructure construction on Federally owned areas in the National Park System. As most of those park lands are surrounded by or immediately adjacent to state owned land, nearly all affected areas would be either extremely difficult or impossible to build out from.
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi
The author of the bill was Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance). Assemblyman Muratsuchi has been a longtime supporter of environmental issues, particularly those that limit resource excavation. The signing of AB 342 comes at the heels of a similar bill he authored that was passed last year: AB 1775, which allowed no new oil or gas infrastructure leases.