Latest news with #permitting
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Newsom Proposes to Ease Permits for Oil Drilling in California
(Bloomberg) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing a bill to streamline permitting for new oil wells that environmental groups say would wipe out scrutiny of the industry. The Dutch Intersection Is Coming to Save Your Life Mumbai Facelift Is Inspired by 200-Year-Old New York Blueprint Advocates Fear US Agents Are Using 'Wellness Checks' on Children as a Prelude to Arrests LA Homelessness Drops for Second Year Manhattan, Chicago Murder Rates Drop in 2025, Officials Say The bill would establish 'plug-to-drill' permitting until 2036 where two wells would have to be plugged and abandoned before a new one is drilled. In addition, drillers no longer would need well approval from the Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGem, so long as certain conditions are met. Shares of in-state drillers climbed on the news, with California Resources Corporation jumping 4.8% and Berry Corp. up 6.9%. The draft bill text — seen by Bloomberg News and portions of which were leaked by environmental groups — is the latest in a series of recent shifts Newsom has made in approaching the oil and gas industry after years of regulatory scrutiny. The governor is softening his stance toward the industry this year after refineries operated by Phillips 66 and Valero Energy Corp. decided to shut operations in the state and California's legislature placed a greater emphasis on reducing costs of living for the state's 40 million residents. A spokesperson for the governor said environmental groups are circulating only partial text from the bill. 'We continue to work with the legislature on policy that will help stabilize California's petroleum market while ensuring a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of transportation fuels,' the governor's office said in a statement. In a statement accompanying their leaked text from the bill, 12 environmental justice groups said the proposal amounts to a blank check for unlimited drilling across the state for the next decade. (Adds share price reaction in the third paragraph.) What the Tough Job Market for New College Grads Says About the Economy A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China's Border Godzilla Conquered Japan. Now Its Owner Plots a Global Takeover How Starbucks' CEO Plans to Tame the Rush-Hour Free-for-All Why Access to Running Water Is a Luxury in Wealthy US Cities ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Newsom Proposes to Ease Permits for Oil Drilling in California
(Bloomberg) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing a bill to streamline permitting for new oil wells that environmental groups say would wipe out scrutiny of the industry. The Dutch Intersection Is Coming to Save Your Life Mumbai Facelift Is Inspired by 200-Year-Old New York Blueprint Advocates Fear US Agents Are Using 'Wellness Checks' on Children as a Prelude to Arrests LA Homelessness Drops for Second Year Manhattan, Chicago Murder Rates Drop in 2025, Officials Say The bill would establish 'plug-to-drill' permitting until 2036 where two wells would have to be plugged and abandoned before a new one is drilled. In addition, drillers no longer would need well approval from the Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGem, so long as certain conditions are met. Shares of in-state drillers climbed on the news, with California Resources Corporation jumping 4.8% and Berry Corp. up 6.9%. The draft bill text — seen by Bloomberg News and portions of which were leaked by environmental groups — is the latest in a series of recent shifts Newsom has made in approaching the oil and gas industry after years of regulatory scrutiny. The governor is softening his stance toward the industry this year after refineries operated by Phillips 66 and Valero Energy Corp. decided to shut operations in the state and California's legislature placed a greater emphasis on reducing costs of living for the state's 40 million residents. A spokesperson for the governor said environmental groups are circulating only partial text from the bill. 'We continue to work with the legislature on policy that will help stabilize California's petroleum market while ensuring a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of transportation fuels,' the governor's office said in a statement. In a statement accompanying their leaked text from the bill, 12 environmental justice groups said the proposal amounts to a blank check for unlimited drilling across the state for the next decade. (Adds share price reaction in the third paragraph.) What the Tough Job Market for New College Grads Says About the Economy A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China's Border Godzilla Conquered Japan. Now Its Owner Plots a Global Takeover How Starbucks' CEO Plans to Tame the Rush-Hour Free-for-All Why Access to Running Water Is a Luxury in Wealthy US Cities ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Newsom Proposes to Ease Permits for Oil Drilling in California
California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing a bill to streamline permitting for new oil wells that environmental groups say would wipe out scrutiny of the industry. The bill would establish 'plug-to-drill' permitting until 2036 where two wells would have to be plugged and abandoned before a new one is drilled. In addition, drillers no longer would need well approval from the Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGem, so long as certain conditions are met.
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Dallas Shows Why Building Housing Has Become So Hard
A new home being built just outside Dallas, Texas. Builders in the city have faced numerous problems ... More with the permitting agency. The city of Dallas purchased a building to act as a 'one-stop shop' for its permitting agency. More than $29 million was spent on the purchase and upgrades. But just weeks after city staff moved in, they moved right back out because their new offices failed the permitting process. After spending another year trying to get the building in compliance, the city gave up in April and announced that it would sell the property. Instead of opening up a physical single location to apply for permits, the city concentrated its efforts on a new online platform it rolled out in May. All of this comes after years of embarrassing failures that have made it impossible for some builders to rely on the city's approval of plans to actually build a home that follows all of the city's rules. Builders' Permits Revoked Danny Le knows those failures firsthand. He broke ground on a duplex in the city's Elm Thicket neighborhood after the city approved his plans in 2023. Danny isn't a big builder. He planned to live in one of the units and rent the other one out. But the city issued a stop work order for his project and 18 others last summer when permitting staff discovered that it had accidentally approved projects that were not compliant with a recent change in the code. In 2022, as it turned out, the city had downzoned Elm Thicket, making it harder to add needed housing like duplexes. But nobody told Danny—probably because officials in the Dallas Planning Department didn't even know themselves. For months, Danny's duplex sat open to the elements as he struggled to get the project back on track. He found attorneys to help him and worked to get a variance to the rules. Even after that, he had to deal with a lawsuit a resident filed against the city for granting him the variance. Danny persevered and today the open unit in his duplex is for sale. Another builder ran into a similar problem but had to go to court to keep from having to tear down a home that was finished. Just like Danny, the city approved the plans and then later determined that it was too tall for the neighborhood by a few feet. The builder fought all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled for him. During the six-year-long legal battle the home sat empty since the builder could not get an occupancy permit from the city. Taxpayers have also had to foot the bill for the office's mistakes. Earlier this year, the permitting department admitted that it had to forgo $8.6 million in fees because staff made an error in how much it was charging for remodeling permits. It's Not Just Hard to Build in Dallas Dallas's errors have been obvious and comical, but building homes isn't necessarily easier in American cities where permitting offices don't make glaring mistakes. The rules are complicated all over. Zoning doesn't operate like it does in the classic game Sim City, where the player simply chooses between commercial, industrial, or residential zones. Cities have all manner of sub-zones with requirements for minimum home size, required setbacks, and sometimes even purely aesthetic requirements. For instance, Des Moines created a new zoning code in 2019 with different design requirements for different areas of the city. Last year, it was reported that builders had asked the city to relax some of those rules so that more low- to middle-income residents could afford homes. Developers also complained that the complexity of the rules had slowed the approval process. When neighbors get involved, the process can become quite arbitrary. Outside Atlanta, Monica Crim purchased a property for what she called her 'dream house.' The city approved her permits and the state environmental agency said the home would not negatively affect the environment. But a local homeowners' association (which owns a private lake) convinced a zoning board that the application didn't meet the stream buffer guidelines. Excavating Through the Rulebook The rules governing home construction have formed over decades like sedimentary rock. Government employees have to metaphorically dig through the layers each time they get an application. The thicker the rulebook, the more chance that they will make a mistake. And the rule keepers rarely suffer from their mistakes. Instead, developers and home buyers bear the costs. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that regulations account for almost one-quarter of the cost of a new single family home. New homes should be safe, for the occupants and neighbors. But many of the rules aren't about safety anymore. One-stop online shops, like the one in Dallas, might be an improvement over having to drive paperwork to the bureaucrats, but the real problem is that the rules aren't simple enough for even sophisticated developers to understand. Part of solving the housing crisis has to be making permitting more straightforward.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
California has an idea to counter Trump's megabill: Roll back environmental laws
California lawmakers reeling from President Donald Trump's assault on clean energy are considering a controversial strategy to keep projects on track — slashing environmental permitting further. That plan could intensify a fight between clean energy advocates and environmentalists over the trade-offs between building fast and environmental protection that's already playing out at home. California officials are scrambling to respond to congressional Republicans' budget 'megabill,' signed into law Friday, which demolishes Biden-era tax credits that incentivize construction of large-scale solar and wind projects, home energy efficiency improvements and electric vehicle purchasing — centerpieces of blue states' strategies to wean themselves off fossil fuels. Clean energy groups say it will be impossible for California — which already faces a tight budget — to replace those incentives, and are instead pushing lawmakers to cut red tape and allow projects to get shovels in the ground faster. They already have a champion in Sen. Scott Wiener, the influential Senate Budget Committee chair, who said in an interview Wednesday that lawmakers should consider exempting clean energy projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, the 1970 law often blamed for slowing construction in the state. 'Wouldn't it be a tragedy for California if we lost a bunch of these clean energy projects because of a screwed-up permitting system?' Wiener said. The megabill requires energy projects to start construction by July 4, 2026 or begin service by the end of 2027 to qualify for federal subsidies, crushing deadlines even in states that aren't as notoriously slow to build as California. And things could get worse after hard-line House conservatives said they'd received assurances from Trump that he would further constrict the incentives. A POLITICO analysis conducted last month as the bill was taking shape found 794 projects nationwide — including 60 in California — that had not started construction and risk losing crucial tax breaks. 'There is no sugar-coating this,' said Alex Jackson, executive director of the trade group American Clean Power-California. 'This is a major setback to the affordable clean energy transition.' Jackson said the biggest step California can take is getting out of its own way, arguing that lawmakers need to build on a bill passed last week that exempts a wide swath of projects from CEQA, from wildfire fuel breaks to high-speed rail to semiconductor and EV factories. Environmental groups are still smarting from that effort, spearheaded by Wiener and Gov. Gavin Newsom, which they say undermined key environmental protections. Those hard feelings played out in the state Capitol last week, as Sen. Caroline Menjivar declined to support a handful of smaller CEQA streamlining bills during a committee hearing, saying lawmakers 'need to tip the balance the other way now.' Environmental groups say that they aren't opposed to building clean energy projects faster, but are wary after the recent exemption for advanced manufacturing plants, which they argue can leach toxic waste. "We would want any streamlining to be restricted to truly clean tech, unlike the advanced manufacturing provision just put in law," said Bill Magavern, policy director at Coalition for Clean Air. The discussion about where California goes next after the megabill isn't all conflict. There's a general agreement that the state should invest more in EV incentives after Republicans eliminated a $7,500 federal tax credit for car buyers. Newsom floated that idea in November, saying that he wanted revenues from the state's cap-and-trade auctions to be spent on new EV incentives if the federal tax credit went away. But that will be easier said than done, as groups fight for their piece of a finite pool of funding. Newsom and lawmakers, who are negotiating an extension of the emissions trading system, have already committed $1 billion in auction revenues this year to backfill the state's firefighting agency, a huge chunk from a program that's generated around $4 billion annually in recent years. Melissa Romero, policy advocacy director for California Environmental Voters, said that using cap-and-trade dollars to support an agency typically funded by the general budget makes supporting the EV market more challenging. 'If we do support and prioritize clean air and clean cars, then that decision was counter to that,' Romero said. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO's California Climate newsletter.
