LA Council approves proposed ordinance to reinstate 2022 ban on oil drilling – Spectrum News

LA Council approves proposed ordinance to reinstate 2022 ban on oil drilling  Spectrum News

In a 13-0 vote, the City Council advanced the proposed ordinance, and it now heads to Mayor Karen Bass for her consideration. LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council approved a proposed ordinance Wednesday that would reinstate its 2022 ban on oil drilling. In a 13-0 vote, the City Council advanced the proposed ordinance, and it now heads to Mayor Karen Bass for her consideration. Council members Imelda Padilla and Curren Price were absent during the vote. The gas and oil ordinance, once finalized, would declare all existing oil and gas activities a nonconforming use in all zones. Any oil wells and gas activities would be phased out within a 20-year period unless authorized by the city as an approved "well maintenance, well servicing exception and/or healthy and safety exception," according city documents.

The proposed ordinance would also create a separate review process to permit such activities only to prevent, respond to, or cease credible threats to public health, safety or the environment. City Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, and who previously led the Energy and Environment Committee, thanked Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling, or STAND-LA, for its 14 years of work on the issue. STAND-LA is a racial and environmental justice coalition of community groups that has worked to address oil drilling and