The Trump Administration took the first step to end a five year moratorium on the practice of fracking and conventional oil drilling on public lands in California which is triggering alarm bells among environmentalists throughout the state. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said ita s considering new oil and natural gas leases on BLM-managed lands in Fresno, San Luis Obispo and six other San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast counties. Meanwhile, activists in San Luis Obispo are pushing a ballot measure this fall to ban fracking and new oil exploration in the county. If the plan goes forward if would be first new lease assigned since 2013. California is the nationa s third largest oil-producing state, after Alaska and Texas, with much of the production concentrated in the southern San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
