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SB-556 Oil and gas wells: health protection zones: civil liability.(2023-2024)

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Date Published: 05/01/2023 02:00 PM
SB556:v97#DOCUMENT

Amended  IN  Senate  May 01, 2023
Amended  IN  Senate  March 22, 2023

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill
No. 556

Introduced by Senator Gonzalez
(Coauthor: Senator Stern)
(Coauthor: Assembly Member McCarty)

February 15, 2023

An act to add Section 3333.6 to the Civil Code, relating to oil and gas.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 556, as amended, Gonzalez. Oil and gas wells: health protection zones: civil liability.
Existing law establishes the Geologic Energy Management Division in the Department of Conservation, under the direction of the State Oil and Gas Supervisor, who is required to supervise the drilling, operation, maintenance, and abandonment of oil and gas wells in the state and the operation, maintenance, and removal or abandonment of tanks and facilities related to oil and gas production within an oil and gas field, so as to prevent damage to life, health, property, and natural resources. Existing law requires the operator of any well, before commencing the work of drilling the well, to file with the supervisor or the district deputy a written notice of intention to commence drilling and prohibits drilling from commencing until approval is given, as provided. Existing law prohibits the division from approving any notice of intention within a health protection zone, except for approvals of notices of intention necessary for specified purposes. Existing law defines a “health protection zone” to mean the area within 3,200 feet of a sensitive receptor, which is defined to include a residence, education resource, as described, health care facility, or live-in housing, among other places, as provided.
This bill would, after January 1, 2024, make an operator, owner, or person who serves on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead presumptively, jointly and severally liable for a respiratory ailment in a senior or child, a pre-term preterm birth or high-risk pregnancy suffered by a pregnant person, and a person’s cancer diagnoses diagnosis if specified requirements are met, including the senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer resided domiciled more than 24 cumulative months in a health protection zone, as defined, and was diagnosed after January 1, 2024. The bill would authorize certain affirmative defenses to be available to the operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead.
This bill would authorize the Attorney General, a district attorney, a county counsel, or a city attorney to bring a civil action seeking reimbursement and reasonable interest for health care-related expenditures incurred by state or local taxpayer funded health care programs for treatment of respiratory illness suffered by seniors and children, pre-term preterm birth and high-risk pregnancies suffered by pregnant persons, and residents diagnosed with cancer. If a settlement or motion to dismiss an action brought pursuant to these provisions is brought by a person or entity that is not a public prosecutor, as described, the bill would prohibit the settlement or motion to dismiss from being effective or heard, until 30 days after a copy of the settlement or notice of motion has been served on the Attorney General and the city attorney, county counsel, and district attorney with jurisdiction over the health protection zone involved in the action. The bill would also require a civil penalty of not less than $250,000 and not more than $1,000,000 per senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer to be imposed on an operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead in an action brought pursuant to these provisions.
This bill would state that any waiver of these provisions is contrary to public policy and is void and unenforceable. The bill would also state that its provisions are severable.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares as follows:
(a) A 15-member public health expert panel selected by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy in 2021 concluded that when oil and gas developments are within 3,200 feet of a residence, there is a strong connection to higher rates of adverse birth outcomes and respiratory diseases such as asthma.
(b) For example, the panel wrote on October 1, 2021, in response to written questions sent by the California Geologic Energy Management Division: “Our panel concludes with a high level of certainty that the epidemiologic evidence indicates that close residential proximity to [oil and gas drilling] is associated with adverse perinatal and respiratory outcomes.”
(c) Likewise, in 2015, the California Council on Science and Technology reviewed existing scientific studies and determined that, from a public health perspective, the most significant exposures to toxic air contaminants occur within one-half mile of a well, and recommended that the State of California develop science-backed setback requirements for wells to limit these exposures.
(d) The science is therefore clear that proximity to an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead brings disastrous health impacts, including increased risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, pre-term preterm births, high-risk pregnancies, and cancer.
(e) The harmful impacts disproportionately affect Indigenous people and people of color in California who are most likely to live in close proximity to oil extraction activities and who are the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.
(f) The panel’s research supports policies that encourage the prevention of harm from occurring to our most vulnerable members of our most historically disadvantaged communities.
SEC. 2.Section 3333.6 is added to the Business and Professions Code, to read:
3333.6.

SEC. 2.

 Section 3333.6 is added to the Civil Code, immediately following Section 3333.5, to read:

3333.6.
 (a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
(1) “Best available technology” means state-of-the-art technology used in the drilling, completion, and reduction of wells; transportation; spill response; leak detection; and remediation that eliminates, reduces, or prevents air pollution, soil and water contamination, and waste to the maximum degree of protection possible in health protection zones that is commercially available.
(2) “Domicile” means that place in which a person’s habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever the person is absent, the person has the intention of returning. At a given time, a person may have only one domicile.

(1)

(3) “Health protection zone” means the area within 3,200 feet of a sensitive receptor. The measurement shall be made from the property line of the receptor unless the receptor building is more than 50 feet set back from the property line, in which case the measurement shall be made from the outline of the building footprint to 3,200 feet in all directions.

(2)

(4) “Sensitive receptor” means any of the following:
(A) A residence, including a private home, condominium, apartment, and living quarter.
(B) An education resource, including a preschool, school maintaining transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, daycare center, park, playground, university, and college. Where a university or college is the only sensitive receptor within 3,200 feet of the operator’s wellheads or production facilities, the university or college is not a sensitive receptor if the operator demonstrates to the division’s satisfaction that no building with nominal daily occupancy on the university or college campus is located within 3,200 feet of the operator’s wellheads or production facilities.
(C) A community resource center, including a youth center.
(D) A health care facility, including a hospital, retirement home, and nursing home.
(E) Live-in housing, including a long-term care hospital, hospice, prison, detention center, and dormitory.
(F) Any building housing a business that is open to the public.
(b) After January 1, 2024, an operator, owner, or person who serves on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead shall presumptively be jointly and severally liable for a respiratory ailment in a senior or child, a pre-term preterm birth or high-risk pregnancy suffered by a pregnant person, and a person’s cancer diagnoses diagnosis if all of the following apply:
(1) The senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer resided domiciled more than 24 cumulative months in a health protection zone.
(2) The senior, child, pregnant person, or person was diagnosed after January 1, 2024. 2024, and the complaint alleges the claim accrued after January 1, 2024.
(3) The operator, owner, or person who serves on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead that is located in the same health protection zone where the senior, child, pregnant person, or person with a cancer diagnosis resided domiciled for more than 24 cumulative months.
(c) An operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead shall have both of the following available as a complete affirmative defense in an action brought pursuant to subdivision (b):
(1) After January 1, 2024, or for the duration of the time the senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer resided domiciled in the health protection zone, the oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead complied with both of the following:
(A) The full deployment of the best available technology and remediation efforts proven to prevent respiratory ailments in seniors and children, pre-term preterm births and high-risk pregnancies in pregnant persons, and cancer in persons, where that technology and efforts include leak detection and emission response.
(B) The technology and remediation efforts operated without interruption and at full capacity for the entire time the senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer resided domiciled in the health protection zone.
(2) An operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead shall be permitted to present evidence and argument that the oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead was not, in whole or in part, the cause of the respiratory ailments in seniors and children, pre-term preterm birth and high-risk pregnancies suffered by the pregnant person, or cancer.
(d) In addition to any other remedy, the Attorney General, a district attorney, a county counsel, or a city attorney may bring a civil action seeking reimbursement and reasonable interest pursuant to this section for health care-related expenditures incurred by state or local taxpayer funded health care programs for treatment of respiratory illness suffered by seniors and children, pre-term preterm birth and high-risk pregnancies suffered by pregnant persons, and residents diagnosed with cancer.
(e) (1) In addition to any other remedy, a civil penalty of not less than two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) and not more than one million dollars ($1,000,000) per senior, child, pregnant person, or person diagnosed with cancer shall be imposed on an operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead in an action brought pursuant to this section.
(2) If a trier of fact in an action brought pursuant to this section makes a specific finding that penalties greater than those provided in this subdivision are necessary to deter an operator, owner, or person who served on the board of an owner operator or owner of an oil or gas production facility or well with a wellhead from causing, in whole or in part, respiratory ailments in seniors and children, pre-term preterm births and high-risk pregnancies suffered by pregnant persons, and cancer in persons, or is necessary to encourage operations to meet the requirements of subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (c), the court may double or triple the penalties described in paragraph (1).
(f) (1) If a settlement or motion to dismiss an action brought pursuant to subdivision (b) is brought by a person or entity that is not a public prosecutor as described in subdivision (d), the settlement or motion to dismiss shall not, in the case of the settlement, be effective or, in the case of a motion, be heard, until 30 days after a copy of the settlement or notice of motion has been served on the Attorney General, the city attorney, county counsel, and district attorney with jurisdiction over the health protection zone involved in the action.
(2) A settlement of an action brought pursuant to subdivision (b) that, in whole or in part, prohibits, conditions, or restrains a person from disclosing the existence or terms of the settlement or reporting any allegations contained in the action to a federal, state, or local government official is contrary to public policy and is void and unenforceable.
(g) Any waiver of this section is contrary to public policy and is void and unenforceable.
(h) If any provision of this act or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of the act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are severable.