Bombshell ruling that could unleash one billion barrels of oil in California

A tentative court ruling could reopen the door to fracking in Kern County, giving oil producers hope of tapping massive reserves that have remained out of reach under California’s ban.Kern County Superior Court Judge Bernard C.Barmann Jr.’s preliminary decision comes two years after the state formally banned the practice and five years after it stopped approving fracking applications.In his tentative ruling, Barmann Jr.

took aim at the state’s fracking ban, finding that regulators had failed to follow the legally required process when imposing the restrictions.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story The judge described the prohibition on well stimulation treatments, including fracking, as an “invalid underground regulation” that was “adopted without the rulemaking the Administrative Procedure Act requires.”“The permit denials were arbitrary and unsupported because they rested on a climate-change rationale that was not in fact the operative basis for the ban,” Barmann wrote.He also challenged the state’s environmental justification for the ban, arguing that the evidence did not support claims that it would help curb greenhouse gas emissions.The state agency’s “determination that a categorical ban is reasonably necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not supported by substantial evidence and lacks a rational connection to that purpose,” he wrote.Barmann pointed to the agency’s own findings that the restrictions could actually drive up global greenhouse gas emissions by forcing California to rely more heavily on imported oil.The ruling has drawn praise from the oil industry and opposition from environmental advocates, who argue that California already allows more drilling without reversing the prohibition.Fracking involves pumping liq...