American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2016 - 91

ConventionSection: California Independent Petroleum Association
find as efficient a way as possible to get
the county the information so you get
your permit."
Mitigation Measures
Zierman says the new ordinance makes
the county, rather than the state, the lead
agency to administer the California Environmental Quality Act, as is the case in
nearly all other California counties. CEQA
sets requirements for identifying and mitigating environmental impacts. The ordinance also changes Kern County from
a "by-right" county that requires oil and
gas activities to have a state permit to
one that requires parallel permits from
the state and county, along with additional
mitigation measures laid out under the
EIR.
Under the new ordinance, the county
website says:
* Oil and gas operators in split-estate
situations must notify surface owners of
proposed activities 30 days before submitting a permit application to the county.
A surface owner's approval allows for
expedited permit processing.

* An application for a project without
the surface owner's approval requires a
review and consultations that can take as
much as 120 days. No public hearings
are required.
* Required mitigation measures must
address environmental impacts according
to the county EIR.
Groups including King & Gardner
Farms LLC, Vaquero Energy, and several
nongovernmental agencies have filed lawsuits against Kern County's petroleum
ordinance and environmental impact report, Zierman says.
"The NGOs' lawsuit will dive into
the EIR," Zierman says. "At the end of
the day, the big thing with CEQA is disclosure and evaluation. Kern County has
been emphatic that it does not want to
shut down oil and gas production; NGOs
have been emphatic that they do. This
debate is about NGOs wanting to shut
down domestic production and forcing
the United States to take crude from the
Middle East."
Layton says it is possible but unlikely
other oil-producing counties will replicate

the Kern County process, if for no other
reason than cost. He reports the ultimate
cost of the EIR will be in the range of
$12 million-$15 million, and was funded
by industry, Furthermore, Layton says
most counties already have a land-use
permit system in place.
Among CIPA's early concerns were
what additional steps must be taken when
dealing with split estates, Layton points
out, including how to deal with those
surface owners in securing permits.
When CIPA began conversations with
Kern County over the revised permit system, operators were seeking more certainty
in the application process, Layton recalls.
"If you go through all this and the
county is OK with it, then you would get
your permit," he says. "There would be
little threat of an entity such as the Sierra
Club or another NGO winning a lawsuit.
CIPA believes this process covers that,
although that is being litigated. If that
was the main thing an operator wanted
out of this, I am comfortable in saying
that objective has been satisfied."
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