A pair of Santa Barbara County siblings filed a lawsuit in federal court this week that challenges a 2024 California law banning new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, hospitals, and other locations.
Attorneys for John and Melinda Morgan, who inherited the mineral rights to two parcels of land within the oil-rich Cat Canyon Field, argue the law amounts to an unconstitutional taking of their property. The parcels are situated near residences and within one of the many “Health Protection Zones” created by Senate Bill 1137. “Environmental protection doesn’t give the government a blank check to take private property without paying for it,” said Paige Gilliard, an attorney with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation.
The Morgans hail from a family of Southern California oil drillers and had intended to dig new wells in Cat Canyon “to obtain royalty payments to support themselves in retirement,” the lawsuit states. They also had hoped to pass on the mineral rights to their children. “This desire to use natural resources on one’s own private property for the benefit of future generations drove early settlers to America, early Americans to expand the nation westward, and lies at the very heart of the American Dream,” it says.
The lawsuit comes just two weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state to overturn SB1137, saying it infringes on federal authority. It is the fourth such legal action against the contentious law, but it is unique in that it focuses exclusively on the 5th Amendment of the Constitution that protects against government takings.
“The Morgans care deeply about clean air and environmental responsibility — just as California claims to,” Pacific Legal Foundation said in a statement. “But stewardship does not require erasing property rights or forcing families to subsidize state policy. Prosperity, innovation, and environmental care are not mutually exclusive — and pretending otherwise only entrenches scarcity.”
Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for Governor Gavin Newsom, defended the law. “SB 1137 creates a science-based buffer zone so kids can go to school, families can live in their homes, and communities can exist without breathing toxic fumes from oil wells that cause asthma, birth defects, and cancer,” he said. “California will continue to defend our communities.”
The Morgans’ complaint comes amid an aggressive federal push for more oil and gas production in California. Earlier this week, the Bureau of Land Management released a document that revealed plans to open more than one million acres of public lands to drilling.
