California passed a law prohibiting oil companies from drilling within two-thirds of a mile of schools, homes, and hospitals. Big Oil fought back, and now the issue is heading to your November 2024 ballot.

We woke to news East Bay residents of the city of Martinez last night were protesting the toxic emissions of the routinely malfunctioning nearby Martinez Refining Company. Well, there was more news Thursday morning about the oil industry hoping to keep their business that sickens nearby residents as close to your home as possible, as CalMatters reports that the oil industry is sponsoring a ballot measure to keep oil drilling close to homes, schools, and hospitals.  

The California legislature actually passed a 2022 law called SB 1127 that prohibits oil companies from drilling within 3,200 feet (about two-thirds of a mile) of schools, homes, and hospitals. But the oil industry quickly got that bill’s implementation delayed, with their ballot measure hoping to overturn it. The law remains suspended, and will appear on your November 2024 ballot.    

Governor Gavin Newsom was not pleased. “Greedy oil companies know that drilling results in more kids getting asthma, more children born with birth defects, and more communities exposed to toxic, dangerous chemicals,” he said in a statement to California Public Radio when the oil companies’ referendum got the signatures. “But they would rather put our health at risk than sacrifice a single cent of their billions in profits.”

For their part, the oil companies claim this drilling near schools and hospitals will keep oil prices in check.

"This referendum will allow California voters to better control the prices they pay at the pump by removing barriers to boost the supply of our homegrown oil production," California Independent Petroleum Association CEO Rock Zierman said when they started gathering signatures in 2022. "Governor Gavin Newsom may say he is going after energy companies, but in reality, he is going after the high-paying careers of over 50,000 hardworking Californians on the heels of more than two years of COVID-19 related economic turmoil and a looming recession.”

Well, that recession never came. But yes, Big Oil managed to get 978,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. Which may sound like grassroots support, but according to Cal Matters, they had to spend $20 million to get those signatures.

Helping to lead the opposition to the ballot measure is none other than Jane Fonda, who tells Cal Matters that the oil industry's move is "an egregious attack on democracy."

You can likely expect to see plenty of Fonda on TV ads for the No campaign next year.

Related: Martinez Refinery Flaring Again, Town Currently Reeks of Sulfur Dioxide [SFist]

Image: Oil pumps extracting crude at sunset. Oil drill and pump jack in oilfield. (Getty Images)

Spirits haunting the Chapel of the Chimes Memorial Park in Hayward got a little Wessonality last week after a man covered an estimated 150 headstones with vegetable oil. Deepak Sandhar Singh of Hayward slathered the stones with a two-gallon jug of soybean oil that he purchased in order to purify them because they "were evil."

Oakland Tribune goes on to report, "Singh also left small plastic figures, pieces of string and ribbons at several grave sites and was seen by grounds keepers moving flowers between headstones."

The vandalized headstones were discovered by cemetery workers on Thursday. Clean up cost around $5,000. Singh was arrested and booked at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

A spat over a kitchen light turned into a harrowing boiling-oil attack Tuesday morning between two San Francisco roommates living in the Tenderloin. "The victim told police he was in the kitchen reading when the suspect came in and started heating the cooking oil in a pan to make some food," reports CBS 5. "The roommate then left the kitchen and turned off the light, but the victim turned it back on, apparently angering the roommate, who allegedly grabbed the pan and flung the boiling oil at the victim, scalding his face and his arms." (Something to about that the next time you fail to pay your fair share of the utilities.)

Soon after the attack, the poor guy left his apartment and headed to the nearest police station. Officers were "flagged down in front of the Tenderloin Police Station around 2:40 a.m." by a 47-year-old injured, oily roommate. SFPD were led to the apartment on the 300 block of Jones Street and arrested the roommate cum suspect, 48-year-old Felipe Manrique.

The victim was treated at a local hospital and released.

[CBS 5]

There was an explosion this morning on the Vermilion Oil Rig 380, 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast, west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon blast. 13 workers were rescued by the Coast Guard, with only one seriously injured. The rig is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy, and it's unclear whether it was a drilling rig or production platform. [CNN, NPR]

Update: Excellent news! A mile-long oil sheen is spreading from the site of the explosion. [AP/SF Gate]

Although Newsom touts an excessively green platform -- take, for example, his appointment of a Greening Director, the single most bullshit-heavy job title since Social Media Consultant -- Matier & Ross report that our eco-mayor and his eco-wife "invested in BP's gulf oil rig." Say it ain't so! OK, it's not so. Well, not really, anyway. Newsom and Siebel invested in Transocean Inc., a company that manufactured, among numerous other things, the busted oil rig rented by BP.

Also, the investment is from Siebel's trust portfolio, so it's joint in that they're married. Seeing as how Jennifer appeared on Mad Men, sports sharp new bangs, and was once an avid SFist commenter, we forgive her.

The Deepwater Horizon spill is a "a massive ongoing oil spill stemming from a sea floor oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico that started with a suspicious oil well blowout on April 20, 2010." As of today, the spill covers at least 2,500 square miles of ocean surface. Which is massive. Bigger than the Bay Area, in fact.

See how it compares to Manhattan, Los Angeles, Rome, London, Paris, and other major cities at Google Earth.

Crown State Memorial Beach Park in Alameda closed down after "quarter-sized tar balls and an oil sheen" were found along the shoreline, stretching about half-mile long. No one knows yet where the oil is coming from, but many have speculated that it stems from the Cosco Busan (which, as you may remember, dumped over 58,000 gallons of oil in the SF Bay last year.)

According to the Oakland Tribune, neither the Coast Guard nor the state Department of Fish and Game could figure out the oil got there. While samples of the globules are being analyzed -- please be radioactive, please be radioactive, please be radioactive -- the beach is closed until further notice.

We're a tenth of a penny away from $5 a gallon for REGULAR gas, y'all. Very exciting.

In related news, things are getting heated in SoCal. At an Orange County Costco, a La Palma doctor freaked out while waiting in line to buy gas in Cypress. Someone, it seems, tried to cut in line. So, the man who took an oath to keep his fellow man healthy, or whatever, "grabbed a tire iron and confronted a motorist who cut into the line."

Nice.

Although the National Transportation Safety Board has yet to release its report on the causes of last year's crash, today the pilot of the Cosco Busan, John Joseph Cota of Petaluma, was charged in federal court. The feds, it seems, found him in violation of two federal laws when he accidentally steered the container ship into the Bay Bridge on November 9 2007, which then released 53,000 gallons of oil into the bay.

According to the Gate, Cota is charged with "negligent discharge of a pollutant and with killing migratory birds including the brown pelican, marbled murrelet, and the western grebe."

Investigators from the State Board of Pilot Commissioners have also noted that Cota had made "a number of errors, including sailing in a dense fog, and that 'pilot error' was the cause of the crash."

According to court papers, CBS 5 reports, Cota was not taken into custody after being charged. The NTSB, however will hold a hearing on the oil spill in early April. They "anticipate establishing a 'probable cause'" by the end of this year.

Like the bad ass she is, occasional San Francisco resident and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has written to the "Homeland Security Department's inspector general requesting an investigation of preparation for and response to last month's oil spill in San Francisco Bay," according to CBS 5. In a wordy missive to Inspector General Skinner, she fired off over a dozen issues she wants taken care of right-quick.

A couple of points she needs to know about why over 60,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the San Francisco Bay: 1) If the Coast Guard had adequate authority to guide such large ships though the Bay, and 2) if the "hours-long delay in notifying the public about the magnitude of the spill adversely impacted the response."

She wants Skinner's homework on her desk by no later than February 1st as well as a "follow up with a written report 60 days later."

Image credit: FreakingNews.com

Gavin wants your fat. According to Renewable Energy Access, yesterday our dear Mayor implemented a new program that will collect fats, oil, and grease from the city restaurants free of charge.Why? So that they can be to turn into biofuel to power city-owned vehicles. The program is called SFGreasecycle. Ew. But: awesome.

Said fat and oil, when poured down the drain, "solidifies into thick layers inside drainpipes and sewer pipes, constricting water flow the way cholesterol affects blood flow in arteries." Although we recommend finer establishments holding onto their duck and bacon fats, this is a brilliant idea. Period. And local restaurants can sign-up for free service right here. So...do it now. We said now!

Image credit: the City of Longmont / "[A] sewer manhole outside of a Longmont restaurant. The sewer line has been completely filled with grease." Have a good lunch break, folks!

Audet & Partners, LLP filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of commercial fishers and crab-based (?) businesses in San Francisco on November 20. Today on their site they claim the following, "Breaking News: Cosco Busan Vessel Arrested." Which? Okay then. We have yet to see footage of the vessel getting cuffed by the fuzz with its shirt off, and we can't imagine it heard its Miranda rights being read, but seeing as how we're prone to hyperbole, we'll go with their verb choice. Anyway, you can read more about it here on the law firm's disgustingly .pdf-happy site.

Ultimately, it seems that this is one of two reasons why the ship has yet to leave the Bay. (The first being that the Coast Guard isn't sure if the Busan can safely navigate out of San Francisco waters.) We've been checking BoatingSF for the last few days, wondering why the Cosco has been docked near China Basin for the last couple of weeks. And now we know. So...there you go.