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Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) released the following statement after Senate Bill 1137 was signed into law:
"Today, Governor Newsom signed SB 1137, which will force thousands of oil wells to stop producing. The Governor continues a deliberate strategy to put California’s energy security into the hands of countries that are actively hostile to California’s values when it comes to human rights, labor rights, and environmental rights. California will now have to import more oil from countries like Ecuador and Saudi Arabia. Ecuador, where we get 55 percent of our imported oil, has few environmental safeguards, and is bulldozing down the Amazon rainforest to meet California’s demand for oil. The Governor’s signature today will make this environmental disaster even worse. In Saudi Arabia, women have no right to vote, and members of the LGBT community are imprisoned and executed.
The Governor’s actions today will continue to finance the human rights abuses in that country. The California producer operates under the most stringent environmental and regulatory rules in the world. Much of the oil we import could be replaced by California’s in-state producers, providing California jobs, if we were allowed to expand production. SB 1137 continues the Green Fantasy that there are no consequences to these actions and that the Governor’s carbon guilt can simply be offshored to other countries.”