BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— California regulators have approved more new oil and gas wells in Kern County during the first two months of 2026 than in the last three years combined.

Since January, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, has approved 128 new drilling permits. From 2023 to 2025, CalGEM approved 121 new permits for all of California.

The approvals come after state lawmakers passed a new law, which took effect Jan. 1, exempting oil drilling in Kern County from the California Environmental Quality Act. The law eliminates any detailed environmental review or public input for up to 2,000 wells in the county every year for the next 10 years.

“Rubberstamping new oil wells is a compete betrayal of California’s values,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “More drilling will harm communities and pollute our air and water while doing nothing to lower gas prices. Kern County already has some of the world’s dirtiest oilfields, the country’s worst air and more spills than anywhere else in California. It’s shameful that our state’s leaders have opened the floodgates for oil companies to pollute for profit.”

Multiple experts say gas prices are driven by global oil prices and the lack of market competition among a few major refining companies. Public money is often used to respond to and clean up oil spills and abandoned wells, increasing costs for taxpayers.

California’s new wells are being approved in a notoriously dirty and dangerous region. California has some of the most climate-damaging oil in the world because of the amount of energy it takes to extract the sticky crude. A February report from MethaneSAT showed the San Joaquin oilfields, encompassing Kern County, have some of the highest methane leakage rates in the world relative to how much oil and gas is produced there.

Although nearly every oil-producing county in California has seen a spill in recent months, most of the spills have been in Kern County. At least 31 spills since Oct. 19 were in Kern County. In 2019 more than 1.3 million gallons of oil and wastewater spilled in a single incident in Kern County.

“The state has issued more permits for toxic drilling in the past two months than in the previous three years combined. Hundreds of leaks large enough to be visible from space are a result of California's regulations being riddled with exemptions and loopholes,” said Cesar Aguirre, director of air and climate justice at the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “No one should feel comfortable with California permitting a single new well when the state cannot adequately protect people and the environment from the wells it currently oversees.”