California Fracking Ban: Judge Rebukes Gavin Newsom’s Oil Policy

California Governor Gavin Newsom has spent years making it harder to produce oil in his state, and Californians are picking up the tab in the form of America’s highest gasoline prices. Now a Kern County judge has delivered a rebuke to one of his administration’s most brazen anti-energy schemes: It secretly imposed a statewide fracking ban, denied its existence for years, then invoked environmental justifications contradicted by its own earlier findings.

In an October 8 tentative ruling, Superior Court Judge Bernard Barmann Jr. invalidated both the administration’s secret prohibition on fracking, imposed in 2021, and the formal regulation adopted in 2024. The ruling is a legal embarrassment for Newsom and an indictment of California’s increasingly arbitrary approach to energy policy.

About the Author

Will Swaim

Will Swaim is the CEO of the California Policy Center and, with David L. Bahnsen, a co-host of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has spent years making it harder to produce oil in his state, and Californians are picking up the tab in the form of America’s highest gasoline prices. Now a Kern County judge has delivered a rebuke to one of his administration’s most brazen anti-energy schemes: It secretly imposed a statewide fracking ban, denied its existence for years, then invoked environmental justifications contradicted by its own earlier findings.

In an October 8 tentative ruling, Superior Court Judge Bernard Barmann Jr. invalidated both the administration’s secret prohibition on fracking, imposed in 2021, and the formal regulation adopted in 2024. The ruling is a legal embarrassment for Newsom and an indictment of California’s increasingly arbitrary approach to energy policy.