Under the Trump administration, sections of Mount Diablo and other natural habitats in the San Francisco Bay Area are now under threat from oil and gas drilling, something advocates worry will disrupt habitats, beloved recreational areas and public health.
Conservation nonprofit Save Mount Diablo and other groups are ringing the alarm on efforts to open about 700,000 acres of land to oil and gas leasing. It’s a plan the Bureau of Land Management says aligns with President Donald Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” initiative.
Countless people visit the 20,000 acres that make up Mount Diablo State Park and all the other federally, state and locally managed open lands across the range, each home to a variety of animals and plant species.
Its lush trails are where Juan Pablo Calva Martinez, a senior land use manager for Save Mount Diablo, goes to reconnect with nature.
Martinez was only a boy when he first began exploring Mount Diablo, its peak standing at 3,849 feet tall. The mountain sits at the top of the Diablo Range, which stretches more than 200 miles from Contra Costa to Kern counties.
He has memories of peregrine falcons swirling above his head, watching the environment spring back to life following wildfires and admiring clear views of the Sierra Nevada to the east and the Farallon Islands to the west.
“It’s one of the most beautiful places not just in the state, but the whole western U.S.,” Martinez said. “There are a lot of things, day to day, you think are important, but once you can get out there and quiet your mind a bit, focus on a hike, one step in front of another, and realize things are put in their proper place.”
Three decades have passed since new oil and gas wells have appeared on the 283,000 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management’s Central Coast Field Office. A previous attempt in 2011 resulted in 12 of 14 leases that were either rejected or terminated by prospective operators or cancelled following litigation.
Current plans date back to 2019 during Trump’s first term.
A lawsuit filed by conservation groups Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club, and the counties of Monterey and Santa Cruz, was eventually settled under the Biden administration in 2022. In that agreement, the government committed to conduct further environmental analysis and public outreach.
A draft supplemental environmental impact statement was released in December by the Bureau of Land Management’s Central Coast Field Office, which is leading the project, and two public engagement meetings were held in January and February.
Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the draft document indicates the Trump administration’s commitment to “full-on ‘drill, baby, drill.'”
Despite immediate concerns, any potential drilling is likely a long way out, said Philip Oviatt, public affairs officer for the Bureau of Land Management’s Central California District, and Tejeda.
Oviatt said the agency plans to release its final environmental impact statement in May. Outside parties will then be asked to share interests in possible lease properties, and additional environmental reviews will be required. Public input is also required at each stage.
The timeline does not take into account potential lawsuits or how current court cases may impact the project.
In one such case filed by the Trump administration, lawyers argue that federal law supersedes California Senate Bill 1137, which prohibits new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of sensitive sites like schools and parks. Allowing the state law to apply to federal lands would void about a third of federal oil and gas leases in California, the administration said in January.
“This is yet another unconstitutional and radical policy from Gavin Newsom that threatens our country’s energy independence and makes energy more expensive for the American people,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
Stanford professor Deborah Sivas, an environmental litigator and director of the university’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program, said it’s hard to say how the courts will decide.
Legal standards in place when the case was settled in 2022 would apply, and the federal government is beholden to protecting endangered species and water, Tejeda and Sivas said.
But Sivas also said recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions rolling back environmental protections have created more favorable conditions for the administration.
“Even though this case is under the old standards, the courts are getting the message they need to be extremely deferential to the federal government,” Sivas said. “It makes these challenges harder, and probably environmental groups are taking a second look at whether they want to go to court.”
Conflicts abroad, such as in Iran, that may disrupt domestic oil resources could also be used as an argument to justify the need to drill, Sivas said.
Additionally, changes in the executive branch can bring huge political swings that may prompt major shifts in how the cases are handled, Sivas and Tejeda said.
“Even if it seems as if these decisions are made at a high level and seem like a foregone conclusion, we still have a chance to fight this,” Tejeda said.
Martinez shared doubts that drilling would actually occur. No oil resources exist in the mountain, he said, nor in some of the other areas being considered. Tejeda said their inclusion in the study area creates concerns for explorative drilling. Meanwhile, Sivas said the fossil fuel industry has been leaving the state, which she credited in part to a depleting resource that’s grown more expensive to tap.
Representatives with the Western States Petroleum Association and the California Independent Petroleum Association, both fossil fuel lobbying groups, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
If drilling were to occur, Martinez said the effects would be devastating for the habitats within the study areas and the health of those who live around the sites.
Letters of concern regarding the project have also been signed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the Berkeley, Brentwood and Concord city councils and the East Bay Regional Parks District.
Threats of drilling have motivated Martinez to continue fighting to protect public land, he said, encouraging others to also enter the ring by supporting organizations like Save Mount Diablo.
“Things like this have been going on for decades and decades, and I don’t see leadership coming to their senses without people making them,” Martinez said. “Hope isn’t crossing your fingers and wishing for the best. Hope is getting dirty, working up a sweat and seeing action. Save Mount Diablo is doing just that.”
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