AS TOLD TO JANE FONDA vs.Big OIL

The actress and activist on her MISSION to stop OIL COMPANIES from drilling near vulnerable California COMMUNITIES, with an unlikely pair of GOVERNORS-one current, one former-on her side

- DEREK BLASBERG

I'm never moving again. It feels so good to say that! I was born in New York, and since then I've lived all over the country-in Atlanta, Montana, New Mexico-and that doesn't include all the places I've lived temporarily on movie sets in the U.S. and around the world. But after I bought my current house in Los Angeles a few years ago, I made the choice to put down roots here and was surprised to find a real comfort in the idea that this is where I am going to live until I die. California is my home.

California is an incredibly diverse and culturally rich place, but one that has already been impacted profoundly by the climate crisis, with the unprecedented (and near-apocalyptic) fires, floods, storms, and weather we've experienced in recent years. It is also among the top oil-producing states in the country. Because of the amount of drilling that happens here, almost three million Californians live near oil wells-a disproportionate number of them people of color. The pollution created by those wells affects air quality and can cause birth defects, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, and aggressive cancers. The oil industry refers to the areas near wells as "sacrifice zones"-as if there were an acceptable human or environmental cost associated with drilling for oil.

The people in these communities have been fighting back, though, by seeking restrictions on drilling and pushing for legislation to safeguard their health and well-being. In 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 1137, which demanded that the wells inside or near areas where people live be made safe and issued a ban on new wells being drilled within 3,200 feet of communities. It created the single largest health and safety buffer against Big Oil in any oil-producing state in the country.