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A whistleblower has alleged that Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and his administration pressured him to illegally withhold drilling permits while he was head of the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency. Uduak-Joe Ntuk, the former head of the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) filed a lawsuit in September claiming he was pushed to stop issuing new well-drilling permits “without statutory authority or regulations.” Ntuk alleges that he filed a complaint with the state on January 4, 2023, and then nine days later he was “forced and coerced to resign.”

Ntuk will head to trial April 1 for his lawsuit, according to National Review, which writes of the whistleblowers’ lawsuit:

Ntuk says he pushed back against orders to begin enforcing a law governing well drilling that was expected to be placed on hold pending verification of an upcoming referendum in November 2024.

The suit says he was encouraged to enforce S.B. 1137, which would prohibit new wells from being drilled within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, and other “sensitive” locations. While Newsom signed the bill into law on September 16, 2022, the oil industry then gathered the required signatures to put the proposal to voters.

After environmental activists reportedly held private meetings with senior state officials to voice concern over an increase in CalGEM permits for oil-field work within the buffer zone outlined in the law and to ask the state to slow permitting within the affected zones, Ntuk says he was “directed by the governor’s office to continue to implement S.B. 1137 even after [its] qualifying for the November 2024 ballot.”

Ntuk “felt that he did not have the legal nor constitutional authority” to halt all oil-well drilling permits statewide, according to the suit, which goes on to claim he was told to use the referendum’s verification process as rationale to stop issuing permits.

Ntuk, a former Chevron engineer whom Newsom appointed to lead the agency in 2019, accuses the state of wrongful termination, violation of the state labor code, violation of California’s Whistleblower Protection Act, retaliation, failure to prevent retaliation, and “constructive termination.”

An attorney for Ntuk argues it does not matter whether Ntuk had discretion to deny permits, saying the question at hand is whether he thought he was being asked to break the law.

If Ntuk’s allegations true, writes National Review, “the situation is just the latest example of the Left trying to force climate activism on Americans.”

“The accusations here track exactly with the all-out campaign by Governor Newsom and his buddies like President Biden to impose progressive lifestyle choices on everyday consumers by any means possible,” O. H. Skinner of Alliance for Consumers tells National Review. “When they aren’t busy directly mandating progressive lifestyle choices by fiat, they spend time trying to shadow-ban popular gas-powered cars and other products by cutting off the disfavored energy sources.

National Review previously reported on Colorado, which has been embroiled in a six-year-long effort to strong-arm energy companies to comply with its climate vision through the use of a public-nuisance lawsuit. While public-nuisance lawsuits once centered largely on disputes between neighbors, the Left has grabbed onto the litigation as a tool that might be used nationally to circumvent normal legislative processes by instead asking courts to make decisions on a host of issues, from climate change to gun rights.