The two top California lawmakers that oversee the state's oil industry plan to call for hearings into a recent, massive oil spill in Kern County and revelations that officials at the agency that regulate oil wells held investments in the companies they were supposed to keep watch over.
"I am absolutely committed to calling for an oversight hearing, once we have a new oil and gas supervisor, to look both at the spill and the response to the spill and to look at the conflict issues," Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, the chair of the Committee on Natural Resources, told KQED.
Friedman's comments come as Chevron and state regulators revealed Thursday that a new leak started this week at the scene of the 800,000 gallon oil and water spill in the Cyrmic Oil Field, which is about 35 miles west of Bakersfield. The first leak began two months ago.