California regulators have released long-awaited draft rules meant to govern carbon capture and removal projects statewide, opening a 45-day public comment period starting Friday just as the state's first commercial carbon-storage operation is already pumping carbon dioxide underground in Kern County. The proposal addresses how companies must disclose information, monitor for leaks and seismic activity, and demonstrate financial responsibility for projects that bury captured carbon dioxide deep underground.
The California Air Resources Board issued the draft the previous week, according to Bakersfield.com, framing the rules as necessary to guide carbon management activities the state says are needed to meet its legally mandated goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. The draft covers two distinct approaches: carbon dioxide removal, which pulls the gas directly from the atmosphere, and carbon capture and sequestration, which intercepts emissions at the smokestack before they ever reach the air, per the same outlet's reporting.
Kern County's Head Start on Carbon Storage
Kern County is considered a prime location for this kind of work because depleted oil and gas reservoirs there can store captured carbon dioxide, and the region already has the workforce and infrastructure in place, Bakersfield.com reports. That theory is already being tested on the ground. California Resources Corp., the state's largest oil producer, began injecting carbon dioxide in May at its Elk Hills Field in Kern County, storing it more than a mile underground in a depleted oil and gas reservoir, according to a company announcement.
The Elk Hills project, known as Carbon TerraVault I, became California's first operational carbon-capture-and-storage project and the first in the state to receive final Class VI injection permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CRC said in its release. The company has also submitted eight additional Carbon TerraVault reservoirs for EPA permitting, representing roughly 352 million metric tons of potential storage capacity by its own account. CalMatters has reported that the project is operating even though the state has not yet adopted the rules required by law to govern it, and that it was injecting at a pace of about 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.
Figures on the reservoir's eventual capacity vary by source. CRC's own release describes Carbon TerraVault I as capable of storing up to 1.46 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and 38 million metric tons over its lifetime, while Inside Climate News cites a figure of roughly 1.5 million metric tons per year with the same 38-million-ton lifetime total. The EPA is reviewing 11 more proposed carbon-storage projects across California involving nearly 50 additional injection wells, according to that outlet's reporting.
A Packed Room and a Divided County
The draft rules follow a contentious listening session CARB held in Bakersfield on Sept. 2, where the agency gathered local input on carbon management and, per Bakersfield.com's coverage of that event, heard deeply polarized views on how the technology would affect Kern County communities. Sarah Izant, deputy secretary of climate policy at the California Environmental Protection Agency, addressed an audience of more than 100 people at the Four Points by Sheraton Bakersfield that day. Former Kern County Supervisor Pete Parra spoke in favor of carbon management at the same session, arguing it could fund vital county services and create jobs for struggling local communities.
That divide reflects a broader pattern described by Bakersfield.com: carbon capture and sequestration technologies continue to split communities across the southern Central Valley. Local governments have generally supported carbon management as an investment expected to boost property-tax revenue as petroleum production declines, while environmental-justice groups have criticized the push over fears of accidental carbon dioxide releases at well sites and along pipelines.
Industry Calls It Progress, Critics Call It a Giveaway
Reaction to the new draft split along familiar lines. Long Beach-based California Resources Corp. called the proposal an important step toward the regulatory certainty needed to build a durable carbon management industry in California, while the company's Chris Gould said clear rules that promote responsible investment in carbon capture and sequestration are welcome. The Western States Petroleum Association said the draft offers a helpful framework for responsible development of carbon management projects, though it cautioned that rules should not be duplicative or unnecessarily prescriptive and should instead be site-specific and expeditious. A spokesperson for the trade group declined to comment further while preparing a more detailed response, per Bakersfield.com's reporting.
On the other side, Food & Water Watch described carbon capture as a costly pipeline dream that risks wasting public money and would hand the oil industry another lifeline, arguing instead that California should invest in proven climate solutions that actually cut emissions rather than subsidizing what it considers dangerous projects. Isabel Penman of the group said CARB has a responsibility to scrutinize the projects and put the public interest ahead of what she called big oil's bottom line.
Separately, the Central California Environmental Justice Network has pressed the state to require operators to distribute carbon dioxide monitors and air-supply respirators to communities living near pipelines, Inside Climate News reports. Environmental groups have also sued Kern County and California Resources Corporation, alleging that environmental review failed to properly evaluate potential pollution and other impacts tied to related industrial projects, according to the same outlet.
California climate officials have increasingly pointed to carbon capture and storage as a tool for meeting the state's long-term emissions targets, and regulators are only now beginning to write the permitting rules required by law, following what Politico described as a monthslong delay. The draft rules are posted online at the California Air Resources Board's website, and the public comment window opens Friday and runs 45 days.
