California oil regulators shortcut permit process, records show
Under U.S. EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act and California regulations, when oil companies want to use “cyclic steam” blasting or steam flooding, they’re required to submit an “underground injection control,” or UIC, application to state regulators. But state employees said at least 12 ”dummy” project folders appear to have been used over the past several years to wrongly issue permits, including by high-ranking supervisors.