Two California siblings have sued their state over a law prohibiting the drilling of new oil and gas wells near certain spots, arguing it’s an uncompensated taking of their private property.

John and Melinda Morgan claim Senate Bill 1137, passed in 2022, infringes the property rights their family has held for generations. They say California has forced them to absorb the cost of its climate policy in violation of their Fifth Amendment rights.

The siblings ask a federal judge to stop the state from implementing the law.

“SB 1137 is the latest apex of a long line of attacks on the use of natural resources within California to further the state government’s quest to curb anthropogenic climate change,” the pair says in their suit, filed Tuesday in the Central District of California. “SB 1137’s ban on drilling new wells on two of the parcels containing the Morgans’ minerals and returning the existing wells to production effectively prohibits any productive use of these two mineral estates.”

The law prohibits people from drilling new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of “sensitive receptors,” which include homes, schools, hospitals and businesses open to the public. Existing wells are grandfathered in, though the siblings say they’ll ultimately disappear because permits for redrilling, deepening or altering casings are banned.

Click here to read the article at Courthouse News Service.