AENN

By BRITTANY BERNSTEIN

California governor Gavin Newsom speaks onstage during the Clinton Global Initiative September 2023 Meeting in
New York City, September 18, 2023. (Noam Galai/Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative)

March 27, 2024 6:30 A

A California whistleblower will head to trial next week for his lawsuit alleging the Newsom administration
pressured him to illegally withhold drilling permits during his time as the 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.”

Now, the whistleblower suit is set to head to trial on April 1, NATIONAL REVIEW has learned.
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.” CalGEM did not respond to a request for comment.

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. “What matters is what he reasonably believed,” attorney Jamon Hicks said in September. “If he has a reasonable belief, and he complains about that, he is protected as a whistleblower.”