Matthew Wickersham

Oil and Gas

•  Representing oil companies challenging ordinances adopted by the City and County of Los Angeles, declaring oil operations as a nonconforming use. The City’s ordinance also prohibits the drilling, redrilling, and maintenance of existing wells. The lawsuits include claims that the ordinance is preempted by state law, and that the ordinances interfere with the operator’s vested rights and represent an unconstitutional taking of property without the payment of just compensation. 
• Representing oil companies challenging a de facto moratorium on the issuance of well stimulation permits by the State of California, including claims that the State officials lack statutory authority to adopt a de facto moratorium and that the agency has implemented an underground regulation.
• Represented seven oil companies (that generate about 90% of the oil production within California) as interveners defending a lawsuit brought by environmental organizations against the state oil and gas agency. The petitioners argued that the state’s implementation of a compliance schedule violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, and they sought the immediate shut-in of thousands of injection wells across the state. The trial court denied all claims, which was affirmed in full by the First District Court of Appeal. The California Supreme Court denied review.
• Represented a large oil production company, along with impacted business partners and royalty owners, in a challenge to a countywide ballot initiative that would immediately prohibit well stimulation, the drilling of new wells, and would impose a sunset date for the injection or impoundment of produced water. If implemented, the ballot initiative would have shut down all operations at the eighth-largest oil field in the state. The California Supreme Court held that the initiative was pre-empted by state law, and that local governments cannot contradict a state statute providing that the state agency has authority to determine the appropriate methods of oil production in each suitable case.
• Obtained a pleadings-stage dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the issuance of drilling approvals for five exploratory wells issued in violation of CEQA. The court dismissed the claim without leave to amend in response to our demurrer.
• Represented an oil production company as the real party in interest against a lawsuit challenging the issuance of a renewed conditional use permit, allowing the continued operation of an established oil lease. The trial court denied the claims in their entirety, which was affirmed by the court of appeal. The California Supreme Court denied review.
• Represented an energy company in a lawsuit challenging the submission of an aquifer exemption application for a large oil field. The trial court denied the petitioner’s claims that the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) and the State Water Resources Control Board were required to comply with CEQA before submitting an exemption application to the U.S. EPA, in a complete victory that was not appealed. 
• Represented an energy company in obtaining a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of regulations from DOGGR that would have imposed substantial daily penalties for continued injection into nonexempt aquifers that were the subject of pending agency approval. 
• Counsel for an oil and gas company in CEQA litigation brought by environmental activist groups challenging hundreds of permits to drill oil and gas wells in a large oil field in Kern County, California. The trial court has denied the claims in their entirety, holding that issuance of the permits was a ministerial action. 
• Represented three petroleum industry groups as interveners in a lawsuit initiated by environmental organizations against DOGGR that challenged DOGGR’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing. The case was dismissed without leave to amend based on recent legislation regulating hydraulic fracturing in California.
• Represented an energy company in a CEQA matter related to Los Angeles County’s adoption of a community standards district for a large urban oil field. The case was settled on terms favorable to the client.
• Represented a petroleum company in response to threatened claims under Proposition 65 for the discharge of listed chemicals to an underground source of drinking water. The claims were settled on favorable terms.

Land Use and Property Development 

• Representing a renewable energy company against a challenge under CEQA to the approval of a project converting a crude oil refinery in Paramount, CA into a fully renewable fuels production refinery capable of processing 25,000 barrels per day. 
• Representing a multinational package delivery and supply chain management company against legal challenges by a union under CEQA and the Brown Act seeking to halt construction of a critically needed regional distribution center. The judge denied the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction suspending construction of the facility.
• Represented a real estate development company in an attack against the environmental impact report (EIR) and related entitlements to implement a large redevelopment of existing residential housing in San Francisco. After previously dismissing the petitioners’ due process claims, the trial court held a three-day bench trial on the remaining claims and ruled against the petitioners’ claims in their entirety, which was subsequently affirmed on appeal.
• Representing a real estate developer in the acquisition and development of a former gas station.
• Representing a landowner named in an imminent and substantial endangerment order by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control involving contamination from an adjacent plating facility.
• Representing a water district in a challenge to the 2019 Addendum to the Coordinated Operation Agreement between the California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for water exports from the Sacramento Delta.
• Represented a synagogue and preschool in negotiating construction and operating conditions for the adjacent development of a multistory hotel and condominium, and to resolve concerns about security, air quality, construction noise, and traffic circulation.
• Represented a real estate development company in an attack against the environmental impact report (EIR) and related entitlements to implement a large redevelopment of existing residential housing in San Francisco. After previously dismissing the petitioners’ due process claims, the trial court held a three-day bench trial on the remaining claims and ruled against the petitioners’ claims in their entirety, which was subsequently affirmed on appeal.