Newsom SEIZES Family Wealth — No Compensation

Man speaking with flags in the background

A California family’s constitutional battle against Governor Newsom’s draconian oil drilling ban exposes how leftist environmental policies weaponize regulation to confiscate private property rights without compensation, threatening the foundation of American ownership.

Story Highlights

John and Melinda Morgan filed a federal lawsuit challenging California’s Senate Bill 1137, which bans oil drilling within 3,200 feet of homes and schools, effectively seizing their inherited mineral rights
The law destroyed the siblings’ retirement income from family-owned Santa Barbara County mineral rights passed down through the Helen Leaf Hancock Trust since the early 1900s
This marks the fourth legal challenge to S.B. 1137, including a January 2026 lawsuit from Trump’s Department of Justice alleging state interference with federal energy leases
An estimated 600,000 mineral rights owners across California face similar economic devastation as the state’s environmental agenda forces families to subsidize green policies with generational wealth

Constitutional Clash Over Property Rights

The Morgan siblings filed their lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California during the first week of February 2026, arguing that S.B. 1137 violates the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022 and implemented in 2024, the law establishes the nation’s strictest oil well setbacks at 3,200 feet from designated health protection zones, surpassing even Colorado’s 2,000-foot restrictions. The Pacific Legal Foundation, representing the Morgans, contends the regulation amounts to an unconstitutional taking by completely eliminating the economic value of their inherited mineral rights without just compensation.

The family’s two parcels in Santa Barbara County’s historic Cat Canyon oil field now fall entirely within prohibited zones, rendering their mineral rights economically worthless. Local oil developers who leased the rights recently can only pay minimal shut-in royalties while the drilling ban remains in effect, and industry experts predict they will soon abandon these leases entirely. This represents the complete destruction of retirement income the Morgans anticipated from property their grandmother Helen Hancock secured through her husband’s oil drilling career in the early 20th century.

Newsom’s Energy Hypocrisy Exposed

California’s aggressive anti-drilling stance reveals the glaring contradictions in progressive energy policy. The state imports the majority of its oil despite maintaining domestic production capabilities, simultaneously banning new nuclear power development while demanding an end to fossil fuel extraction. This forces California to depend on out-of-state energy sources while destroying in-state property owners’ livelihoods in the name of environmental protection. Governor Newsom’s administration defends S.B. 1137 by claiming it protects communities from “toxic fumes causing asthma, birth defects, and cancer,” yet refuses to acknowledge how the policy forces ordinary families to bear the entire financial burden of these regulatory preferences.

The economic devastation extends far beyond the Morgan family. Industry data suggests approximately 600,000 mineral rights owners statewide—including families, farms, and small businesses—face income losses as S.B. 1137 effectively confiscates their property interests. The law potentially threatens one-third of federal energy leases in California, prompting the Trump administration’s Department of Justice to file its own lawsuit in January 2026 alleging state interference with federal authority over public lands. This represents the kind of constitutional overreach that conservatives warned about when Sacramento Democrats prioritized radical environmental agendas over Americans’ fundamental property rights.

Supreme Court Precedents Favor Property Owners

The Pacific Legal Foundation’s legal strategy relies on well-established Supreme Court precedents that protect property owners from regulatory takings. Lead attorney Paige Gilliard points to Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon from 1922, which established that regulations denying productive use of property constitute unconstitutional takings, and Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council from 1992, which held that total economic deprivation violates the Takings Clause. These cases provide strong constitutional foundations for the Morgans’ claim that California completely wiped out their mineral rights’ value without compensation. Gilliard emphasized that “environmental protection doesn’t give the government a blank check” and that “stewardship does not require erasing property rights.”

The lawsuit’s timing coincides with President Trump’s renewed emphasis on American energy independence and expanding domestic oil production. Bureau of Land Management documents reveal plans for drilling on over one million acres of public lands, directly conflicting with California’s setback restrictions on federal leases. This federal-state clash represents the broader political battle between Trump’s energy agenda promoting American resource development and California’s green policies that sacrifice property rights and economic opportunity on the altar of environmental ideology. The case remains in early federal court stages with no rulings yet, but the strong constitutional precedents and mounting legal challenges suggest S.B. 1137 faces serious prospects of being struck down as the unconstitutional government overreach it represents.