Erin Stone
attended a community town hall, reviewed public records and spoke with multiple sources to report this story.
Published July 22, 2026 2:08 PM
Catalina and Genaro Ventura sit on their porch, with dog Yogi, in Jefferson Park. They've lived near the Murphy oil drilling site for more than 25 years.
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
Topline:
After more than a decade of community organizing, an oil drilling site in Jefferson Park could be shut down. The city of Los Angeles has scheduled a hearing this week to consider revoking the license to operate the site.
The backstory: What’s known as the Murphy drill site on West Adams Boulevard sits atop the vast Las Cienegas oil field. The site’s name comes from Daniel Murphy, a business tycoon who donated the land to the Roman Catholic Church when he died. The L.A. Archdiocese has leased it to various oil companies for decades.
Why it matters: Although oil wells are present throughout Los Angeles, the effects are largely unequal. A 2022 study found twice the number of oil and gas wells in historically redlined neighborhoods, with L.A. topping the list. And numerous studies have found that people living near oil wells, which have been found to leak carcinogens like benzene, are more likely to have higher rates of asthma, preterm births and cancer.
What the current operator says: The operator disputes studies that show illnesses near the Murphy site, arguing that they did not measure "actual site emissions or exposure and cannot establish causation." They plan to make their case to remain operating to the city.
Read on ... to hear the story of a family who lives near the site and to learn what's next.
Genaro and Catalina Ventura moved to the South L.A. neighborhood of Jefferson Park more than 25 years ago. The Craftsman-style house they found was a dream — spacious, with a yard where they could garden and their children and dog could play.
What they didn’t know before moving in was that just a few hundred yards behind the house is an active oil drilling site.
Genaro Ventura, a now-retired custodian for the city of L.A., worked nights. When he’d come home around 2 a.m., the smell of oil and chemicals was often strong in the air.
“Since the night is quiet, there’s no traffic or smog,” Genaro Ventura told LAist in Spanish. “You can really smell the air from the drill site, and it’s a terrible odor.”
[“Como la noche es calmada, pues no hay tráfico, no hay smog, y puede uno pues percibir el aire del drill site, y es un olor muy feo."]
Five years after the family moved in, Genaro was diagnosed with cancer in his left kidney and had to have it removed. In 2013, a brain tumor led to another surgery, and the following year another brain tumor required radiation treatment. He has to return regularly for scans. Most recently he’s developed lung cancer and is scheduled to start chemotherapy.
With no family history of cancer, the Venturas suspect the illnesses are related to air pollution from the nearby drill site.
And it’s not just Genaro Ventura. The family’s last dog died of cancer. Their elderly chihuahua now has cancer, too. Two of Catalina Ventura’s friends nearby were also diagnosed with cancer and recently moved away. Their son and many children in the neighborhood grew up with asthma.
“I’d like to leave here,” Catalina Ventura said in Spanish. “But we can’t — this is our home and we like the area, plus we don't have the money to move, so we’ve stayed here despite everything we’ve gone through.”
[“Yo me quisiera ir de aqui. Pero no podemos porque estamos aquí, es nuestra casa y nos gusta el área, pero tampoco tenemos dinero para movernos, así que seguimos aquí a pesar de lo que sufrimos.”]
Now, after more than a decade of community organizing, the drill site could be shut down. The city has scheduled a hearing this week to consider revoking E&B Natural Resource’s license to operate the site.
The Murphy Drill Site in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
(
Sarah Craig
/
Faces of Fracking
)
“It is really the best chance we have ever had to see this toxic industrial site shut down and removed from our neighborhood,” longtime South L.A. resident Richard Parks said at a recent community town hall at a church down the road from the drill site. Parks is the president of the nonprofit Redeemer Community Partnership, a group that has spearheaded the shutdown effort.
In response to questions from LAist, a spokesperson for E&B emphasized the company’s compliance with regulations and said the facility “plays an important role in supplying locally produced petroleum to the Los Angeles Basin.”
Update, Thursday, July 23: A decision on whether to revoke E&B Natural Resources' permit to operate the Murphy drill site in Jefferson Park has been set for the fall.
At a hearing on Thursday that lasted more than 4 hours, L.A. associate zoning administrator Jonathan Hershey extended the timeline for public comment — and for rebuttals from the oil company — into October.
Here are the details: The oil company has until Aug. 23 to respond to a list of questions from Hershey. Then the public has until Sept. 25 to respond to the company's answers to those questions. After that, the oil company will have the final word, with their last opportunity to respond to public comment set for Oct. 9. Hershey will then provide a written determination on whether or not to revoke the company's permit to operate. He warned that his decision could take time, telling hearing attendees on Thursday to "please be patient." Once the determination is made, it can be appealed within 15 days.
Daniel Murphy's home was a sprawling estate on West Adams Boulevard in the early 20th century.
(
Courtesy L.A. Public Library
)
Why an oil drilling site is in the middle of a neighborhood
What’s known as the Murphy drill site on West Adams Boulevard sits atop the vast Las Cienegas oil field.
The site’s name comes from Daniel Murphy, a business tycoon who lived on an estate there in the early 20th century.
Murphy, who made his money in cement, oil and railroads, was also a devout Roman Catholic, so after his death, his family donated the property to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For decades, the Archdiocese has leased the property to various oil companies. Most recently, the site has been operated by E&B Natural Resources.
In a statement, the Archdiocese told LAist it "has no direct control over the facility" and that "the health and well-being of the community remain a priority." It added that the Church understands E&B has complied with regulations "and has taken efforts to address the concerns of the community."
Although oil wells are present throughout Los Angeles, the effects are largely unequal. Through the mid-20th century, racist housing laws and discriminatory lending practices relegated people of color to certain neighborhoods.
Jefferson Park was one of those redlined neighborhoods and remains home to mostly Black and Latino residents.
A 2022 study found twice the number of oil and gas wells in historically redlined neighborhoods, with L.A. topping the list.
A Google maps screenshot of the Murphy drill site, owned by E & B Natural Resources, in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of L.A.
(
Google Maps
)
How much oil is produced at the Murphy drill site?
Since 2018, Oildale, California-based E&B Natural Resources has operated the Murphy drill site.
Ever since, production has declined. In 2022, E&B extracted some 251 barrels per day of oil and 21 barrels of natural gas from the Murphy site — a relatively small amount by oil production standards. All oil drilling within L.A. city limits now makes up less than 2% of the state’s oil.
In a statement to LAist, a spokesperson for E&B said the site remains valuable.
“Maintaining responsible local production also helps meet regional energy needs with resources produced close to where they are ultimately consumed,” the company spokesperson wrote.
Where oil and gas comes from in California.
(
Courtesy CJM Petroleum Consulting Inc.
)
The health effects of living near oil drilling
Today, it’s easy to miss the Murphy drill site. A mass of piping and oil wells is hidden behind a wall and manicured hedges, and next door to low-income apartments, an AIDS Healthcare Foundation clinic and an education center for children with hearing loss. A church, library, elementary school and high school are also nearby.
At the convent directly behind the site, Roman Catholic nuns are tasked with caring for the sick who call for them.
On a recent afternoon, Sister Claudia of the Servants of Mary told LAist in Spanish that dark soot often covers the roof and walls of the building.
“A black dust settles even on the leaves of the trees and gets into the house," she said.
[“Un polvo negro que se queda hasta en las hojas de los árboles y entra a la casa."]
Many of the sisters have allergies they never had before living there, she said, and two of the sisters have cancer.
Sister Claudia, left, and Sister Maria de Jesus of the Servants of Mary convent in Jefferson Park.
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
Since at least 2014, the site has been the cause of dozens of complaints to local air quality regulators. People who live or work nearby have reported strong oil and chemical odors, noise and other concerns, according to records obtained by local nonprofit Redeemer Community Partnership and shared with LAist.
For more than a decade, the group and its partners have organized to gain more protections on the site and, ultimately, shut the drilling down.
They’ve gathered the experiences of nearby residents, many of whom have suffered multiple miscarriages, respiratory illness and cancer. Numerous studies have found that people living near oil wells, which have been found to leak carcinogens like benzene, are more likely to have higher rates of asthma, preterm births and cancer.
But such research is not enough to shut a site down, and it’s hard to prove exactly where those illnesses come from. So over the last decade, academic researchers have partnered with the community to try to do just that.
“The burden is often placed on the community to prove they're being harmed,” said Jill Johnston, an environmental health researcher at U.C. Irvine and previously USC, where she led the oil drilling research. “ We're trying to establish some of this data-driven evidence to support the observations that people have experienced for decades.”
The researchers and community members installed air monitors near Murphy and another nearby drill site. They found that the closer to the site people lived, the more likely they were to have reduced lung function.
“The amount of reduction we see is similar to what you would experience from living with a smoker,” Johnston said.
E&B disputes the findings, arguing that it did not measure "actual site emissions or exposure and cannot establish causation."
In another study, the researchers partnered with the community to collect hundreds of toenail clippings to measure toxic metals associated with oil drilling. They compared them to clippings from people not near drill sites.
“The closer you live to an oil drilling site, the more production it has, the more nickel and manganese that you have in your body,” Johnson said, explaining the study’s findings at a recent town hall ahead of the Thursday hearing.
Signs in various languages warn of the potential for dangerous gas at the Murphy drill site.
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
The Murphy drill site is in a neighborhood with a convent, homes and schools.
(
Isabel Avila
)
How to shut down a drill site
The organizing paid off. In 2023, the community won a hearing from the city to consider adding new regulations to protect public health. Those new rules would extend protections currently in use in wealthier, whiter parts of L.A. They included enclosing the site and using electric equipment instead of diesel where possible. E&B’s permit also limits operations to between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
But after an appeal from E&B, the city rolled many requirements back. For example, the site no longer is required to use electric equipment — E&B recently started burning more gas for electricity on site.
The site is also still not enclosed, despite the three-year-old mandate from the city. Neighbors say they have on multiple occasions seen, heard or smelled operations outside of the allowed hours.
“ They know the rules, but they choose not to follow them,” Parks said.
In a statement to LAist, a spokesperson for E&B said the enclosing of the site has been delayed due to complex permitting requirements from the city and that the company “is awaiting action by the city on the necessary approvals.”
In recent years, under E&B’s purview, the Murphy site has logged dozens of violations from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the state and the L.A. Fire Department, according to public records obtained by Redeemer Community Partnership and shared with LAist, as well as publicly available data.
Since 2019, some of the most concerning violations have been for at least four methane leaks greater than 50,000 parts per million — the explosive level of the gas. In January last year, an inspector identified a leak at 209,000 parts per million, four times that limit.
Outside of L.A., the state recently fined the company more than $1 million for violations at a site in Bakersfield, which the company has appealed.
Now, the city is considering revoking E&B’s permit to operate the site. City Councilmember Heather Hutt, who represents the area, called for a hearing after being presented with the evidence from local residents.
“The city and the community’s attempts to regulate and mitigate this site over the decades has failed,” Hutt wrote in a letter to the city’s zoning administrator ahead of the Thursday hearing. “I am calling for the zoning administrator to revoke this use and continue to reset the balance between community needs and corporate laxity in urban Los Angeles.”
Neighbors of the Murphy drill site have been fighting to get it shut down for years. They held a town hall July 18.
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
Signs and slogans were common at the July 18 town hall. Others read "Save South L.A." and "End neighborhood drilling."
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
What’s next
During the city’s hearing to consider revoking E&B’s permit the zoning administrator will hear testimony from residents, who can sign up and submit their comments during the meeting or ahead of time. Meanwhile, E&B plans to present its rebuttal to city staff’s latest report on compliance at the site and other concerns.
At the town hall, Parks discussed another drill site, a little over a mile away, called the Jefferson site.
He and other local residents successfully campaigned to get that site shut down, too. The oil company that owned the property eventually decided to sell instead of facing litigation and the cost of carrying out practices to better protect public health. In 2023, Parks and his group secured grants to purchase the property, where they plan to build a park and permanently affordable housing.
“Bit by bit, an amazing transformation is taking place,” Parks said at the recent town hall. “We are receiving beauty for ashes. … If we show up and we share our stories, if we call for environmental justice, if we call for care for our common home, we are well-positioned to build something beautiful and enduring for our community.”
Catalina and Genaro Molina at home.
(
Erin Stone
/
LAist
)
After the town hall, Catalina and Genaro Ventura returned home and sat outside on their porch. They said they hope this is a turning point to better protect future generations.
“I hope the city becomes aware and does something for the people, for the animals, for the children, for the elderly. For everyone, for everyone,” Catalina Ventura said in a Spanish.
[“Y pues que la ciudad tome conciencia y haga algo por la gente, por los animales, por los niños, por los ancianos. Por todos, por todos."]
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published October 1, 2026 2:02 PM
A donabe spread from Naoko Takei Moore's Simply Donabe, with a hot pot simmering on a tabletop burner at the center of the meal.
(
Matt Russell
/
Courtesy Naoko Takei Moore
)
Topline:
Naoko Takei Moore, owner of TOIRO in West Hollywood and author of Simply Donabe, will cook live at LAist Cookbook Live on Oct. 8, in partnership with the James Beard Foundation.
Why it matters: Donabe cooking relies on good ingredients and slow, steady heat instead of heavy seasoning, making it a natural fit for L.A.'s produce and busy weeknights.
Why now: It’s the start of hot pot season, and Moore’s second cookbook, Simply Donabe, is built for cooking at cooler temperatures, perfect for the fall.
When Naoko Takei Moore, the author of Simply Donabe, was growing up in Tokyo, some of her earliest memories were of the family donabe.
Donabe, which means “clay pot” in Japanese, is an earthenware cooking vessel that has been part of Japanese home cooking for centuries.
On weekends, her mother would set the donabe on a tabletop burner at the center of the table, with the broth already made and the ingredients prepped. She would let Moore, then about 4, add them to the pot.
"It made me feel like I was cooking it," Moore said. "I was a hero."
Her late mother had one piece of advice about the pot: “Just let the donabe do the work for you."
That’s what Moore wants to do at our latest Cookbook Live at the Crawford in Pasadena on Thursday Oct. 8, in partnership with the James Beard Foundation.
What a donabe can do
"Just let the donabe do the work for you," Moore's late mother used to say.
(
Matt Russell
/
Courtesy Naoko Takei Moore
)
Because the clay is porous, a donabe heats slowly and retains heat long after the flame is off, allowing savory, umami-rich flavors to build without heavy seasoning. It handles almost anything: hot pots, rice, braises, soups, stews and steamed dishes.
"If you have good ingredients, you really don't need to cover up the flavors with so many different things," Moore said.
In Japan, it's often served as a communal pot meal, set at the center of the table so everyone can cook and eat together.
Donabe in L.A.
When Moore moved to L.A. in 2001, she found that her friends loved sushi and ramen, but thought Japanese home cooking was too complicated. The donabe dinners she hosted changed their minds.
On a trip home to Tokyo, she tasted rice cooked in a donabe made by Nagatani-en, an eighth-generation kiln in Iga founded in 1832.
"Oh my gosh, what is this about this particular donabe?" she remembered thinking. She contacted the kiln and began importing its pots.
Moore's West Hollywood shop, TOIRO, carries an array of artisan donabe that she selects herself.
(
Courtesy Naoko Takei Moore
)
Moore launched TOIRO in 2008 as an online import business, shipping orders from her basement and teaching donabe classes in her home kitchen. She opened the West Hollywood shop in 2017.
"First I had to start by telling people how to pronounce it," she said. (It's doh-nah-bay.)
Now, she said, major publications print "donabe" without translating it, and in 2015 she co-wrote her first book on the subject. Simply Donabe is her second.
What's cooking Oct. 8
Naoko Takei Moore's new cookbook, Simply Donabe: Japanese One-Pot Recipes.
(
Courtesy Naoko Takei Moore
)
For Moore, the upcoming cooler weather means hot pot season.
"The season is changing, and it's getting cooler, which I love," she said. "I love making all different kinds of hot pot dishes."
Onstage, she'll make a chicken-and-lemon hot pot from the new book, with sweet saikyo miso, kabocha squash, enoki mushrooms, spinach and thinly sliced lemon.
"I hope you'll be surprised how simple it is," she said. "And I hope you get to smell it."
MORE INFO: Cookbook Live with Naoko Takei Moore When: Thursday, Oct. 8, 7–8:15 p.m. Where: The Crawford, 474 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena Tickets: $0–$60, available here
Kavish Harjai
writes about how people get around L.A.
Published October 1, 2026 2:01 PM
Speed cameras such as this one will be installed at 125 locations throughout the city.
(
Kavish Harjai / LAist
)
Topline:
As the city of Los Angeles continues to struggle to reduce traffic deaths, local officials are planning to use new cameras to detect speeding drivers.
The details: In a Thursday news conference, city leaders said that by the end of the year, cameras at 125 locations throughout the city will all be online.
The context: The city has been trying to reduce traffic deaths for decades. A program launched under former Mayor Eric Garcetti, known as Vision Zero, aimed to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2025. Instead, last year, 290 people died in traffic fatalities, exceeding homicides for the third year in a row.
Results from other cities: San Francisco deployed speed cameras in May 2025. A year into the program, the city’s transportation agency said it had observed an 80% drop in speeding cars at camera locations.
Read on… to learn how speeding drivers will receive citations, and how much they could be fined.
As the city of Los Angeles continues to struggle to reduce traffic deaths, local officials are planning to use new cameras to detect speeding drivers.
In a Thursday news conference, city leaders said that by the end of the year, cameras at 125 locations throughout the city will all be online.
“Speed is the primary difference between a crash that injures and a crash that kills,” said L.A. Department of Transportation General Manager Laura Rubio-Cornejo at the news conference, held near an elementary school in East Hollywood where crews have installed a camera.
In the last decade, between 250 and 350 people in the city have died every year from traffic collisions. LAPD data from the end of September show that traffic deaths are up 14% compared with last year.
A program launched under former Mayor Eric Garcetti, known as Vision Zero, aimed to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2025. Instead, last year, 290 people died in traffic fatalities, exceeding homicides for the third year in a row.
“The implementation of speed safety systems in the city of Los Angeles is as groundbreaking and potentially lifesaving as the implementation of seat belts,” said Damian Kevitt, the head of the nonprofit Streets are for Everyone, which has long advocated for the cameras.
Where are the cameras and how will they work?
Each of the 125 locations will have two cameras monitoring cars traveling in both directions.
You can see an interactive map of camera locations here. LAist reported on the city’s methodology for choosing locations earlier this year.
If a driver is going at least 11 mph above the posted speed limit, a camera will capture a photo of the rear of the vehicle, including the rear license plate.
“This information is and will remain the sole property of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation,” Rubio-Cornejo said. “It cannot be shared with any law enforcement agencies without a court-issued subpoena.”
After the cameras at each of the locations are installed, there will be a 60-day period during which speeding drivers will receive a warning.
Citations and fines, which range from $50 to $500 depending on the severity of the speeding, will follow the warning period.
All warnings, citations and fines will be mailed to the registered owner of the offending vehicle.
Revenue generated from the cameras is required by state legislation to be invested in the city’s efforts to make streets safer.
Evidence from other cities show cameras deter speeding
L.A. is one of several cities permitted to pilot the speed cameras by state legislation authored by then-Assemblymember Laura Friedman.
“We have people who walk around our community every single day, who more and more are the victims of traffic violence from drivers who are driving recklessly and with a wanton disregard for the safety of other people,” said Friedman, who is now a Democratic U.S. Representative for California’s 30th Congressional District.
San Francisco deployed its cameras in May 2025. A year into the program, the city’s transportation agency said it had observed an 80% drop in speeding cars at camera locations. Two-thirds of drivers who were warned about or cited for speeding did not get another ticket, according to the agency.
The data is similar in Oakland, which launched its cameras in January. The Oakland Department of Transportation said that within six months, the number of cars speeding dropped by an average of 70% across the locations compared to baseline data it collected before the cameras were installed.
Other L.A. County cities, including Malibu, Glendale and Long Beach, are also participating in the program.
How to reach me
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is kharjai.61.
You can follow this link to reach me there or type my username in the search bar after starting a new chat.
And if you're comfortable just reaching out by email I'm at kharjai@scpr.org
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
A cord connected to solar panels plugs into an outlet in Agnes Chan’s backyard in Berkeley, California, on Aug. 23, 2026.
(
Tâm Vũ
/
KQED
)
Topline:
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill legalizing balcony, or “plug-in,” solar Wednesday. The device is a twist on rooftop solar: smaller, portable and relatively inexpensive.
What is it? Balcony solar kits consist of just a few panels, an inverter that converts solar energy into the kind used in a home and cables. In places where the technology is popular, like Germany, it can be plugged into a standard wall outlet.
Why it matters: The new law comes as Californians struggle to pay outsized electricity bills, which have risen substantially in recent years. Plug-in devices open the solar market to renters, people with unsuitable roofs, and those without the money to invest in a rooftop system.
Read on... for more on what this means for the new tech.
The device is a twist on rooftop solar: smaller, portable, and relatively inexpensive.
Balcony solar kits consist of just a few panels, an inverter that converts solar energy into the kind used in a home, and cables. In places where the technology is popular, like Germany, it can be plugged into a standard wall outlet.
The new law comes as Californians struggle to pay outsized electricity bills, which have risen substantially in recent years. Plug-in devices open the solar market to renters, people with unsuitable roofs, and those without the money to invest in a rooftop system.
“These small, easy-to-use solar panels will give everyone, including renters, the relief they desperately need on our outrageous energy bills,” said state Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) in a press release. Wiener authored the legislation.
Plug-in solar panels sit on top of an accessory dwelling unit in Agnes Chan’s backyard in Berkeley, California, for KQED on Aug. 23, 2026.
(
Tâm Vũ
/
KQED
)
The bill received overwhelming bipartisan support from state lawmakers before landing on Newsom’s desk.
Panels can hang from a balcony, out a window, or be tented in the backyard. Existing models range from $300 to $2200, depending on size.
California’s law comes with a wrinkle, however. Plug-in solar panels must be certified by an outside safety organization. Since the technology is new in the U.S., there is just one existing certification offered by Underwriters Laboratories. Depending on how manufacturers innovate and roll out products, some may require an electrician’s help to install, while others may be truly “plug and play.”
Electrical experts and other advocates of California’s new law are still calling its passage a massive win, and expect the safety certification to evolve and eventually allow the plug-in panels to connect to a standard wall outlet.
“We are celebrating,” said Cora Stryker, co-founder of plug-in solar advocacy group Bright Saver. “The market is sending a clear signal to manufacturers that they need to develop a California system.”
The new law will exempt plug-in panels from the typical way rooftop solar must be registered with utilities. Instead of paying upwards of a hundred dollars and waiting days to weeks, the new registration process will be free, straightforward, and immediate.
A handful of states have passed similar legislation within the past 18 months. Utah was the first, with a law passed in March 2025.
Ten states now have bills on the books that allow a relatively straightforward process for purchasing and setting up balcony solar systems, including Colorado, Virginia and Maine.
Supporters of the technology include hundreds of environmental and community groups, who argue plug-in solar democratizes access to solar power. They believe adoption by the most populous state would be a boon for the nascent U.S. balcony solar market.
Some of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, including PG&E and SDG&E opposed the legislation, citing safety and a concern that the systems would shift energy costs to people without solar power in any form.
Labor unions representing firefighters and PG&E employees initially opposed the bill, but took a neutral stance once lawmakers included requirements that systems must comply with state and national electrical codes.
Some Californians have already installed plug-in solar panels, but utilities ask them to complete an interconnection agreement, citing state rules. If done through PG&E for example, representatives from the utility said that process would cost between roughly $100 to $800 and take about an hour. Typically, the approval comes through in three days, PG&E staff said.
Plug-in solar advocates argued that the interconnection process defeated the plug-and-play goal of the technology, and could double or triple its cost.
Their hope is to make the panels as ubiquitous and easy to install as any off-the-shelf appliance dotting the racks of a Home Depot or Costco.
Rupert Mayer installs power inverters on the solar panels at Matthew Milner’s home in Kensington on May 23, 2025.
(
Martin do Nascimento
/
KQED
)
Proponents of the technology say it can meet up to 20% of a home’s electricity needs and save as much as $500 annually for a small apartment.
The new law outlines several device requirements. The balcony solar systems must not generate more than 1,200 watts per home — enough energy to power a window air-conditioning unit — and offset a customer’s onsite electricity use. They must be certified by an outside safety organization and have a feature that would prevent electricity from feeding back into the grid if there’s a power outage.
Plug-in solar products currently on the market do not yet meet the outlined requirements, and customers therefore must still register the available systems as though they are rooftop solar. The sale of non-compliant systems will become illegal in 2030.
Groups that sponsored the bill said there are a few companies already developing systems meeting the specific California standards, and they expect these models to hit the market in the spring.
The legislation goes into effect in 2027, and sunsets Jan. 1, 2030, “making it a fight that continues,” said Stryker.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is undergoing a drastic restructuring of its funding model — one that will reduce federal support and require states to shoulder a larger share of the bill.
Why it matters: Currently, food benefits are covered entirely by federal dollars. But starting in October 2027, states may have to pay for a portion of the food aid if their error rate — a measure of overpayments and underpayments to SNAP recipients — is at or above 6%. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, estimates that nearly half of states could each pay $100 million or more if they do not lower their error rates. California and New York could each be on the hook for over $1 billion if they are unable to do so, according to the think tank.
The backstory: The funding changes were triggered by President Trump's signature domestic policy law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in July 2025. The White House said the legislation preserves and strengthens the food assistance program, adding that it was "so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help." Since Trump's second term began, the number of people receiving SNAP benefits dropped from 42 million to 36 million, as of June. Most of that decline happened after the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is undergoing a drastic restructuring of its funding model — one that will reduce federal support and require states to shoulder a larger share of the bill.
Historically, the federal government and states have evenly split the food aid program's operational costs, such as paying for state workers and training staff. But starting on Thursday, states will need to cover 75% of that tab while federal funding shrinks by half.
By the federal government's own calculations, the new rule will lead to a $16.9 billion reduction in federal spending for SNAP over the next five years, or $3.4 billion annually.
The Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger advocacy group, estimates that states would need to shore up anywhere between $3 million and $670 million to fully offset the loss in federal funding for administrative costs. California, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan are expected to be especially hard hit.
Over the past year, states have been rebalancing their budgets to account for the new costs. But they will likely need to tighten their belts even further as more funding changes are on the horizon.
Currently, food benefits are covered entirely by federal dollars. But starting in October 2027, states may have to pay for a portion of the food aid if their error rate — a measure of overpayments and underpayments to SNAP recipients — is at or above 6%.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, estimates that nearly half of states could each pay $100 million or more if they do not lower their error rates. California and New York could each be on the hook for over $1 billion if they are unable to do so, according to the think tank.
In a report published last year, the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality estimated that these changes together will force states to spend two to three times more to keep the food assistance program running.
These mounting costs will put states in a bind, where they will likely have to find new sources of revenue, cut funding from other programs or further restrict access to SNAP, according to Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
"And we may see some states decide that they need to withdraw from the program entirely," Bergh says.
The funding changes were triggered by President Trump's signature domestic policy law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in July 2025. The White House said the legislation preserves and strengthens the food assistance program, adding that it was "so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help."
But Bergh says SNAP's previous funding structure served a purpose.
"That essentially ensured that eligible families who were seeking benefits could get them even if they lived in a state that had much higher rates of poverty or a smaller tax base," she says.
The Agriculture Department, which administers SNAP, has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act also introduced other sweeping changes, adding stricter work requirements and ending food aid eligibility for the small pool of noncitizens who previously qualified.
Since Trump's second term began, the number of people receiving SNAP benefits dropped from 42 million to 36 million, as of June. Most of that decline happened after the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law.
Copyright 2026 NPR
