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Congressman Sherman Releases Statement on SoCalGas Settlement

August 8, 2018

Washington, D.C. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) released the following statement in response to the $119.5 million settlement reached between SoCalGas and local officials in lawsuits over the biggest methane leak in U.S. history:

"Natural gas should be stored in smaller and safer locations so any one of them can be shut down when needed. No major metropolitan area should be reliant on one storage facility. Throughout the crisis, we were told that Aliso Canyon cannot be shut down even temporarily because it's the only significant facility for all of metro Los Angeles. Yet SoCalGas has done nothing to create alternative facilities.

"What's missing from this settlement is that we cannot continue to have a natural gas storage facility that is too big to fail.

"We must reduce the pressure under the ground of Aliso Canyon, and we must reduce the pressure to use only Aliso Canyon."

For nearly four months, the northern Los Angeles community of Porter Ranch suffered from the largest natural gas leak in U.S. history. More than 7,000 families were displaced from their homes and forced to relocate. Two schools in the area were closed for the duration of the school year. Sherman lives about as close as anyone to the site of the world's largest methane leak.