Los Angeles City Council approves phaseout of oil drilling

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a measure to ban new oil and gas wells and phase out existing ones.

The measure would shut down oil and gas fields in the city after a decade of complaints from residents about negative health impacts — nosebleeds, wheezing, coughing — they blamed on air pollution from the sites.

Activists say that Black and Latino residents of the city are the most affected by pollution from the sites.