Plains Exploration and Production is an independent, Houston based, oil and gas company that works in California, Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico.

After a toxic gas leak from the Inglewood Oil Field in 2006, Los Angeles County forced PXP to halt drilling and pay for an independent assessment on the environmental conditions of the oil field.

"Plains PXP has agreed to an extraordinarily exhaustive set of requirements that LA County has determined unanimously will address the concerns of the community and protect them,” said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association.

In October 2008 the Board of Supervisors lifted the drilling moratorium and allowed PXP to continue.

Hull says PXP has done its best to protect the community as while expanding drilling. In addition to developing a comprehensive set of regulations, the on-shore development paid for an environmental impact assessment of the area and set up a community standards district to respond to community concerns.

"This is a fundamental question that the country and California is dealing with which is are we going to continue to put our domestic energy resources off limits, and as a consequence, depend more and more on oil from sources from around the world that are not particularly friendly to the US, that don’t have the kind of environmental and community standards and protections that exist in California and that are subject to all manners of disruption and upsets.”

PXP could not be reached for comment.