KERN COUNTY, Calif. -- Environmental-justice advocates are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to wind down oil and gas drilling in California by 2035, instead of by 2045, as he proposed.

Last week, Newsom announced the state would end all fossil-fuel extraction and stop issuing permits for fracking by 2024.

Salvador Solorio-Ruiz, a member of the city council in Delano, said the communities of color living near the wells in Kern County need relief sooner rather than later.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Solorio-Ruiz asserted. "We need to tackle this issue with urgency to end California's legacy of environmental racism as well."

Opponents of the governor's plan claim it will cost jobs in the oil and gas industry and result in more imports from out of state. Advocates also would like to see the state stop issuing or renewing permits for wells that sit within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, hospitals, prisons or nursing homes. A bill was introduced in the Senate earlier this year to require such setbacks. California is the only major oil-producing state not to require buffer zones.

Felipe Perez, a member of the city council in Firebaugh, emigrated to the central valley as a child, worked in the fields, gained his citizenship and eventually rose to become mayor of the city of Firebaugh.

He said setbacks are crucial to protect people's health.

"It's a safety concern that is affecting those people that are too close from those wells," Perez observed. "One of my kids, when he was little, he got asthma because of the pollution of the valley."

According to a Los Angeles Times analysis, more than 350,000 Californians live within 600 feet of unplugged wells.

This year, the Kern County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that could open up the door to thousands of new drilling permits.