California’s oil and natural gas hotspot Kern County is set to resume issuing permits to drill in  April after adopting enhanced rules that could allow more wells to be permitted every year. 

The five-member Board of Supervisors on Monday unanimously adopted the ordinance, which includes restrictions that could increase the costs for oil and natural gas operators. 

The rules, which would take effect around April 6, establish a generic environmental impact assessment and would require larger buffers between homes and wells along with muffled drilling noise.

Kern County, in the heart of California’s agriculture- and oil-rich San Joaquin Valley, has undergone a long process leading up to the ordinance. A draft environmental report prepared after the Fifth District Court of...