A Long Beach Community College District trustee who also oversaw the state’s oil and gas operations has stepped down from that powerful governor-appointed position.

Since 2019, Uduak-Joe Ntuk was the oil and gas supervisor at the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM. He resigned on Friday “to focus on the personal needs of my family as I move forward to the next phase of my career,” he said in an email Wednesday.

“I am grateful to Governor Newsom for the opportunity to serve as the first African American State Oil & Gas Supervisor in the history of California. It has been an honor to be a trailblazer in this capacity, and a privilege to serve our residents,” Ntuk’s email said.

Ntuk said he’ll remain on the community college district board, where he has served since his election in 2018. He also teaches in the Chemical Engineering Department at Cal State Long Beach.

His tenure in both his elected and appointed positions has at times been rocky.

Ntuk weathered some criticism last fall when he alleged a fellow college trustee “traffics in QAnon conspiracies and misinformation,” and he was part of a board majority that voted to fire former Long Beach City College Superintendent-President Reagan Romali after she accused him and another trustee of ethics violations and retaliation.

Romali is now suing the district for $10 million, alleging wrongful termination. Ntuk has denied any wrongdoing in his role as a trustee and called Romali’s allegations baseless.

Both Long Beach and the state have a fraught relationship with the oil and gas industry, and that appears to be reflected by how Ntuk was received as oil and gas supervisor.

Environmental advocates were often critical of him as being too friendly to the industry he was supposed to regulate (he formerly worked for Chevron).

“Let’s hope Ntuk’s exit is the start of the transformation California’s oil and gas regulator desperately needs,” Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said Wednesday in a statement.

“Gov. Newsom’s climate policies can’t keep being undercut by his own agency rubberstamping new oil and gas projects,” the statement continued. “Newsom needs to appoint a regulator that helps him get the state off polluting, climate-heating fossil fuels, starting with ending new oil and gas permits now.”

But earlier this month, under Ntuk’s leadership, CalGEM approved emergency rules to prohibit new oil wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, parks and other sites considered sensitive. State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, whose district includes Long Beach, passed a bill creating the buffer zone, but its implementation was halted amid a ballot drive that could allow voters to overturn the law in 2024.

“I’m incredibly proud of our work at CalGEM over the past three years, especially enacting the nation’s strongest regulations for protecting communities of color from the impacts of oil drilling, moving towards ending the practice of fracking in California, and securing more than $100 million in state and federal funding to address the state’s century long challenge of orphan oil wells,” Ntuk said in his statement.

The fight between environmental interests and the petroleum industry puts Long Beach in a tight spot.

Research has tied air pollution from oil operations to asthma and other health problems—issues city leaders have said they want to clean up. But Long Beach officials also have bemoaned the potential loss of as much as $20 million in annual revenue if the 3,200-foot buffer law goes into effect this year.

Newsom’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Ntuk’s departure or when a replacement might be appointed, but the Bakersfield Californian reported that Gabe Tiffany, chief deputy director of the state Department of Conservation, will take over in the interim.

Staff writer Jason Ruiz contributed to this report.