Letter to the Editor: Environmental Groups Oppose Drilling Proposal
Four major local environmental groups — the Environmental Defense Center, the Community Environmental Council, Get Oil Out! and Santa Barbara County Action Network — together representing more than 120 years of activism to protect the quality of Santa Barbara County’s environment, have joined together to express their opposition to a proposed letter from Santa Barbara County to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger favoring increased oil exploration and extraction offshore California.
“The suggestion that somehow drilling for oil will be good for our environment by reducing oil and gas seeps is simply bad science,” said Abraham Powell, president of GOO!, also formed just months after the 1969 spill. “Even the authors of the one study that suggested this might be possible have repudiated its use.” GOO! has produced a fact sheet called “Offshore Seeps: The Facts.” GOO! warned the board that further oil drilling not only would result in local impacts, but also would exacerbate global climate change.
The proposed letter credits increased oil development as providing a beneficial effect on the state and local budgetary crisis. However, “[e]ven the federal Energy Information Administration says increased drilling will have an ‘insignificant’ impact on oil prices, even by 2030,” said Tam Hunt, energy program director for the CEC, which was formed in 1970 in response to the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. “Our nation should be investing our time, energy and creativity into real solutions that put us on the right path, toward renewable energy solutions for our future. Our region shouldn’t be known for chasing after yesterday’s energy solutions, but for leadership toward the renewable energy solutions of today and tomorrow.”
“The board report, signed by Supervisors Firestone and Centeno, talks mostly about the possibility of increased property tax revenue from more offshore leases,” said Deborah Brasket, executive director of SBCAN. “But the local economic impact of another oil spill on tourism, fishing and other ocean dependent industries in our communities would be devastating and would cause much more significant harm than some speculative income in yet unknown leases. Offshore oil drilling is not the panacea touted by the oil industry, but yet another ploy to prolong our dependence on oil, and delay the development of
renewable energy.”
Betsy Weber represents the Environmental Defense Center.
» wrote on 08/31/08 @ 08:08 PM
All right, Mr. Becker! I would add to your list Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer, Capps, and Nava, as people not the least interested in furthering or improving California’s health. They all seem to miss the point that anything funded by the taxpayer is, in economic terms, not productive. Sure some gov intiatives help some folks, but ALWAYS at the expense of others. The only thing that helps everyone is real economic growth, which generally means production of goods and (not government) services.
» wrote on 08/28/08 @ 01:16 PM
Once again, the EDC, CEC and SBCAN fail to address the main issue : Jobs and prosperity.
Unemployment is at 7.3% in California and rising. Santa Barbara County’s unemployment rate is rapidly climbing. Thousands of county residents have lost their jobs, their homes and their businesses. We are headed for a severe economic downturn that promises to inflict financial pain on a large part of the county and state.
Developing the county’s offshore oil and gas reserves to their fullest will create, directly and indirectly, thousands of jobs. If Carbajal, Wolf and Capps were to cooperate with Centeno, Gray and the future McCain Administration ( I believe he will win) the county would receive part of the fed’s oil royalty. Instead, Carbajal, Wolf and Capps are working AGAINST fed/county royalty sharing. That royalty sharing would amount to tens of millions of dollars a year.
By my estimate, some 10,000 jobs would be created in Santa Barbara County if full oil and gas development, including refining, were permitted. This includes rig workers, refinery workers, processing plant workers, equipment operators, office and management employees, contract machine shop employees, contract equipment supplier employees, contract oil field and refinery service employees, oil and gas equipment manufacturing employees, government inspectors, the list goes on and on. Foe every job directly created by the oil and gas industry 1.5 jobs would be created from the money spent by those oil and gas jobs. Those jobs includes teachers, nurses, computer techs, auto mechanics, police officers, firefighters, truck drivers, accountants and CPA’s, electricans, plumbers, carpenters, and THIS list goes on and on.
Oil and gas development is safe and clean. There is no alternative to gasoline and diesel fuel to power our motor vehicles. Electric cars don’t work. The EDC, CEC and SBCAN have been trying to develop electric car and bicycle usage. They have failed totally.
In 20 years we will begin the transition to shale oil and coal derived liquid fuels. Until that time, however, we need to develop our conventional oil supplies. Undeveloped oil fields can begin production in months, with full production in 10 years.
And just to set the record straight the increase in oil development will not hurt the tourist industry. We already have oil rigs off our coast and the tourists don’t care. I know, I’m in the business.
» wrote on 08/28/08 @ 08:52 AM
History will remeber this time as the wacky liberals running our country into the ground.
liberal leaders in the Democratic party paid off by trial lawyers who feed of small businees and chase big companies to other countries. Killing the American dream. America needs a federal law stating if you sue you and lose, you will pay the other persons attorney fees. This will stop the frivolous job killing lawsuits. The leeches will hate this.
» wrote on 08/28/08 @ 01:44 AM
Go Johnny! As a fellow admirer of the Locke philosophy of limited government and maximum personal responsibility, you nailed the insufferable plight of coastal Californians today, selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, intellectually narcissistic hedonist. The state that had the lowest taxes and best schools, sixth largest economy and enviable middle class upward mobility, is now home to the highest taxes, worst schools, eighth largest economy (and dropping fast) and a middle class flight out of the state. The enviable middle class is being replaced by the arrogant, selfish, white, wealthy liberal elitist and their slaves the illegal immigrants. These idle wealthy liberals always claim the tax-the-rich ideology to assuage their guilt and then invest their wealth where the taxes don’t reach them, leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab. You want to help the down trodden you plastic phonies then get your damned hands out of my pockets! Stop being a bunch of obstructionist while being the biggest consumers.
As for the above mentioned environmental groups, they’re populated by well meaning, good people who serve as useful idiots for the politicos. Wise up guys. The only thing you need to do to be a good environmentalist is to lead a morally straight life and be responsible for your own actions. You can’t legislate behavior and when you do the end product is worse than the behavior itself.
» wrote on 08/27/08 @ 08:15 PM
I am deeply ashamed of the self-centered inhabitants of California, particularly coastal California, who, while living in a state that imports for its own needs more oil than most countries, is willing to deny the rest of the United States access to California oil deposits that could break the Middle East stranglehold on energy supplies, while allowing the more practical (read scientifically and economically knowledgeable) citizens of the U.S. time to develop alternate supplies. Get some perspective. And here’s a few thinking points: How much money comes in from out of this area to support these environmental organizations? How much do the people in these organizations depend on those donations for their living? How much of what they say is motivated by their own need to keep those donations coming in, for their own survival, albeit in Paradise at someone else’e expense? And one must wonder if the donators understand that they are actually helping maintain our dependence on foreign oil. Do not blame the oil companies, they just explore, find, drill, pump, refine, and distribute the stuff. The demand comes from the consumer. That’s us.