Home
News Grid
Local News
- Briefs
- Obituaries
Green Hawk
Business
Politics
School Zone
- Kids Speaking Up
Nonprofits
Missing Pets
Multimedia
- Photo of the Day
- Pictures in the News
Arts
Movies
- Times
- Reviews
Outdoors
Sports
News Releases
Columnists
- Leslie Dinaberg & Zak Klobucher
- Capt. David Bacon
- Paul Burri
- Bill Cirone
- Russell Collins
- Hal Conklin & Denny Wayman
- Karen Dwyer
- Jeff Harding
- Joan Mayer
- Hospice of Santa Barbara
- Karen Telleen-Lawton
- Ken Williams
- Carrie Wilson
Blogs
- Hawks Nest
- Craig Smith
- calbuzz
- The Daily Capitalist
- Miller-McCune News
- City 2.0
- Cliff Redding
Opinions
- Lou Cannon
- Michael Barone
- Debbie Brasket
- Susan Estrich
- Jim Hightower
- Tam Hunt
- Larry Kudlow
- Michelle Malkin
- Robert Scheer
- Harris Sherline
- Mark Shields
Classifieds
Advertise
Donate
Partners
- Presidio Sports
- Santa Barbara Surfer
- SBParent.com
- Partners in Education
- United Way of Santa Barbara County

Governor Drops Support for Offshore Drilling, Draws Ire of Local Environmentalists

Gulf of Mexico oil spill hits close to home with renewed controversy about a recently revised PXP deal

By Lara Cooper, Noozhawk Staff Writer | Published on 05.04.2010

E-mail
Print
Post | View Comments (6)

Citing environmental repercussions from last week’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Monday that he no longer will support expanded oil drilling off the California coast.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference in Sacramento, Schwarzenegger touched on a deal that Santa Barbara residents know well: the Plains Exploration Petroleum, or PXP, deal.

The controversial deal divided many in the environmental community and involved negotiations between the Environmental Defense Center and PXP, a Texas oil company.

The two agreed that PXP would be allowed to drill at Platform Irene, which sits in federal waters off Vandenberg Air Force Base.

As a condition of the drilling, however, PXP would have to cease work at Irene in 2022, as well as at three other platforms, and pump $2 billion in royalties into state coffers.

But Schwarzenegger indicated Monday that the windfall from revenues might not be worth the risk.

“If I have a choice to make up $100 million and what I see in the Gulf of Mexico, I’d rather find a way to make up that $100 million,” he was quoted as saying in an Associated Press report.

In a statement released Monday, the Environmental Defense Center said it was surprised and disappointed to learn that the governor was withdrawing his support for the plan.

The group said it feels that the spill in the Gulf makes it that much more important to put an end to existing drilling off the coast, and pointed out that the platform that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara Channel in 1969 is still in operation.

“Let us be clear: There is no other way under the law to shut down existing platforms,” the group said in the statement. “Our plan, negotiated as part of a settlement agreement, would have provided the only legal and available means to put an end to existing oil drilling off our coast. Without our plan, the platforms will continue drilling indefinitely. The longer the platforms operate, the greater the risk of an oil spill.”

News of the governor’s withdrawal comes a little more than a month after President Barack Obama signed off on expanding oil and gas development and exploration in some federal waters, though the California coast is not included in the plan.

Not everyone was disappointed with Schwarzenegger’s announcement, however.

Assemblyman Pedro Nava commended the decision, saying the proposal to continue the drilling, even in the short term, isn’t worth the risk.

“Now it’s time for PXP to pack up their tent and abandon their plans to open up the California coast to new, dirty and dangerous offshore oil drilling,” he said. “California doesn’t want to suffer the same fate as Louisiana. ... We must not let this happen here.”

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Comments

Noozhawk's comments are moderated, but by posting here you accept your responsibility to follow our rules as part of Noozhawk's shared online community. Please keep your comments civil and helpful. Don't attack other readers personally, and do not use vulgar, abusive or discriminatory language. Use the "Report Abuse" link if a comment violates these standards or our Terms of Use.

» AN50 on 05.04.10 @ 10:58 AM

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the biggest girly man ever. If this wasn’t a predictable move from the most liberal governor California ever had then I don’t know what is. Using the gulf oil spill to further handicap our energy production can be summed up in one word, STUPID. Imagine all you anti oil green weenies out there, if you decided that because you ate bad food one day you decided not to eat anymore. Well you will probably last about 4 weeks.
Look it boils down to this, whether you like oil or not, believe we need it or not, think it damages the environment or not, we cannot live without it, period. All you liberal/progressive elites out there, you don’t have enough money nor could you make enough to buy your way out of the coming shit storm cause by oil depletion. You may have anesthetized your intellect with all this idiotic renewable green energy crap. But when you sit down and rationally go through the math you will see that nothing on the foreseeable radar can replace petroleum for cost and availability. You can cry all you want about oil spills but you will starve to death without oil and really there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. Well you could throw Arnie out and get busy drilling offshore, before the freaking Chinese do it for you and charge you twice what OPEC would. Jeeze Louis people in this state are stupid.