Schwarzenegger Announces Withdrawl of Support for Controversial Offshore Oil Drilling Project

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew his support Monday for a controversial new offshore oil drilling project off the Santa Barbara coast in the wake of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Shock Waves in the Atlantic; Arnold's World in California

Interior to look at drilling in Atlantic Ocean
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503085.html
Government plans cautious moves on Atlantic drilling
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6835125.html
"Before deciding on those requests, the Interior Department first is required by federal law to study the potential environmental impacts of the seismic testing. Some environmental advocates have said the shock wave surveys can injure whales and other marine life or cause them to change their breeding habits and other behavior."

North Carolina - Perdue's offshore drilling panel meets
http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/6883866/

California - Schwarzenegger: "Look Beyond" One's Principles
http://blogs.kqed.org/capitalnotes/2010/01/25/schwarzenegger-look-beyond-ones-principles/
"It will be satisfying so many ends," he said. "First of all, we get less dependent on foreign oil. Second, we will get extra revenues. The environmentalists are happy, business is happy, so everyone is happy, so why not go ahead with it?" My question is, what world is this guy living in?

Alaska - Off Shore Oil Drilling Threatens Marine Life

Shell faces legal fight over Arctic wells
http://surfspots-gps.com/off-shore-oil-drilling-threatens-marine-life

Flaming oil rig award goes to Governor Schwarzenegger

The first "flaming oil rig" award of 2010 goes to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his oil-for-parks budget scheme that proposes to fund California State Parks via a new lease for offshore drilling in Santa Barbara.

What makes this proposal so offensive is that it holds our state parks for ransom (more on that here), the presumption of approval at the State Lands Commission (despite being denied last year) and willingness to end run the State Land Commission in the event it gets denied there (the first two attempts failed).

Read the Surfrider Foundation's opposition to the Gov's oil-for-parks budget scheme here.

Read the strong reaction from others in the media here.

Here's a rundown of the previous attempts to ram this proposal through:

Thursday, May 21, 2009:

Subverting State Lands Commission is Not The Answer

Friday, May 29, 2009:

Governor’s Oil Actions Threaten California Coastline

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Budget Conference Committee Doesn’t Consider Governor’s Scheme to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Gov. Schwarzenegger Flip-Flops on Offshore Drilling in California

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Sam Blaskeslee makes end run at State Land's Commission denial of PXP. OPPOSE AB 1536

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

AB 1536 FAIL

Stay tuned...

Oil for Parks dominates the news...

There were many articles over the weekend on Schwarzenegger’s plan to fund state parks through revenues generated through a twice-rejected plan to drill new oil wells in the ocean off Santa Barbara. Here are some reactions:

"Blackmail might be a better term for it," said Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who chairs the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. "He's saying I'll fund the parks if you'll open up the coast to new oil drilling."

"Why anyone would think this would ever get approved is kind of a mystery," said Elizabeth Goldstein, Executive Director of the California State Parks Foundation, who is championing an $18 vehicle registration fee to fund state parks and give motorists free admission.

"The California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) rejects the Governor’s proposal to eliminate core public funding for California’s 278 state parks and replace it with uncertain funding from an oil drilling project that has not been approved for California, as announced in his proposed 2010-11 State Budget today," a statement from the organization read. "He has resurrected the Tranquillon Ridge offshore oil drilling proposal and has attempted to give this controversial and uncertain financial proposal environmental credentials by directing its proceeds to the state park system."

“Californians should reject this false choice between offshore oil drilling and state parks,” said Graham Chisholm, executive director of Audubon California. “The Governor is hoping that our love for state parks will compel us to take his bitter medicine and support new offshore oil drilling. The park measure will secure the future of our state parks without jeopardizing California’s coast.”

"Our coast is one of our most important economic assets and renewing offshore oil drilling puts at great risk our tourist and fishing industries," said Dan Jacobson with Environment California.

"The hypocrisy of the Governor cannot be overstated," said Susan Jordan who directs the California Coastal Protection Network. " He would rather reverse forty years of bi-partisan California state policy against offshore oil drilling to push through a pet project over 100 statewide groups have joined to oppose rather than require oil companies extracting oil from our state's sea beds pay a severance tax -- their fair share to taxpayers for doing business in California. We are the only oil producing state in America that does not tax extraction of gas and oil on lands owned by the state. This would bring in more than 1.5 billion dollars annually to the state's General Fund," she emphasized.

Governor seeks to use oil money to save parks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/09/MNIJ1BFPO7.DTL

Schwarzenegger: Fund State Parks via Offshore Oil Money
http://laist.com/2010/01/08/schwarzenegger_fund_state_parks_via.php

Arnold Tries Again on T-Ridge
http://www.calbuzz.com/2010/01/arnold-tries-again-on-t-ridge-rumors-of-the-week/

California State Parks Get Drilled by Governor’s Proposed Budget
http://northerncaliforniahikingtrails.com/blog/2010/01/09/california-state-parks-get-drilled-by-governors-proposed-budget/

Enviros blast Arnold’s oil-for-parks plan
http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2010/01/08/enviros-blast-arnolds-oil-for-parks-plan/

Schwarzenegger's Budget Threatens the Coast of California with Offshore Oil Drilling (Environment California)
http://yubanet.com/california/Schwarzenegger-s-Budget-Threatens-the-Coast-of-California-with-Offshore-Oil-Drilling.php?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Yubanet+(YubaNet.com+Headlines)

Want state parks? Let us drill offshore
http://blogs.redding.com/mbeauchamp/archives/2010/01/want-state-park.html

Governor’s budget proposal only proves need for State Parks Initiative
http://www.audublog.org/?p=3201

Schwarzenegger to seek federal help for California budget
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget23-2009dec23,0,7164018.story?track=rss
“One new source of revenue in the budget: Schwarzenegger will revive a plan to allow offshore oil drilling from an existing platform off the Santa Barbara coast. The proposal was so controversial during last summer's budget debate that after the Assembly voted down the plan, members expunged the vote, erasing it from the public record.”

On a related note, we thought it would be interesting to point out this text from the Schwarzenegger administration' s California Ocean Action Strategy (2004):

"Eliminate Adverse Impacts of Offshore Oil and Gas Development. The Schwarzenegger Administration will continue to defend California’s right and duty to protect the California coast from the impacts of new offshore oil and gas leasing, exploration, or development on the federal Outer Continental Shelf and will encourage the federal government to seek a settlement to extinguish the 36 leases off the California Coast."

Environmentalists: Why T-Ridge is a Bad Deal (CA)

http://www.calbuzz.com/2009/12/why-t-ridge-offshore-oil-project-is-a-bad-deal/

Oil interests sense weakness in California Legislature

by Amy Smart & Dan Jacobson in the Capitol Weekly:

Last week the state Assembly defeated a plan to drill off the coast of Santa Barbara. But the group behind this plan, a Houston-based oil company called Plains Exploration and Production, Co. (PXP), isn’t about to give up -- not when it has spent millions so far on PR and lobbying.

Wall Street investors, having heard that PXP’s lobbying efforts were able to get Gov. Schwarzenegger to reverse his position on drilling, have been pouring money into PXP. And the pressure is on PXP to push through its deal.

Later this month, PXP plans to resurrect the Tranquillion Ridge offshore oil drilling bill. Once again the company will blitz legislators with a hardball campaign and lobbying agenda.


While PXP (and the Wall Streeters who are betting on it) will make billions of dollars by tapping into a miniscule amount of oil (barely 10.13 billion gallons), millions of Californians will suffer.

The modern anti-offshore drilling movement gained significant steam after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. At that time, approximately 100,000 barrels of crude spilled into the ocean, contaminating 150 miles of coast as well as devastating delicate marine ecosystems and endangering wildlife. It provided a vivid image of how dangerous offshore drilling is.

Now sensing weakness in the Legislature, today’s oil industry hopes to capitalize on the current budget crisis and tempt lawmakers with big oil money. Offshore oil drilling is not a viable alternative. Drilling has been—and still is—a dirty and dangerous business.

For years oil companies have talked about environmental safety and improved technology. They used this argument in 1989, when oil tanker Exxon Valdez dumped 10.8 million gallons of crude into Alaska’s Prince William Sound; in 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 743,700 gallons of oil spilled; in 2007 when cargo vessel Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the San Francisco bay; and Wednesday, when a leak in a Texas oil rig spilled 58,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.

According to recent reports drilling is dirty. Drilling a new well fills the surrounding ocean waters with thousands of gallons of lubricant containing arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, petroleum hydrocarbons, aluminum and other heavy metals. Air pollution from a single rig is equivalent to 7,000 cars each driving 50 miles per day.

And that’s not including the spills, which are alarmingly frequent: Federal agencies reported that between 2006 and the early part of 2009 there were over 2,069 oil related incidents involved in offshore drilling.

It’s important to remember why the California coast has been free from offshore oil drilling for 40 years. The coast defines California. It’s where we relax, swim, surf, sail and fish. It’s home to thousands of species of marine wildlife that use California waters for migrating, breeding and habitation. Our coast is worth protecting, and Californians know it.


With so much money on the line oil companies will try to use the recent PPIC poll as reason to open our coast to oil drilling. But what the numbers really indicate are years of aggressive and expensive PR and lobbying efforts—more than $17 million (lobbying alone) in California since the beginning of 2005. The truth is offshore oil drilling is a risky and imperfect solution, and has no place off our coast. Californians have no intention of selling out. The oil industry can spend as much as it wants on publicity stunts to manipulate public opinion, but we aren’t fooled.

We love our coast. It must remain clean and safe.

Massive Opposition To Schwarzenegger's Oil Drilling End Run

There is massive opposition to Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to override the State Lands Commission and allow oil drilling off of Santa Barbara as part of last minute budget stop gap.

State Lands Commission Resolution in opposition

Political Letters of Opposition:

Senator Barbara Boxer's Letter of Opposition

Environmental Group Letters in Opposition:

Defenders of Wildlife Opposition

Environmental Defense Center Opposition

Nine Environmental Organization Group Letter in Opposition

Sierra Club Opposition

Surfrider Foundation Opposition

Editorials in Opposition:

Los Angeles Times Opposition Editorial

San Francisco Chronicle Opposition Editorial

Ventura Star Opposition Editorial

Other New stories:

Calbuzz story describing 1938 Director of Finance scandal resulting in the creation of the State Lands Commission to over see on oil & gas leasing

Capitol Weekly story describing end run around State Lands Commission

Earlier posts on issue:

Lt. Governor Garamendi's opposition & Facebook page

Facebook Page

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Arnold

Governor’s Oil Actions Threaten California Coastline

Subverting the State Lands Commission is Not the Answer

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Arnold

This coming Monday, June 8 is World Ocean Day. So, in honor of the event, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued the following statement:

“California's tremendous ocean and coastline are important to our environment and our economy, and every year on Ocean Day, people around the globe reflect on the many benefits the ocean provides. I encourage all Californians to take part in the Thank You Ocean campaign, which reminds us why protecting the ocean for future generations is so important. Each of us can do something to make our beaches and oceans cleaner, safer and healthier.”

Here's something YOU can do, Arnold. You can drop your plan to sell out the California coast for oil drilling dollars! Or, as the LA Times put it:

"Admittedly, the state could use the money. But that's not a good enough reason to subvert the authority of the Lands Commission, sell California's coastline in exchange for empty promises, ignore the wishes of Santa Barbara residents and dismiss the outcome of a long process of analysis and public hearings."

Governor’s Oil Actions Threaten California Coastline

Governor Schwarzenegger’s austerity budget released just before the election included a strange and dangerous proposal to bypass the State Lands Commission’s public review of offshore oil drilling. Instead, the Director of Finance could override a vote of the three-member commission. It’s a strange proposal, since the Director of Finance is a member of the SLC, along with the Controller and Lieutenant Governor. So under the existing system, the Director needs only to convince one other member to carry any motion.

It’s a dangerous proposal since corruption by the Director of Finance is what led to the creation of the SLC in the first place. Undoing regulation enacted during the Great Depression and intended to protect against abuse of the public trust sounds eerily familiar to what created our current financial mess on Wall Street.

Read more here...

State Lands Commission will be discussing this issue on Monday, June 1st.

Support: Agenda Item 70. In January, the State Lands Commission denied an oil-drilling project in Santa Barbra and we need to make sure that decision is not overruled! Item 70 is a resolution opposing the Governor’s Budget Revision to override the State Lands Commission denial of the PXP oil-drilling project.

Read the resolution here.

Read Surfrider Foundation's position here.

(this is the last item on the agenda!)

MEETING DETAILS: CALIFORNIA STATE LANDS COMMISSION

MEETING STARTS At 10:00 AM
City Of Santa Monica
City Hall Council Chambers
Room 213, Second Floor
1685 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Subverting State Lands Commission is Not The Answer

On January 29, 2009, the California State Lands Commission denied the Tranquillon Oil & Gas project in a 2-1 vote. At that time the SLC attorneys, in consultation with the Attorney General’s office, concluded that the agreement could not be reliably enforced. In addition, there were concerns about the Minerals Management Service (MMS) not including an end date in the federal permit.

Now the Governor and the Director of Finance, Michael Genest, are proposing special legislation via the budget process to circumvent this decision to try and find money for the state budget.

The Surfrider Foundation is opposed to any effort to undermine the decision making process of California state agencies.

Read our opposition letter here.