Public commentary period on the issue, part of the Obama Administration’s energy policy drive, has been extended until the end of September.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
As part of the Obama administration’s drive to develop a comprehensive energy policy, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar heard from a raft of California legislators, government officials and environmentalists opposed to offshore oil drilling at a regional hearing on the matter in San Francisco last week.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, chair of the California State Lands Commission and former Deputy Interior Secretary under President Bill Clinton, testified at the hearing that the commission was firmly opposed to renewing oil and natural gas exploration leases off the California coast, despite a five-year plan drafted by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration that included lifting a 28-year federal moratorium on offshore drilling.
“Forty years ago, the Santa Barbara oil spill saw 100,000 barrels of spilled oil that fouled 35 miles of coastline and killed thousands of birds,” Garamendi said. “Ever since then, California has said no, no to oil drilling off its coast.”
Locally, residents are cool to the idea of further offshore energy activity. In October 2006, Malibu celebrities like Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry joined environmentalists to protest the proposed construction by BHP Billiton of a liquefied natural gas facility 13 miles offshore. Hundreds of protestors showed up at Malibu Pier in a show of solidarity against the plan and, ultimately, Schwarzenegger vetoed the idea.
Garamendi pointed out that California’s coastline generates more than $45 billion in economic activity, all of which would be endangered by the prospect of another catastrophic oil spill.
“The billions that would be spent on offshore development would better serve California and the nation if spent on renewable energy projects,” Garamendi said.
In the wake of last summer’s oil crisis and spike in gasoline prices, many in the nation called for the drilling moratorium to be rescinded in an effort to reduce America’s dependence on foreign energy sources. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors went so far as to draft a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, requesting policy changes that would allow expanded oil exploration and extraction off county shores.
In a reversal, the Santa Barbara board adopted a resolution earlier this month opposing new offshore oil leasing and supporting the reestablishment of a federal moratorium on new leasing.
Last week, Salazar was met with environmental activists costumed as marine life, urging him to reject energy companies’ bids to renew offshore drilling. The hearing drew commentary from Sen. Barbara Boxer, as well as Garamendi and State Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara).
“I presented Secretary Salazar with a letter signed by 26 California legislators, asking for the moratorium to be reinstated,” Nava said in an interview with The Malibu Times. Nava’s Assembly Joint Resolution 3, reestablishing a moratorium on offshore drilling, will be brought for a floor vote this week.
“I believe many in the oil industry exist in a state of extreme denial,” he said. “They refuse to recognize legitimate opposition by most Californians to offshore drilling.”
Californians, however, seem split on the issue. According to a poll last summer by the Public Policy Institute of California, 51 percent of state residents favored expanded offshore drilling. However, the same poll found that 52 percent of Californians think global warming represents a serious threat to the state.
In a prepared statement from the American Petroleum Institute, read at the hearing, Doug Morris, API’s group director of Upstream and Industry Operations, said, “America’s oil and natural gas companies recognize that securing America’s energy future requires the development of all forms of domestic energy. [But] oil and natural gas production from the Outer Continental Shelf plays a key role in supplying the energy our nation needs now.”
The API contends that new technology makes oil exploration and extraction processes able to avoid the environmental disasters of the past, allowing deeper exploration and more precise drilling capacity to tap petroleum fields offshore.
Salazar has extended the public commentary period until the end of September and has said that an energy policy, including positions on offshore drilling, will be made public by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Garamendi plans on keeping up public pressure to protect California’s offshore waters, including sanctuary zones off the coasts of Mendocino and Humboldt counties, Newport Beach, Point Fermin and most of the offshore areas in Ventura and Santa Barbara County.
“It really is a spiritual thing for Californians,” Garamendi said in urging Salazar to reject offshore drilling practices and embrace investment in viable alternative energies. “We know that you are heading that way.”