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Calitics Radio: Asm. Pedro Nava on Oil Drilling & The Budget

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Yesterday, I had a chance to sit down with Asm. Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) to discuss the Governator’s offshore oil drilling proposal, the state parks, and the budget in general.

You can catch the show live at 1:30 here. It’ll just be me today, so feel free to phone in at  (718) 664-9561. If you miss it live, check our entire archive of the Calitics Radio Show or search for Calitics on iTunes.

The Governor has long said that he opposes offshore drilling, but I guess his long-held position is worth about a hundred million for this year.  The SF Chronicle followed the LA Times’ lead by advocating against the PXP project off the Santa Barbara Coast:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who knows better, is trying one of the all-time end runs. The governor appears ready to ditch his past pledges to bar coastal drilling, leapfrogging past the State Lands Commission, which oversees coastal waters, and urging the Legislature to sign a devil’s bargain to permit deep-water oil exploration.

It’s a stunning switch for the governor, who cultivates a green-is-good image. His proposal is one that shouldn’t fly – and definitely doesn’t belong in budget talks in Sacramento this week.

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The governor clearly is desperate to plug the state’s financial hole. But he’s shredding past promises and backing a bad deal. The health and beauty of the coast is essential to this state’s economy and its quality of life. California cannot drill its way out of this budget crisis. (SF Chronicle 6/10/09)

Put simply, even with the best technology, there is a substantial risk to our coastline.  The Coast is more than just a pretty sight, it is a major component of much of the state’s economic engine. We simply cannot “Drill, baby, drill” and expect to find any sustainable solutions.

2 thoughts on “Calitics Radio: Asm. Pedro Nava on Oil Drilling & The Budget”

  1. California needs to do much more, on top of oil drilling, to get out of this mess. One thing that would be a good fix would be to lift restrictions on what can be sold in California. Another would be to lower taxes on business, less business taxes more business, more business more jobs, more jobs more money, more money more business, more business more jobs, and it keeps going. Once everything levels out, raise the taxes back to levels they were at.

    Oh wait, business is evil rich people stuff, it wouldn’t help our state at all to get more of it.

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