About this time last year George Skelton decided to go all in for offshore oil drilling. His column on the topic was riddled with flaws and errors as I pointed out at the time.
Unfortunately Skelton doesn’t seem to have learned, and is once again pushing for offshore drilling – this time as part of his own proposed deal, paired with an oil severance tax:
From Sacramento — Republican politicians want to drill offshore. Democrats want to tax oil onshore. Both sides are right.
And both sides are wrong because they basically oppose each other’s position, especially in the state Assembly….
So compromise. Impose only a 5% severance tax. Loosen up on offshore drilling.
Work it out. But that’s probably expecting too much in all the political and petro polarization.
Most of this is classic High Broderism – claim there are two extremist sides, that whatever lies between them is inherently good because it is in the middle, and insist that it be accepted particularly by progressives as the best we’ll ever get.
Skelton’s love of offshore oil drilling stems from his basic lack of understanding about how both drilling and global oil markets work, as this passage reveals:
Democrats have been anti-offshore drilling zealots for 40 years, ever since a platform off the Santa Barbara coast spilled goo all over 20 miles of beaches. Never mind that new technologies have made offshore drilling much safer today.
Wishful thinkers also fantasize that if America stops producing oil, we’ll quit burning it and climb into golf carts. That will happen when electric cars become practical and affordable. Meanwhile, the nation will continue to shape its foreign policy to assure a steady stream of tankers from shifty overseas sellers.
If we’re going to keep using oil — and we are — we should produce it ourselves. Keep the money in our own economy and away from terrorists.
Except that’s not how it works. The amount of untapped oil off California’s coasts is negligible at best. It would barely make a dent in the state’s oil consumption. Further, that oil will be sold on a global market. There’s no guarantee at all that it will be put into Californians’ gas tanks; even if some of it wound up there, it would do nothing to reduce the state’s dependence on foreign oil. The only lasting way that can be accomplished is by reducing how much oil we use, not by finding new sources for it.
Al Gore put it well last year here in Monterey: drilling is “like a junkie looking for veins in his toes so he can get one last fix.” Drilling distracts us from the real problems our state faces, and for absolutely nothing in return.
Skelton, of course, argues it’s not exactly “absolutely nothing in return” – he bases his argument for offshore drilling by citing the crazy budget cuts that have been made in the last few budget cycles.
Yet an oil severance tax alone would solve many of these problems and prevent many of those cuts without needing to drill offshore. Skelton’s claim is that Republicans will never go for this unless we give up the coastlines, so why shouldn’t progressives make the deal?
Skelton’s assumption is that the two sides – pro-drilling and pro-oil tax – are equally balanced. They’re not. The only reason such a deal would have to be cut is because of the 2/3rds rule.
California came within a handful of votes of opening the coast to drilling for the first time in 40 years – all that is required is a simple majority to do that. But to pass a tax it takes 2/3rds. What that does is give the leverage to those who merely need a simple majority, in this case the Republicans.
There’s no way a favorable deal can be done under those circumstances. And so Democrats and progressives would do well to continue to reject offshore drilling. Just because the state needs revenue doesn’t mean we should behave like junkies to go find it.