Not all oil is created equal. It isn’t just a matter of buring it and getting so many particulates, and so much CO2 dispersed in the air. Oil of different provenances give off different levels of crap. So, CARB is attempting to regulate.  Shockingly, the National Petrochemical Assoc. is suing:

A lobby group that includes BP and Shell in its membership has launched a legal challenge against low-carbon legislation in California that in effect rules out the use of oil from Canadian tar sands. The action by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) comes amid growing political, investor and consumer pressure on US oil companies not to participate in the carbon-intensive tar sands of Alberta. (Guardian UK)

It’s a pretty standard interstate commerce lawsuit. It’s something of a longshot case, as California has successfully regulated other products coming into the state. Like, um, say gasoline. We have our own mix here, toxic and pricey as it might be, and that has been allowed to stand for a while now. That profited the oil companies, so no rush to sue on that one. But this one is annoying to them, so they’re standing up for their corporate rights.

Of course, the two big oil shale producers, BP and Shell, are hiding behind NPRA on the lawsuit.  They each claim that they weren’t in on the process to sue on this regulation.  Convenient, that.

The case will be handled by the AG, Jerry Brown, we’ll be sure to update if there is any news.

So what would Abel Maldonado do on oil drilling? During the budget process, Maldo voted against the Tranquillion Ridge project, despite voting for much of the rest of the package. However, Schwarzenegger, who also once opposed offshore drilling, moved to support it over the last year.

If Maldonado is confirmed, he would have a vote on the important state lands commission.  That would make his position on the issue quite important.

Jim Boren of the Fresno Bee asked Sen. Maldonado precisely that question, and got some political speak in response:

“As you know, I have voted No several times. So my record speaks for itself. I always look at things in a case by case basis. . . And I have not looked at the state lands analysis. I will soon. I’m going to request it.”

He’s definitely maybe going to look into the issue to review the analysis of the question. That Maldo…sure does love his ambiguity.

CalBuzz points out some correspondence between Bush Ranger Parsky and the rest of the Parsky Commission:

As we first reported late Wednesday, tax reform commission Chairman Gerald Parsky sucker-punched at least some members of his panel by sending them an unexpected, last-minute recommendation to generate “tens of billions of dollars” of new revenue by vastly expanding offshore oil drilling in state waters.

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The recommendation came as a shock, not only because the offshore issue was only casually discussed during the commission’s months of hearings, but also because it deepened the atmosphere of secrecy and sleight-of-hand in which Parsky assembled the agenda for the panel’s final, crucial meeting. As a political matter, such an expansion of offshore drilling would also directly conflict with decades of state policy, in which environmental protection of coastal waters and beaches have trumped economic issues, resulting in a long-held moratorium on new leases.

The proposal for more offshore drilling seems to have worked its way onto the commission’s plate at least in part at the request of conservative Hoover Institution economist Michael Boskin, who also sits on the board of Exxon Mobil.

How oil drilling got into a so-called tax commission shouldn’t be a surprise when there was a faux transparency.  The website laid out a slew of emails and written conversations, but apparently Parsky and his cronies were working on something else entirely.

This is not the process that gets to determine whether we will set up oil rigs off of the entirety of our coast line.  That is an entirely seperate conversation, and frankly Mr. Parsky, I don’t care one iota what you think about that.  Not that I really much cared about what you thought about our revenue system either at this point, but this was not your assigned task and frankly none of your business.

It’s nice to see that ExxonMobil has its dirty hooves in just about political conversation where it can possibly make a buck. But if ever anybody thought that the Parsky Plan had any credibility as any sort of unbiased scheme, well, that can just about be written off right about now.

At a hearing last week of the California State Lands Commission, which I chair, we passed a resolution critical of an effort to bypass our independent jurisdiction in approving new oil drilling proposals.

An editorial in last weekend’s Los Angeles Times buttresses my position and explains what’s at stake:

“[In late January,] the Lands Commission rightly rejected the plan on a 2-1 vote, and that should have been the end of 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. The Lands Commission, in fact, was created in 1938 to bring more transparency to the awarding of oil leases after a scandal involving the Department of Finance.”

National and state implications over the flip…

The precedent set by allowing this “dubious deal” to move forward also has dangerous national implications. In comments to a post I wrote last week on the Daily Kos, Linnaeus said something that I think is worth repeating:

“I’m not a Californian, but these resources are treasures for us all. In case I wasn’t clear, yes, protect the coastline.” (minor edits for formatting)

What happens in California has a habit of spreading to other states, and if the proposal moves forward, the Golden State will be on record in support of offshore oil drilling and in favor of bypassing decades-established environmental regulations when Big Oil comes knocking with a quick buck. That’s not a precedent that’s healthy for California’s fragile natural wonders, and it can only serve to undermine environmental protection efforts in other states too.

In a wall post in the Facebook group created in opposition to the Department of Finance proposal, Assemblymember Pedro Nava, a member of the Assembly Coastal Caucus, explains what he expects will happen if the oil lease moves forward:

“We can’t forget this important fact. The Secretary of the Interior is right now evaluating off shore oil lease plans for California. If the PXP deal is approved through the budget, it will mean that the coast of California is for sale and decades of hard work to protect our coast will be compromised. The impacts will be first felt in Santa Barbara and then spread like an oil spill north to Mendocino and south to San Diego. We have worked too hard for too long to allow this to happen.”

And Brian Leubitz on Calitics wrote today of the potential environmental impact of the Department of Finance’s proposal. His words are worth repeating:

“California was, once upon a time, the leader in offshore drilling. In fact, the first submerged oil wells was in the Santa Barbara Channel. Public acceptance can change rapidly when you spill 200,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean. And change it did.

In many ways, that day in 1969 was the time when the environmental movement came of age.  It had a real, tangible event to show the world of how quickly we can turn a once beautiful strip of coast into a toxic mess. […]

Drill, Baby, Drill is a recipe for disaster in both good and bad economic times. We should not be compromising our goals of a clean and sustainable energy future for a few hundred million dollars.  I’ll be working to provide more depth on this issue, but in the mean time, consider emailing your legislator or joining John Garamendi’s facebook group to support the State Lands Commission’s position against drilling. We simply cannot afford another to turn our backs on 1969, the devastating consequences of a spill are just not worth the price.”

I’m not prepared to see decades of environmental safeguards undermined, and I don’t think you are either. The impact goes far beyond a single oil lease off the coast of Santa Barbara; at stake is a precedent-setting showdown on the legitimacy of environmental protection in the country’s most trendsetting state. We must not catch a wave toward environmental ruin.  

Please, if you live in California, call and e-mail your state legislators and voice your opposition to this deal. They are expected to vote on the issue in a few weeks. And no matter where you live, join our Facebook group and invite your friends. We’ve made good progress in the past week, and with your help, yes we can stop “a dubious deal on offshore oil drilling.”

John Garamendi is the Lieutenant Governor of California, chair of the California State Lands Commission, and a former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Interior Department. He also sits on the Ocean Protection Council and is the founder of the Clean Seas Coalition.

When you drive along Highway 101 near Santa Barbara, or Highway 1 in Huntington Beach, it’s hard to miss the many oil rigs on the ocean’s horizon. They are relics of a bygone age – not just the 1960s, when they were constructed, but an age in which California believed that cheap oil would always be plentiful and available. We built an entire infrastructure around that and neglected trains, walkable neighborhoods, and lagged behind the rest of the world in developing solar and wind power.

Now the consequences of that misguided belief in the permanence of cheap oil have become clear. Gas prices are nearing $5, causing economic distress and sending Californians flocking to mass transit. For his part Barack Obama is proposing massive new investments in sustainable energy and rail infrastructure.

But what is instead dominating today’s news cycle is the Bush-McCain call for offshore oil drilling. The LA Times has an article today trying to convince us that offshore oil drilling opponents are “rethinking” their stance but the only California drilling supporter they quote is Republican Jerry Lewis.

It’s obvious that Republicans see opportunity in high gas prices to roll back sound environmental policies, such as the offshore ban. But for what gain? Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would take 10 years to deliver oil to American pumps and would only meet  about 4-6 months of US domestic demand. California’s offshore oil pools would probably not produce much more than that.

Like McCain’s gas tax holiday, offshore drilling is a gimmick designed to avoid the necessary fixes. Americans need to understand that gas prices will never come back down, and that cheap oil is a thing of the past. It’s not something we have a right to – it’s something we had for a few decades, but now it is over.

Republicans don’t have a solution to high oil prices. Drilling in ANWR and off our coast would not ameliorate prices now, and wouldn’t do so in 10 years – the rate of decline in North Sea and Mexican oil exports will far outweigh the new drills and rising global demand will continue to drive up prices.

Democrats would do well to follow Obama’s lead and firmly reject McCain’s drilling plan. It’s time we accepted the fact that cheap oil is a thing of the past, instead of looking for more sources like a junkie desperately seeking another fix. We need to build a sustainable transportation infrastructure that will provide green jobs and economic development for the 21st century – instead of trying to string out the obsolete 20th century any longer.