As Brian noted, in the full list of the Governor’s slash and burn budget, the offshore drilling proposal in Tranquillon Ridge off the Santa Barbara coast remains.  After a key environmental group backed away from the plan, which originally was structured as a compromise proposal to allow an additional rig in exchange for ending all drilling in the channel by 2022 (which the Lands Commission determined was unenforceable), many expected the plan to be scrapped.  But it remains, despite the fact that the California Lands Commission spoke out yesterday, calling on the legislature to put a stop to this power grab.

The State Lands Commission on Monday lashed out at an attempt by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow the first new oil drilling in California waters since 1969.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, chairman of the three-member panel, called the governor’s effort “a naked power grab.” At a contentious hearing in Santa Monica, the commission passed a resolution urging legislators not to go along with the plan, which would revive a drilling proposal off the Santa Barbara County coast that the commission killed in January.

The Commission doesn’t out-and-out call this illegal.  But they hold jurisdiction over oil drilling, and the Governor is simply trying to go over their heads.  You can basically shut down the California Lands Commission if this goes through, because they will be rendered impotent.

And of course, while the Administration foregrounds the $2 billion dollars to be gained from allowing the leases in Tranquillon, he does not make a peep about charging an oil severance tax, to actually make the oil companies pay to take California’s natural resources out of the ground.

Robert makes quick work of the new and not improved Gov. Schwarzenegger prescriptions for disaster, trying to fill an entire $21 billion dollar deficit (which is now more like $24 billion according to the Legislative Analyst) with cuts.  I cannot completely argue with the decision to cancel the RAW (revenue anticipation warrants), because bad borrow and spend policies, as Noreen Evans explained, part of the problem in Sacramento, not the solution (“Like paying your bills with your credit card when you don’t have the money to afford it.”)

But to replace that entirely with cuts to things like CalWorks, Cal Grants and Healthy Families would place a massive hole in the social safety net.  This would, for example, roll back children’s health coverage at the moment that the federal government would expand it.  And nobody ought to look forward to being the only state without emergency poison control services.

This is going to get worse, by the way.  The offshore drilling plan Arnold proposed lost a key environmental supporter this week, threatening that $1.8 billion solution.  And Tim Geithner’s apparent suggestion that loan guarantees require an act of Congress, while immaterial to the budget at this point, really hinders the ability to solve the short-term cash crunch.  Basically the entire budget would have to get passed before one dime of borrowing could take place, otherwise the borrowing is unlikely to even happen, and even when it does it will be prohibitively expensive.

So, what to do?  I think Greg Lucas is on to something.  It’s time to embarrass Governor Hoover.  Put his bill on the floor and watch it get a half-dozen votes.

Bringing the GOP governor’s plan to a vote accomplishes several things.

It establishes how many initial votes exist for the plan. Not many, presumably. Will Republicans vote for it or are the cuts too deep even for them? Or should they choose to dismiss the action as a “drill” and not participate, an opportunity is presented for Democrats to score some coup on their political opponents.

A somewhat simplistic example: “All we hear from Republicans is that they want to cut state spending. Well, here’s a chance to do so and yet they sit on their hands.”

Bringing the proposal to a vote also attracts the media spotlight. Parents might be interested to know about the $6.3 billion in payments to public schools the governor would defer for one year, a figure that doesn’t include the $8 billion the state already owes schools.

What the plan does to immigrants, the developmentally disabled, the elderly who receive in-home care also might be of interest to the public which so recently decided to make the fiscal problem worse.

The public might also like to know that $12 billion of the governor’s $21 billion worth of actions are one-time and that embracing them makes it harder to solve future budget messes.  

Essentially, it’s time to build a set of facts and put people on the record.  There has to be some long-term thinking here, and some public explanation of the implications of a Hoover-like budget.  Like there was no reason for Democrats to play nice with George Bush when he was at 28% in the polls, there similarly is no reason to play nice with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He is basically despised.  

Time to kick sand in the face of the bully.

When you go beyond the headlines, there are several interesting elements of the Governor’s May Revise – which by the way, was illegally delivered, under the February budget agreement, but hey, what’s the law, right?

We know some of the major portions of the Governor’s plan – cutting education, thousands of state employee layoffs, lots of borrowing (something like 40% of the gap through revenue anticipation warrants), selling public landmarks, etc.  First of all, with respect to selling off public property, easier said than done.  

Case in point: the governor’s plan a while back to sell EdFund, the state’s student loan guarantee fund. It was projected to bring in $1 billion, but still hasn’t been sold (and was last valued at 50% of its original estimate). I mention that because in this proposal, the governor suggests $1 billion for selling off part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund. Maybe it’s an easier deal than EdFund (and others in the past), but…

Some other interesting pieces:

• Despite the fact that Schwarzenegger adamantly insisted there will be not tax or fee increases as part of any solution, there in fact are new fee increases included.  The Governor seeks higher fees, but significantly, those fees would hit some of the most vulnerable citizens in the state.  For example, he raises fees for residents living in veterans homes throughout the state, adding $2.8 million dollars.  What’s important here is that he betrays his own rhetoric by raising some fees inside his own revised plan.

• While the budget deficit exists because of an historic drop in revenue during this Great Recession, instead of temporarily cutting various services, the Governor’s revised budget would cut them permanently, particularly in programs like Medi-Cal, In-Home Supportive Services, SSI/SSP, regional centers, Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.  This despite, once again, the Governor reconciled his raid of local governments by saying that “hopefully the economy comes back.”  But even if it did, the permanent cuts to programs serving the most vulnerable elements of society would remain.  The vast majority of those cuts would be implemented regardless of the outcome of the May 19 ballot measures.

• Never one to let an opportunity in crisis to slip by, the Governor would also allow the first new offshore drilling off the California coastline in 40 years, putting a major dent in any possible depiction of Schwarzenegger as some kind of environmentalist.  Despite not being able to tax the severance of oil from California land, the Governor would lease new offshore drilling sites to bring in $100 million from the state.  And this would nullify a ruling by the State Lands Commission that denied further oil leases.  As recently as last summer, Schwarzenegger vowed not to allow new drilling off the California shore.

You won’t read much of this fine print in the discussion of the budget, or the glorifying media profiles of the “Governator.”  But it’s important, because every aspect of this reveals him as a cheap fraud.

The State Lands Commission scuttled a proposed compromise that would have brought new oil drilling to the Santa Barbara coast for the first time in California since 1969, in what is seemingly a victory for environmental and coastal protection advocates.  However, some are arguing that the proposal, which would have mandated closure of 4 additional oil platforms off the coast within 13 years, should have gone through.

But a parade of local officials, residents and environmental activists insisted the plan would have advanced efforts to protect the coast by eventually closing four of the region’s 20 platforms.

“For the first time in history, the public and the state will be able to shut down existing oil production,” argued Linda Krop, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center and one of the people behind the proposal. “Without this project, they’ll continue indefinitely — perhaps another 40 years.” […]

Nineteen of the 20 platforms that dot the ocean off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties are in federal waters. Shuttering four of them, says Krop of the Environmental Defense Center, would make it difficult for the federal government to lease underwater tracts accessible from those platforms.

And with closure of the two processing plants, the prospect would have been more unlikely, she said.

Read the whole article.  There was a significant green alliance in favor of this drilling-for-closure exchange.  I tend to agree with the Lands Commission that the proposal for closure wasn’t completely enforceable, but then, that’s their job to write the law with some enforcement, isn’t it? (I guess their concern is that these are federal waters and the state would be limited to enforce end-dates.)  I also understand John Garamendi’s stated rationale, that approving one lease would set off a parade of oil companies coming to sully the coast, but off course those are approved on a case-by-case basis as well.

If we’re going to talk seriously about drilling off the coast in the future, there should be at least a couple bright lines – closure deals like this, and the implementation of an oil severance tax so that we’re not the only state in the country that doesn’t charge a fee to industry for taking our natural resources out of the ground.

It’s an interesting debate – legislators are split, with coastal Assemblymembers opposing but the locals in Santa Barbara in favor, and even Lois Capps thinks it’s a worthwhile deal.  Endless oil and gas concerns off the coast ought to be dealt with, it’s a good question to ask whether this is the right way.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a front page story on potential offshore oil rigs along the California coast – including regions where no such drilling currently exists, such as the North Coast.

The federal government is taking steps that may open California’s fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay.

Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica and La Jolla in Southern California.

“These are the targets,” said Richard Charter, a lobbyist for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund who worked for three decades to win congressional bans on offshore drilling. “You couldn’t design a better formula to create adverse impacts on California’s coastal-dependent economy.”

The targeted areas include the coastline off of Humboldt Bay, Mendocino County, northern Sonoma County, most of the unspoiled waters off of Santa Barbara County’s western shore, even Santa Monica and La Jolla. Exploration could be permitted as soon as 2010 and rigs could be in place by 2012.

All for what the article suggests would be merely 17 months’ worth of oil supplies.

Neither Obama nor his Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar have made firm commitments on offshore drilling. They seem open to the concept, but might look at limiting it to the Gulf of Mexico.

What’s needed is a firmer “no” from the new administration on offshore drilling here in California. The 1969 oil spill was devastating for Santa Barbara’s coast and economy and spills continue to this day. Spills wreck the environment and as a result cost local economies jobs and economic security. Drilling isn’t much of a solution for the country and it’s not going to help California’s worsening economy.

Unfortunately the Democratic surrender on drilling in September didn’t help matters. Congress needs to reverse that reckless and panicked decision – it would certainly help stiffen Obama’s and Salazar’s spines. It’s time for California and the US to abandon the failed models of the 20th century and protect our oceans and our jobs, instead of giving in to conservative manufactured outrage every time.

The most hotly anticipated State Senate election this year is in the 19th District covering Santa Barbara and Ventura County, between Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and Republican Tony Strickland.  Though the two are almost polar opposites, the chunk of the district in Santa Barbara, where residents have long memories about the 1969 oil spill, makes it impossible for Republicans to win with their “Drill Now” message on energy.  So Tony Strickland opted to run some ads that Al Gore might have run were he to be contesting in the district, highlighting renewable energy through wind, solar, algae, tidal and other forms.  This is completely at odds with Strickland’s doctrinaire Republican record, with votes against green building standards, minimum renewable energy standards, and even fuel-efficient tires.  Strickland has taken money from Big Oil and stood with global warming denialists in the recent past.  It’s incongruous for him to carry a pro-environment message.

So I hooked up with the Courage Campaign and the California League of Conservation Voters to put together a little video highlighting this incongruity.

What’s interesting is that the Courage Campaign’s Web tool invited those supporters who received their email blast to spread the word, and they were so successful, both online political reporters at the Ventura County Star, the region’s biggest newspaper, covered the video.  More important, the Jackson campaign has been energized to fight back against some of Strickland allies’ misleading ads on taxes, and in doing so buttresses the outside groups’ take about Strickland’s terrible environmental record.

So progressive groups are ensuring that Strickland gets away with nothing in this race, and in turn the Jackson campaign is fighting back as well and counter-punching swiftly and effectively.  This is a growing success story in the 19th.

I mentioned on Monday that Nick Leibham would be offering gas to residents of the 50th district discounted to the price in April 1996 when Big Oil first started funneling money to Brian Bilbray.

Today, ExxonMobil posted $11.7 billion in second quarter profits, the all-time record for a U.S. Company, so the $182,818 that Bilbray has received from oil companies throughout his career may seem like a drop in the bucket. But he’s certainly delivered time and again for Big Oil: Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act (Use It or Lose It): No. Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act: No. Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act: No. Energy Independence and Security Act: No.

The response yesterday was- perhaps unsurprisingly- huge. Leibham’s campaign manager described to me “lines down the road…people were so enthusiastic.” Because pain at the pump is inescapable, it’s immediate, it’s obvious, and it’s not a complicated issue. There’s a clear choice being presented between the failed policies of the past- more drilling, and the policies of progress- investment in new and renewable energy, use of existing drilling leases, the elimination of tax breaks for Big Oil.

This is a race that’s often flown under the radar in online circles, but with Bilbray refusing to even enter his district in order to defend his extremist voting record, it could get pretty interesting. Bilbray is desperate to avoid engaging on real issues, crowing about a veterans memorial but voting to continue the Iraq debacle and voting against the new GI Bill. Every chance he gets to bring about positive change, Bilbray stands in opposition. But when he can stand far outside his district and lob rhetoric, he’s all for it.

While Bilbray continues to work against Americans, Nick Leibham got out, in the district, and did something that would actually help a little bit. It isn’t much, but it’s not supposed to be a solution. What it was supposed to be- and succeeded in being- is a sharp line of contrast between the priorities of these two candidates.

One of and for the people, the other bought and paid to oppose the people.