No drill, baby, drill off California
Barbara Boxer
San Francisco Chronicle
04/15/2009
On Jan. 16, 2009, just days before leaving office, the Bush administration gave one last gift to its allies in the oil and gas industry: a five-year plan by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service to open nearly all of our nation's coastline to offshore drilling - including California's pristine coast, from San Diego to the Oregon border.
Fortunately, within weeks of President Obama's inauguration, his new Interior secretary, Ken Salazar, put the plan on hold, calling it a "headlong rush of the worst kind" that was made with "almost no consultation from states, industry or community input." Salazar, to his credit, is in San Francisco Thursday for the last of four regional meetings to listen to our concerns.
As Californians, we should speak with one voice and tell the new administration, unequivocally, that oil and gas drilling off our coast would be an environmental and economic disaster.
This is not our first battle to protect our coast. In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter's Interior secretary, Cecil Andrus, came to California after the oil embargo to explore the idea of new offshore oil and gas leases. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan's Interior secretary, James Watt, made a desperate push to build new oil rigs off our coast. Now the "drill, baby, drill" mantra could once again put California's coast in peril.
For Californians, our coast is not only a God-given environmental treasure and our legacy to our children and grandchildren, it is also a powerful engine of our economic growth. Ocean-related tourism, recreation and fishing generate $23 billion in economic activity for our state each year and support 390,000 jobs.
We also know the devastating consequences of drilling. A 1969 blowout at an offshore oil rig near Santa Barbara blackened 35 miles of coastline and killed nearly 4,000 seabirds. Supporters of drilling tell us the technology has improved. If so, why is it that the same oil rig spilled another 1,100 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean just last year?
It is not just the catastrophic spills that worry us. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that small spills and discharges released an average of 2 million gallons of oil per year during the 1990s - 25 percent more oil than was released from tanker accidents. The routine release of these toxins accumulates in marine organisms, including the fish we eat.
The seismic surveys used to estimate oil and gas resources have been shown to be harmful to whales, other marine mammals and fish.
And there are negative impacts on shore as well: The oil rigs, pipelines and other infrastructure needed for drilling can displace businesses and devalue coastal properties.
There is no reason to endanger California's environment and economy. According to data from the Interior Department, 80 percent of the oil on the Outer Continental Shelf is in areas that have already been opened to oil and gas leasing, but oil companies are producing on only 21 percent of these available leases.
And oil companies hold 68 million acres of onshore and offshore leases that they have still not developed - leases that could nearly double U.S. oil production. Why should we open up unspoiled areas of our coast to drilling when oil companies are not taking advantage of areas already open to them?
