PxP Exposed
Ed. Note: For anyone interested in seeing an amazing video of the Australian oil spill referred to in the opinion below, and the extremely important coastal resources and whale migration and nursery areas threatened, go to http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/-/watch/15774959/#fop
It can happen in Santa Barbara. In fact, it already has….
Opinion: PXP’s offshore drilling project not right deal for us
Pedro Nava
September 27, 2009 5:24 AM
What do more than 90 statewide environmental groups, including the Sierra Club California, the Surfrider Foundation, the Planning and Conservation League, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Audubon and Environment California, have in common? They oppose Plains Exploration and Production Co.’s (PXP) plan to introduce new offshore oil drilling in California Sanctuary Act waters, just 3 miles off the Santa Barbara coastline.
Texas-based PXP continues its well-financed public relations campaign to bring new offshore oil drilling, with all the environmental risks, to the Santa Barbara coast.
Like all oil companies in search of record profits, PXP tries to reassure us with terms like “the best technology” and the “most advanced science.” Never mind that the 1997 spill from the same platform spewed 7,000 gallons of oil, killing at least 1,450 birds and leaving a 17-mile coastal stain that took about 10 years to clean up.
Environmental scientists conclude that this same “advanced science” has resulted in a continuing spill averaging 16,800 gallons a day that began a month ago off the coast of Australia, and is now larger than the state of Delaware and exceedingly difficult to contain.
PXP’s drilling plans call for up to 30 new wells. Expect more and larger spills. How long do you think it will take for a PXP spill to reach our beaches? Who can guarantee it won’t happen?
PXP paid for a poll. It likes the results. No surprise. Why would it pay for something it doesn’t like? How else to manipulate public opinion with self-serving, edited results?
I have asked PXP to release the entire poll so that you can evaluate for yourself to see if the results are trustworthy. No surprise, PXP won’t do it. What do they have to hide? It has been said that the best disinfectant is sunlight. PXP, bring a little sunlight to your operations. It’s time to sanitize your confidential deal and poll. What are you afraid of?
Don’t count on enjoying the 4,000 acres of “donated” land that PXP promised for this deal any time soon. PXP acknowledged to the State Lands Commission (SLC) when talking about the property that there are “insurmountable title issues.” The SLC concluded that “title problems could prevent some of the donations from occurring at all.”
PXP would have you believe that there are environmental benefits to its scheme. The SLC and the Attorney General’s Office concluded that the environmental benefits of the project “could not be reliably enforced.”
PXP dangles an oil drilling end date to get your attention. But they don’t tell you that only Congress can impose an end date on federal leases. There is no reason to believe that will happen. The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) states it would “refuse to approve a Development and Production Plan for use of Platform Irene for T-Ridge if it included an end date.”
Fortunately, the State Lands Commission in January 2009 saw through the folly of the concept and rejected the first new lease in California Sanctuary waters in 40 years.
After its loss at the SLC, PXP tried to shove its deal into the state budget through last-minute, dark-of-night legislative skullduggery. Do you see a pattern?
PXP is the same company that spent millions to defeat a ballot initiative revenue plan that would have turned California away from fossil fuels and placed us on the road to renewable energy. I am confident PXP will spend millions again to avoid paying its “fair share,” my soon-to-be-introduced legislation, which will move us to a greener, stronger, better California.
PXP will never agree to the same sort of revenue Alaska, Texas and every other oil-producing state in the country, except California, receive from oil companies that impoverish our natural resources. A reasonable contribution from all oil companies that drill here could generate $1.5 billion per year in new money for our needed programs, 15 times more than PXP says it will pay for its sweetheart deal to drill and pollute off our coast.
California and Santa Barbara deserve better than what PXP has to trade. Both the State Lands Commission, the California State Assembly and every leading environmental group has told PXP that its deal is no deal for us.
Pedro Nava, a former prosecutor, is the Assembly representative on the California Ocean Protection Council and is a member of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislatures and prior to his tenure in the Assembly, served for eight years on the California Coastal Commission.