California's Budget Crisis Turns Out to Be Great for Oil Companies. Weird.

2009 isn't just the 40th anniversary of man walking on the moon, it's also the 40th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, the worst in American history, before the Exxon Valdez. We may never go to the moon again, but thanks to last night's California budget compromise, we're going to be drilling off Santa Barbara again, for the first time since 1969. Who says America can't accomplish things anymore?

Happy Anniversary!

There are lots of exciting items in Governor Schwarzenegger's budget compromise. We're cutting $9 billion from the school system and a billion from Medi-Cal, the state's health program for the poor. (The bad news is more kids will get sick and miss school. The good news is there isn't any school.) But if you're a robot from the future, or just played one in the movies, the real achievement is drilling Santa Barbara. The chance to change the past itself. To go back to the birthplace of the environmental movement and kill it in its crib.

The state could get about $100 million in revenue from new oil leases off Santa Barbara. That might seem like a pitiful amount of money, because it is, but we'll also undo four decades of environmental law.

On January 28th, 1969 there was a blowout on Union Oil's Platform Alpha in the Santa Barbara Channel. Three million gallons of oil came out of the seabed over the next eleven days and spread in a slick from Pismo to Oxnard, so thick in places it stopped the waves from making noise. It wasn't just a crime against nature, it was a traumatic event on a national scale. Nothing could stop the oil. Day after day, it kept coming. It didn't just kill plants and birds and fish and dolphins. It made America feel like an asshole.

And the modern environmental movement was born. Really. The State Land Commission banned offshore drilling. A statewide initiative created the California Coastal Commission. The first Earth Day was celebrated that November, leading to the first incident of free face painting for the kids. And President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, leading the way to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency.

And we stopped drilling for oil off Santa Barbara. And it seemed to work out pretty well from 1969 through yesterday afternoon. Unocal didn't like it, but who cares what oil companies think?

But that was before the budget emergency. Now we have to make hard choices. We can't live in some hippie paradise like Richard Nixon. It's time to wake up and smell the sludge. It's time to fire some teachers and drill.

The budget is a compromise in the sense that the poor lose and oil companies win.

And all it took was a budget crisis created by a canceled tax on cars, passed by a governor installed in a special election, held to remove the previous governor, who couldn't stop the rolling blackouts, that were being deliberately created by an energy trading company.

Sometimes you almost get the feeling that this game is fixed. All our emergencies end up making the rich richer. It's like some kind of shock doctrine or something.

Comments

[curtjamie]

The great socialist experment crashed and is about to burn; resulting from left wingers running California. In 15 years they have managed to run off a large part of big business. Dah, whos gonna pay the bills...further kept spending money like there was no tomorrow. They budget 19 billion for
illegal aliens coming across the Mexican border. Why, so their children can have free education and
free healthcare. Never mind the hospitals that closed as a result...Never mind cutting the budget in this area. Oh, I forgot it is the Mexicans who vote for the left wingers. The schools have had a blank check for years...resulting? Dont need to go there. Well, spend more money (or borrow it) than you make? Dont need to go their either!! Time to pay the piper. The politicans are idiots. My 10 year old
grandaughter can figure this one out!!!
As for drilling oil? Should have been doing this long ago. Left wingers cry about the price of oil THEY
PAY foreig companies while we sit on a black gold mine her in the US. Gee that wasn't hard to figure out. So keep spending more, keep borrowing more; why not it isnt their money. And yea!! for prop 13. It protected us little guys while the left wingers kept running off the real tax payers who, by the way are stuck with the bill. My resolution? Im moving to Nevada!!

[FresnoSanity]

Conservatives break government, and then it’s a crisis to get it fixed. They use the “Crisis” to slam through changes that have no hope of passing at the ballot box. And low and behold, their “fixes” entail giving corporations MORE tax breaks and money at the expense of the average person. Never fear though, they have so thoroughly gutted our school system that no one is smart enough to realize what they are doing.

[USAFree1]

"Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy of some American conservati­ves[1][2][­3] to use budget deficits via tax cuts to force future reductions in the size of government. The term "beast" refers to government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, and Medicare.

A well-known proponent of the strategy is activist Grover Norquist who famously said “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” [7][8] Vice-President Dick Cheney said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" as then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill warned of financial dangers presented by them ahead, according to O'Neill. [9] Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)

Unfortunately for most of us, the majority of Americans have been brainwashed into believing that taxes are a bad thing. They are, however, the price we pay for a civilized society. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) The end result will be the return to a feudal type of society. BTW, does anyone really believe that the money California gets from allowing off shore drilling will be used to help anyone but the already rich and powerful?

[johninoregon]

Speaking of events in 1969, Kelly says, "The first Earth Day was celebrated that November...." No it wasn't. The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970.

[robobbob]

Yeah, that's it, blame everyone but yourselves. Did none of you ever read the story the Grasshopper and the Ant? We want to help this special cause. We want a special program for this group or that. We want to study this, we want to regulate that. Thirty years of budgeting based on blue skies and rainbows. And now you're crying because its raining.
Conservatives don't oppose government spending just because we're mean. But when someone wants to start a new program, our first question is "and how are you going to pay for it?" Just think, you could have been collecting all that oil tax money for all of these years. Heck, you could have been putting some of it into funding alternative energy research. Now you're scrambling to play catch up to fund what you've already committed to. It's going to disappear down the drain and you'll have nothing to show for it. And who's getting hurt? All those people who are relying on promises that maybe shouldn't have been made in the first place. But you just go on blaming the Repubs. And just see what raising your bloated taxes even more brings you. I hear Colorado is a nice place to live. Or maybe New Mexico.

[suzdav]

Yes, drilling off the Santa Barbara coast turned out so well last time, we just have to do it again. Of course, any budget crisis under the Repugs is going to benefit the evildoers, that goes without saying, doesn't it?

[VikingQuest]

How many years ago was that?

My guess is the technology has changed a bit since then.

If you don't want to raise revenues for your state government in Cali . . . how do you expect to pay for all the free stuff they hand out?

[TxAggie]

That would be FORTY years ago and the oil and gas industry has drilled over 62,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico (most of them during that 40 year period) and the US gets 25% of its domestic oil and 15% of its natural gas from the GOM. Meanwhile California, while totally ignoring the advances in technology, holds federal O&G reserves hostage because of the NIMBY crowd while being the #1 consumer of refined products. Kinda ironic, isn't it?

[NapaNose]

instead of pulling our hair and flopping about as if we had no choice, who wants to start the recall?. .

[Lori Bowles]

Out of curiosity in California are there protests going on about this ( massive marches and e-mails etc) ?
Are people in front of the Governors mansion and blocking his Eco-friendly hummers? What are the general reaction of the people in California who are against these environmental and budget disasters.

[teccoord]

To bad California can’t have as many rain storms as we have Budget Storms. We saw in the news the State Legislators slapping each other on the back, kissing each other on the Cheek, giving high fives, and hugs.

Are you kidding me? The budget still has a debt of over a billion dollars. Oh well that is just money under the bridge. The Governor still signed the budget after all his ranting and raving about a balanced budget.

The California Legislative body should be ashamed of itself. The burden is being carried upon the backs of those that need the help the most. Children, elderly, homeless, the educational system, the California Infrastructure, the security of the State … all have been sacrificed, why?

The above is a question that must be answered by We the People of California. This is our fault. We elected people that we thought could create a balanced budget instead we elected a failing legislative body that gave us a budget that would degrade and weaken our State. . This budget will not maintain necessary services to the people of the State along with strengthening our State’s economic position and security. The legislative body along with the Governor have failed the people of California and the State of California.

[ezeflyer]

Ironically, the majority of California's immigrants are just taking back the land US stole from Mexico.

Thanks to religious conservatives' relentless global work against birth control and to capitalist exploitation, California is suffering from overpopulation and environmental immigration problems. It's attractiveness as a liberal state makes it ripe for the picking.

But never fear, the same conservatives that caused this mess are working hard to kill us all.

[VikingQuest]

California's attractiveness to people that actually have money or a business is about as low as you can get . . .

I've a movie quote that fits for your post:

"What you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul."

[Lori Bowles]

I keep going back to the movie idiocracy . I'm a native from CA living in another state, really missing my family and the coast that I grew up on as a kid. With these changes going into effect and the general victim attitude of people I talk to there, Its like a powder keg waiting to combust.
Oil riggs off the coast is a horrid idea and yet nobody cares, general consciences that I get , wont be able to see them and we will get some cash! When a spill happens guess what no money for clean up, and its going to effect the western coast.
So the extremely wealthy in California have in effect created scraps for the general population to fight over and rip each other apart, people are also grateful for not raising tax's, letting them continue to live in illusions of grandeur and racial hate that they really cant see whats really going on or don't care.
No wonder so many have turned to religion as a reasonable alternative. Compared to this mess a cult makes more sense!
Thank you Arnold.

[GardenerNorCal]

Mr. Kelly you said everything I've been thinking. If I could afford to move out of State I would. I am a native born Californian, but I no longer feel at home here any longer. And no matter what we try and do here out of state money comes in and undoes it.

I love our California coast but today it seems it like many of our State parks is up for sale.

[martinchill]

"We can't live in some hippie paradise like Richard Nixon."

chris - you're the best writer out there.

stay thirsty, my friend!

[plages]

Let the spills begin . . .

[doodlebug2]

So the state will get 100 Million for oil leases.
You are in debt for how many billions?
How about collecting change in fountains and under sofa cushions also.

[TxAggie]

A hundred million here a hundred million there is not exactly chicken feed. The number I have seen is about a billion dollars to the state over 15 years or so. The hubbub is over a proposal by PXP to drill directional wells from onshore locations to accelerate production from an existing field, as part of the proposal PXP would promptly remove existing platforms (heavens no one wants to look at those ugly things). It is truly a win win proposal but California politics being what they may, logic does not always apply. Never mind the billions more in revenue the state and fed would gain with new leasing and drilling but then again, it is Kalifornia........