Posted on 02/07/2018 5:09:00 PM PST by markomalley
California officials plan on preventing the federal government from transporting oil and gas using existing pipelines in the state, according to a report Wednesday from The San Francisco Chronicle.
Officials on the California Coastal Commission are urging the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to rescind plans allowing companies to drill for oil off the coast. They are still hoping for an exemption from the oil drilling plan, that Florida has received.
“Given how unpopular oil development in coastal waters is in California, it is certain that the state would not approve new pipelines or allow use of existing pipelines to transport oil from new leases onshore,” coastal commissioners Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Controller Betty Yee, and state Department of Finance Director Michael Cohen wrote in a letter Wednesday to the BOEM.
The agency will also be holding a meeting in Sacramento Thursday to take public comment on President Donald Trump’s administration’s offshore drilling plans. The public question session will not be enough for a state with a population of nearly 40 million people, officials say.
Trump issued executive orders in 2017, nixing former President Barack Obama-era regulations on offshore drilling that are worth $288 million over a decade.
Obama put the rules in place after six years of study into the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A natural gas leak caused the explosion and released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The California Coastal Sanctuary Act bans new oil and gas leasing in state waters and the state has not issued a lease for offshore drilling and gas development since 1968. Newsom, a Democrat, blasted Trump’s support of the fossil fuel industry, as well as his decision to open California up to oil production.
“President Trump’s offshore oil drilling plan is a step backward in time, toward an energy policy that blindly handcuffs the nation to an unsustainable future,” Newsom said in a statement after the commission sent the letter.
California’s decision could set it on a collision course with the Trump administration.
The state has control over the first three miles west from the coast, and the federally owned Outer Continental Shelf includes waters up to three miles out from that line.
California officials can therefore control pipelines, transportation of materials, terminals, and refineries built in coastal areas. The federal government could pull out the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause to create a regulatory framework that would override California law.
Fine. No gas or oil shipments to CA period.
No electricity sold into CA that was generated by unapproved energy.
This is precisely why there is an Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution.
Good, then they can go back to horse and buggies but then the environmental impact of horse poop?
So, committing suicide or prepping for secession? Either is fine with me! Bye bye Cali!!!!!
Arrest the seditious blockaders. Crisis over.
Turn-out the lights....Starting in Sacramento
California may try...
Good luck with that.
Any government official involved can be arrested and tried under interstate commerce clauses.
Dems call a “constitutional crisis” if someone poots.
This one is simple: Interfere with interstate commerce and go to jail.
Somehow I don't think the leadership in California would find that a problem.
They might when traffic comes to a stop!
California is a free and independent people’s democratic republic, unencumbered by any adherence to a racist American Constitution, and can do whatever it wants to further the revolution and fight the enemies of the peoples of California.
(They are a bit revolutionary there.)
IMHO
Correct. No appeal to the so-called Supremacy Clause is necessary; the article is written by an ignoramus. California is not permitted to regulate interstate commerce in any way, shape, manner, or form. Only the Federal government has that authority. The Commerce Clause exists for precisely the (bad) reasons cited by California for its “justification.”
Just tell all the Californians that they can only use Bicycles and see how much they want to keep you in office!
El wrongo. Any state that joins the union must adhere to the constitution and the premise that federal law reigns supreme. If cal ignores federal law it might as well bring back slavery.
You’re probably right. What if they argue that the source of the oil is the Pacific Ocean and not another state? Or that, if the well in on the California offshore shelf, it is intrastate?
CA views and conducts itself as a separate country.
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