Posted on 06/23/2013 12:30:41 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Perhaps more than in any other state, aggressive environmentalism is accepted as the norm in California. To outsiders, it may seem stunning that the late Peter Douglas, the self-described “radical” who guided the California Coastal Commission for 25 years, wanted to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit property rights. To those who live outside the Golden State, hearing that the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board’s new regulations require watersheds to be as pristine as they were before civilization arrived in California sounds like a story straight out of The Onion. But skeptical state residents shrug off such absurdities. They know environmentalism is so entrenched in California that it amounts to a semi-official secular religion. Some Democrats are so tight with greens that they passed a law in 2006 forcing the state to shift to cleaner but costlier renewable energy by 2020—even though this would put the state at a permanent economic disadvantage.
All of which makes Sacramento’s new openness to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” so astounding. When the 2013 legislative session began, the state chapters of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club vowed to impose a moratorium on the radically improved energy-exploration process, which uses water cannons a mile or more beneath the surface to break through rock formations and tap oil and natural-gas supplies. Environmentalist groups readily found lawmakers to sponsor such legislation. They did so even as a University of Southern California study confirmed the enormous economic potential of developing the Monterey shale under much of central and southern California—potentially the nation’s largest shale resource.
In the most recent legislative session, however, all but one of the measures seeking either explicit or de facto moratoria on fracking failed. The state senate passed a bill requiring the crafting of comprehensive state regulations, but its author, Fran Pavley, a Democrat from Agoura Hills, says she will accept an amendment to the measure to scuttle one of its key original provisions—a fracking moratorium until January 1, 2015, by which time the guidelines would be in place. The regulations will be developed as originally planned, but the moratorium is likely gone.
Why has expanded fracking gone from the longest of long shots to nearly a sure thing? Veteran Sacramento watchers say green scare tactics—especially the false claims that fracking is untested—failed for several reasons. For one thing, Governor Jerry Brown struck a straightforward tone on regulation, angering greens by presenting the expansion of fracking in the state as a given. For another, the Obama administration’s support for fracking—made plain in a November 2011 report and reaffirmed last month by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell—undercut environmentalists’ warnings. Finally, the USC study’s projections that fracking could generate up to $24.6 billion in state and local tax revenue, along with 2.8 million jobs by 2020, grabbed the attention of union-aligned Democratic lawmakers eager to create well-paying blue-collar jobs.
Even devout environmentalists seem to be waking up to the windfall that could ensue if the brown-energy revolution arrives in the Golden State. Consider the recent behavior of state senator Noreen Evans, a Santa Rosa Democrat, Coastal Conservancy member, smart-growth advocate, and driving force in California environmentalism for decades. Last month, after her proposal to increase taxes on oil production died in a senate committee, Evans told reporters that she remained confident the bill would pass. “If we as a state are going to expand fracking operations, we ought to tax it,” she said—sounding like a lawmaker who sees fracking as part of California’s future.
For years, Sacramento Democrats have been indifferent to broad economic growth. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger exhorted them to “create a bigger pie,” not fight for shares of a pie that keeps getting smaller. It’s finally dawning on at least some Democrats that Schwarzenegger’s advice makes sense.
Jerry Brown understands this better than most. At a May 14 meeting with reporters, the governor expressed the requisite concerns about ensuring that fracking could be done safely in California before encouraging its expansion. But the governor also said: “This is not about just saying, ideologically, yea or nay. It’s about looking at what could be a fabulous opportunity. . . . And if you remember about oil drilling, oil drilling in Long Beach, which was really pioneered I think when my father was governor, poured I don’t know how many billions into higher education.”
At least in terms of oil and gas exploration, could Jerry Brown’s California resemble Pat Brown’s California again? The answer just might be yes.
There are undersea geysers releasing city-sized bubbles of crude oil off Long Beach, and have been for decades, if not centuries, if not millenia.
All that has to happen is for somebody to go get it.
California needs money so bad that they may have to swallow their pride to get the resources.
RE: here are undersea geysers releasing city-sized bubbles of crude oil off Long Beach, and have been for decades, if not centuries, if not millenia.
All that has to happen is for somebody to go get it.
____________________________________
OK, are the Greenies objecting to getting it? If so, what’s their problem this time?
Ping.
Taxes are the Left's Holy Grail. Democrats aren't stupid; they're just scheming liars and hypocrites. A bankrupt California would undercut their power base so no source of new revenue, especially one as potentially lucrative as fracking, will go untaxed.
Later they built the oil islands off Long Beach on which all the oil producing equipment is covered so it look like buildings. Do a google image search for Long Beach oil islands.
CA had a sizable amount of offshore drilling back when and until the Santa Barbara spill. Now they allow only very limited drilling off of existing platforms in state waters where the state gets all of the royalty. But the don't allow any new drilling in federal water.
Those people over in Kalifornia are absolutely stark raving insane and they want to inflict their insanity on the rest of us. I hope I live long enough to watch it bite them on the a$$.
Thank you for emphasizing my point.
For the record: The NRDC is effectively owned by the tax-exempt "charitable" foundations belonging to major stockholders in oil and gas development. "Regulating" oil production to induce high energy prices for less investment is what they are all about.
Yep, green money always beats green idiots eventually.
Especially in a state already ruined by green idiots.
Now CA will try to bail itself out by fracking for fossil fuels.
The irony, it burns.
Virginia has said yes to drilling, but with stipulations.
Drilling only for nat gas.
Drilling only beyond 50 miles out.
Feds have to share the royalty with the state.
The shared royalty being used for roads.
It will never happen with Moonbeam and recessive greenies running the show! They are all about running us(everybody other than them)back to the stone age.
I understand that. So, who or what is stifling oil production? A lot of people think it's the greedy oil companies. You and I know it's entities that start with the letter "G".
I don't know if you noticed it but there is a huge oil boom going on in the US, including the western and central gulf of mexico.
Are you asking me why more states don't allow offshore drilling?
No, I am pointing out that it is local, state and federal governments that are standing in the way of oil production in this country.
“Those people over in Kalifornia are stark raving insane......”
I hope you understand that millions of us here in California,
particularly small town California, are normal and conserva-
tive. We have been invaded and over-ruled and out-voted.
If you understand this then you are NOT an idiot.
Your rhetoric doesn't match reality.
The article at the top of this thread is a good example.
The Monterey Shale is split estate with the BLM owning the mineral rights. Obama opened the first section of that for drilling in 2011 and opened an even larger second section in 2012.
Most coastal states are opposed to offshore drilling because their coastal tourist business generates more economic activity and taxes than oil does. And an offshore oil spill can shut down their coastal tourist business.
Oil made California wealthy once upon a time. Signal Hill (north of Long Beach) was covered with oil derricks.
Modern drilling techniques are a lot less obtrusive — and are needed in the “Golden” State.
Cool. My company put me up in the Queen Mary in the late 70's for a few days. I must have seen them but didn't know what they were.
The BIG shock came after I awoke one morning when it had rained the night before. All of a sudden I see this island I had never seen before (Catalina) and when the transport van turned left to get back to the company HQ (near Compton), I saw these huge, snow capped Mountains in the distance that had been obscured by the smog every other time I had been to LA.
On a clear day, that must be one of the prettiest places on earth.
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