VIP Endorsements Fail To Sell Prop. 87 Oil Tax

CBS 5 ^ | Nov 8, 2006 | AP

[thackney]

The costliest ballot initiative campaign in California history ended Tuesday night with a measure that would have taxed state oil production to fund alternative energy research losing despite endorsements from celebrities and a former president.

A majority of voters said no to Proposition 87 after a high-stakes race that pitted the specter of global warming against the threat of higher gas prices.

Oil companies led by Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy raised nearly $100 million in their effort to defeat the measure. Supporters spent more than $57 million, most of it contributed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing.

"Proposition 87 was full of holes: higher fuel costs, more bureaucracy, cuts funding for firefighters — bad idea," said Scott Macdonald, a spokesman for the No on 87 campaign.

The initiative would have taxed companies drilling for oil in California — the nation's third-biggest oil producing state — until it generated $4 billion. The money would have gone toward creating incentives for researching alternative energy, alternative-fuel vehicles, energy-efficient technologies and education and training.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Julia Roberts and Geena Davis were among the A-list personalities who appealed to environmentally conscious Californians to pass Proposition 87. Their pitch: It would help wean the state off its reliance on foreign oil while helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We have the worst air in the country," actor Warren Beatty said during a pro-Proposition 87 campaign party on Tuesday night.

The oil companies that led the opposition turned supporters' arguments around, countering that the initiative would create more dependence on foreign oil by cutting the state's oil production. To drive home the point, they ran commercials with firefighters warning that residents would have to pay more to fill their gas tanks.

Yusef Robb, a spokesman for the Yes on 87 campaign, said he believed voters delivered a pro-environment message even though the measure lost.

"The oil companies spent $100 million to kill Prop. 87 and they didn't," Robb said. "Millions of Californians voted to break our dependence on oil. "

The campaign played on the blood-for-oil fears of violence in the Middle East and concerns over impending environmental doom. Proposition 87 dovetailed with the nation's zeitgeist — coming along as awareness about global warming heightened and in the same year as Gore's well-received documentary on the subject, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Supporters argued that while oil companies pay a permitting fee to drill, they pay next to nothing to draw oil from California, unlike in Alaska and Texas. The proposal would tax oil producers between 1.5 percent and 6 percent depending on the per-barrel price of oil.

This was enough to persuade Philip Gustlin, 72, of Brentwood, to vote for the measure.

"I don't feel sorry for the oil companies," he said.

Oil companies countered that they already pay California's high corporate income tax and other taxes. They also said the money generated by the new tax would be used to create a bureaucracy with no oversight.

[frogjerk]

A majority of voters said no to Proposition 87 after a high-stakes race that pitted the specter of global warming against the threat of higher gas prices.

Good.

[elc]

Finally, some sanity in California.

[Names Ash Housewares]

Agreed.

And some good news to cheer us a bit.

Lots of hard work ahead for us now.

Tough days.

But we can take these chumps.

[karnage]

$100 million worth of sanity.

[goldstategop]

Every tax increase measure on the ballot LOST. Even liberals hate paying higher taxes. And the Democrat most associated with advocating tax increases, Phil Angelides, lost big. That political lesson isn't lost on the Democrats here in California. Advocate higher taxes at your political peril.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[tubebender]

I just posted this over on the Cal message board...

'Well, Well, Well. I just had a call from a research firm with a long list of questions on my views of Prop 87 and how I voted. It was the first poll that wasn't a Push Poll in a long time. I kept waiting for the punch line...'

[timer]

Sanity in california? About as rare as the condor one would think, as the state is totally infested w/dem(+on)s/sanfransickos.... And yes, almost the entire $4B would disappear into the cracks and holes in the system, BUT a GREAT NOISE would be made about the 1% of it actually spent on alternate energy development. We in the new energy business know how that works when the government gets involved...