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Editorial: Coastal safety net cut in half
Congress last line of defense
STORY TOOLS 
More from OpinionPresident Bush continues to turn up the heat on Congress over its refusal, so far, to lift a ban on offshore drilling that covers much of the nation's coasts.
The president's latest salvo came Monday when he rescinded an executive ban on oil and gas drilling, signed by his father in 1990.
"This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress," President Bush said during a Rose Garden appearance.
The executive ban was one of two roadblocks that have for decades protected our fragile beaches from possible oil spills. Standing between pristine beaches and drilling rigs is one more obstacle — a congressional moratorium, which Congress has reaffirmed every year since it was established in 1981.
This escalation in wills comes a month after the president, along with Sen. John McCain, urged Congress to lift its ban before leaving on its Fourth of July recess. Lawmakers refused. The Star now urges it to reject this latest call as well.
We have argued before that these offshore-drilling prohibitions were imposed decades ago for valid reasons that still apply: Continued investment in this finite resource is not worth risking our coastal environment, local economies, tourism and fishing industries to a destructive oil spill.
With gas prices topping $4 a gallon, the public has been clamoring for relief, but opening America's coasts to drilling rigs will do nothing to ease today's prices. It will take at least a decade to reach the production stage. Even President Bush admits opening coastal waters to drilling "won't produce a barrel of oil tomorrow."
The president and others are using pain at the pump as a wedge to justify an action that otherwise would be routinely rejected.
Anyone who supports lifting the bans must not have lived along this county's coast in early 1969 when a massive oil spill left county beaches and wildlife blackened with gooey oil.
Rep. Lois Capps, a Santa Barbara Democrat, wonders, as does The Star, why the oil industry needs more since it already holds leases on some 68 million acres of federal land — capable of producing 4.8 million barrels of oil — but has yet has to drill in those areas.
Weaning ourselves, as President Bush says, from America's "addiction to oil," should be the goal, not feeding it. Instead of conservation, we're being told the solution is increased production of domestic oil.
No new offshore drilling can happen unless lawmakers let go of the last safety net for our coastlines. We urge them to hang on tight.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 8:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Being the victim of a recent oil spill in my area--northwest corner of the city of Ventura--I have strong feelings about a distant authority taking decision away from the locals on matters powerfully affecting their lives.
Last month those in my area experienced 3 days of hell--pungent odor, raging headache and breathing problems. Local authorities traced the source to a leaking oil storage tank located just outside city limits the owners of which were in Houston, Texas. The oil collected in an earthen berm and likely seeped into the soil after contaminating the air, and the rugged terrain made it difficult to get pumping apparatus to the hillside, thus prolonging the suffering of residents.
I have been told, and it may even be true, that petroleum extraction and transport technology has improved greatly since the 1989 Exxon Valdez ecological disaster in Prince Wm. Sound and since the spill referred to in this editorial.
But the salient issue is not what is available but what is cost effective for the oil companies to employ. In the above local case, the tank was old and defective and not replaced. Indeed the Houston company may not even have been aware there was a problem.
Who was watching the shop the owners of which were far away and certainly never had to deal with the health problems their property created?
After Valdez, tankers in the sound were required to be double hulled by 2015, but as of now most are still single hulled. Of the newly resumed petroleum activities in my area, how many are safe, how many use state-of-the-art equipment? Who gets to decide?
I was assured by county officials that if any regulations were violated appropriate actions would be taken against the responsible party. I picked up from the tone, however, that they had little clout and no ability to shut down the polluters.
But why should actionable violations need to be shown? Petroleum is PER SE a toxic substance; it should be the responsibility of the oil companies to provide absolute safety in activities around their product. Instead the conservative 5 on the Supreme Court just made it cost effective for Exxon to pollute and to abuse process in keeping punitive relief in the courts for 18 years. And who could trust THIS administration to police the oil industry?
Or any other for that matter.
Posted by cassandra2 on July 18, 2008 at 8:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A prime example of the danger of allowing distant corporations to operate under little regulation or control of local authorities is the Bhopal tragedy of 1984. The chemical spill resulted in approximately 3800 immediate deaths and approximately 100,000 locals suffering from crippling disabilities.
The fundamental cause was reckless cost cutting measures of equipment and personnel and ignoring warnings from inside the company, warning which allegedly didn't reach the top management.
After a token restitution, Union Carbide, now Dow Chemical, jettisoned its Indian subsidiary and disclaimed responsibility. The responsible corporate entities disappeared. There were no responsible parties.
Posted by Mainer1776 on July 18, 2008 at 9:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The idea that there are 4.8 million barrels of oil per day from 68 million acres is TOTAL fabrication from Democrat congressional staffers. The report is fake. Yet, the media has picked it up as Gospel. The news media should be absolutely red-faced about this. The report is so stupid that an 8th grader could tear it apart.
Posted by sslocal on July 18, 2008 at 2:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If there was oil on any of the acerage they would be drilling. If the enviro nuts would let them complete the paperwork without being sued.
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