Sacramento, CA, Oct. 6 (BUS): California has been a pioneer in restricting offshore oil drilling since the famous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that ignited the modern environmental movement, and the most recent spill off Huntington Beach has sparked new calls to end such drilling.
This is easier said than done, even in California. While the state has not issued a new lease on state water in five decades, drilling continues from existing platforms. Likewise, any effort in Congress aimed at stopping new drilling in federal waters — more than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) off the coast — would not stop drilling that is already occurring, the AP reports.
Speaking from Huntington Beach on Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged that it’s easier to resist new drilling than to dump what’s already there.
“The new drilling ban is not complicated,” he said. “The deeper question is how do you transition into the workforce and still protect it?”
Today, there are 19 oil and gas agreements in California’s coastal waters and 1,200 active wells. In federal waters, there are 23 oil and gas production facilities off the state’s coast.
A pipeline connected to one of those platforms in federal waters, operated by Houston-based Amplify Energy, spilled up to 126,000 gallons (572,807 liters) of heavy crude in one of the worst oil spills in modern California history.
There is now a new sense of urgency to curb oil production, Newsom said, including by issuing more permits to abandon wells.
It is time, once and for all, to free ourselves that this must be a part of our future. “This is part of our past,” he said, along with other elected officials.
California remains the country’s seventh largest oil producer, and ending oil production in the state has proven politically difficult. The industry employs more than 150,000 people and the state makes money from oil and gas leases.
Newsom has highlighted the steps he has taken to reduce dependence on oil since taking office in 2019, including a plan to end oil production in the state by 2045 and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. However, his administration continues to release new oil Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Conservation, said more permits to drill on land and offshore, although in 2020 it issued more permits to close wells than to open new ones.
Offshore, there are nearly 1,200 active wells in California waters, according to state data compiled by the FracTracker Alliance. About 370 wells are out of order, while nearly 1,300 wells have been plugged. Five permits to drill new offshore wells were granted during the Newsom period, according to the group.
Efforts are underway to plug and decommission several government oil rigs, but the process is expensive and time-consuming. It is expected to cost more than $800 million to decommission the wells in the Wilmington oil fields off the coast of Long Beach. The state has only $300 million set aside.
“It all boils down to finances and priorities,” said Democratic State Councilor Patrick O’Donnell. “I hope that as we move forward, we look to see those wells stop working as soon as possible.”
The California congressional delegation, including the two Democratic senators, introduced legislation to permanently ban oil and gas drilling in federal waters off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.
The bill, which lawmakers hope to include in a multibillion-dollar social and environmental package being paid by Democrats, will not affect existing leases issued for long-standing oil rigs built from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Many of the California oil rigs such as Platform to me, where the recent spill occurred, have reached or exceeded their expected life.
“As they age, these platforms become more fragile” and erode from ocean waters, said Deborah Cephas, professor of environmental law at Stanford Law School.
She said California is operating with “cognitive dissonance” when it comes to oil by continuing to issue drilling permits even as the state takes aggressive steps to tackle climate change.
Speaking alongside Newsom on Tuesday, Representative Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County, said the federal government needs to do more.
“We have to come up with a plan not just to stop new drilling but to figure out how we can stop all the drilling that’s going on in California,” he said.
No legislation to ban offshore drilling is pending in Congress.
A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association described the leak as a tragedy. Amplify Energy, the owner of the platform, is not a member of the association. While the leak has sparked calls for more restrictions on drilling, spokesman Kevin Slagle said he hopes “we don’t resort to bans and mandates to deal with our energy future.”
Slagl said any proposal to further restrict exploration in California would likely increase demand for imports from Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and other countries. Imports make up more than half of the country’s oil use.
California’s status as an oil-producing nation has long vexed Democratic rulers, including former Governor Jerry Brown. While Brown is internationally known for his work fighting climate change, he has drawn criticism from environmental groups for not doing enough at home to suppress drilling.
But he acted quickly to resist new federal drilling off the California coast during the Trump administration, signing laws prohibiting the state from leasing new infrastructure, such as pipelines, to support federal drilling.
Environmental groups say the Huntington Beach spill shows that regulations aimed at ensuring the safe operation of offshore wells are more important than ever.
“Incidents like this are already repatriating the need for rigorous regulation of existing platforms – with frequent, regularly scheduled inspections,” said Erin Gutierrez, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Even when wells stop producing oil, they often remain idle for decades before being plugged and abandoned. The state land commission, which Newsom chairs as lieutenant governor, has begun the process of decommissioning the Holly rig off the coast of Santa Barbara and artificial Rincon Island in Ventura County, but the process is expected to take years and cost tens of millions of dollars.
Newsom said he’s proud of the work, even if it’s not done as quickly as some people would like.
RAE