Big Oil Hitching a Free Ride

Today the U.S. House of Representatives will decide what direction the country moves – literally.   An important vote is coming up on a major House transportation funding bill, H.R. 7. The problem is that Big Oil's friends in Congress have slapped on language that would open much of the nation’s coastline to offshore oil drilling.  This includes Californian waters three miles out from sensitive places like Santa Monica Bay, Mendocino County, Sonoma Coast, and Santa Barbara.

Have these policymakers already forgotten the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill?  If H.R. 7 passes, it would allow the same kind of offshore drilling in sensitive waters using the very risky application of directional drilling, a technique particularly vulnerable to the same kinds of “cementing” problems that contributed to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. 

States’ rights under the Coastal Zone Management Act would be waived for all related drilling activities off of Southern California.  Off of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and along the Atlantic coast, it would require that at least fifty percent of the coastal tracts in any Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Planning Area considered most likely to have petroleum potential be offered for lease in each and every subsequent “Five-Year OCS Leasing Program”, with no consideration of fisheries values or local economic concerns.  Another fifty percent of any remaining such tracts would be required to be offered in the next Five-Year Program, continuing until entire planning area is leased.

While President Obama has promised to veto the bill if it reaches his desk, concern remains that a separate Senate transportation funding bill could later get amended to include the House drilling language. 

UPDATE:

The House voted 237-187 to pass H.R. 7 on February 16.  It will now head to the Senate.  Santa Barbara Congresswoman Lois Capp noted that:

"New offshore drilling won't bring down gasoline prices or help fill the gap in highway and bridge funding repair.  It will just jeopardize our fragile coastal economy and environment and delay our necessary transition off oil and to cleaner, safer sources of energy."

For more on the vote and the implications of the passage of H.R. 7, read the Ventura County Star's coverage.