9/1/11
The fight over whether to maintain California's oil-spill response and prevention program is a classic Sacramento showdown pitting Big Oil against public safety and the environment.
State senators hoping for fat campaign checks from Exxon, BP and other oil companies are trying to, in effect, kill the system started in 1990 in the wake of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Did these people sleep through the BP oil rig disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast waters and economy just last year?
Another vote on AB 1112 will take place in the Senate by the end of next week, and this time, it must pass. Gov. Jerry Brown should be calling up senators and reading the riot act.
California's tanker safety program is funded today by a 5-cents-per-barrel fee on oil transported into the state. The program has been effective: The amount of oil spilled here is down 95 percent since 1990. But new laws passed after the tanker Cosco Busan crashed into the Bay Bridge in 2007 added to the workload of the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, while inflation has continued to drive up costs. The agency is doing less today, and without the additional 1.75 cents per barrel proposed in AB 1112, layoffs will be inevitable. Vigilance and the ability to respond quickly to a spill will decline.
Make no mistake: This is not about money. The increase would be a fraction of a penny per gallon, not even a blip for oil companies raking in billions. This is about weakening regulation so that companies can cut corners on safety.
Some lawmakers say the safety system could be more efficient, but most of the changes they suggest are pushed by lobbyists from BP and other oil companies.
The bill authored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, passed his own house easily, as the Mercury News' Paul Rogers reported this week. But Tuesday in the Senate, it fell four votes short of passage, with 17 yes votes, 14 no and nine who took a pass and didn't vote at all. These are the senators who should be most ashamed.
Their most likely motivation is wanting to avoid either offending Big Oil with a yes vote or angering voters with a no.
State Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was the most surprising bystander for Tuesday's vote, but he now says he'll support AB 1112. He ought to be helping to round up votes. He wants to be mayor of San Francisco, which saw firsthand the devastation of the Cosco Busan spill.
Another surprise was state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, who chairs the Senate's committee on energy and has stood up for closer scrutiny of PG&E -- speaking of companies that can't be trusted to place public safety above profits.
And a disappointment was state Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, who represents parts of Santa Clara County and a huge swath of the California coast. Blakeslee, a former Exxon employee, has sworn he's not in the pocket of big oil, and this would be a perfect way to show it. He and his waffling colleagues need to get off the fence and vote for this bill on the next try.
And be proud of it.
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Aug. 30 Sacramento Bee editorial by Dennis Takahashi-Kelso, Executive Vice President of the Ocean Conservancy.
