Any individual who lives in Southern California and who travels the coastline from San Diego to San Francisco has observed the offshore oil rigs alongside the coast of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Extensive Seaside. Any one who life in any of the other coastal cities these kinds of as San Diego, Pacific Beach front, Mission Beach front, La Jolla, Del Mar, Encinitas, Solana Beach front, Cardiff, Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Seaside, Corona del Mar, Newport Seaside, Huntington Seaside, Pismo Seashore, Morro Bay, Cambria or San Simeon sees one thing various – pristine seashores without the need of offshore oil rigs.
In the midst of America’s financial meltdown and on the identical weekend as Congress set with each other a $700 billion bailout, Congress did absent with a 26 year ban on offshore oil drilling to the dismay of environmentalists.
In spite of the ban on offshore oil drilling, it is believed that these types of drilling, at least off the coast of California is unlikely to manifest for lots of a long time, if at any time. Democrats in Congress are now vowing to reinstate the ban when a new Congress will take their seats in 4 months. And political opposition, maritime defense legal guidelines and almost certain lawsuits by environmental groups in California make offshore oil drilling an not likely celebration.
Very first, there is a normal perception of Californians, which include the Governor, that the California coastline is an intercontinental treasure, not to mention a attract to visitors from about the world. Few politicians in the condition would dare to jeopardize that treasure.
Next, a regulation passed by previous Governor Pete Wilson by now bans all offshore oil drilling in California out to three miles from shore.
3rd, there are 300 miles of national maritime sanctuaries along the California coast which ban oil drilling.
Fourth, nearly just about every coastal county in the Point out of California has enacted ordinances banning new oil pipelines, oil terminals and tanks in the Point out.
Fifth, environmental teams are now vowing to file lawsuits, and they could be joined by the California Coastal Fee.
Even though California has about 30 oil platforms off the coastline of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Long Seashore that ended up built in the 1950s, no new oil platforms have been crafted in above 50 many years.
It is estimated that California has at minimum 10.5 billion barrels of oil offshore – about a calendar year and a 50 percent of the nation’s annually source. This is equivalent to the estimate of oil in the Alaskan Countrywide Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
But if nearly anything, irrespective of the oil disaster and the fiscal crisis, in light of world-wide warming and calls for expense in choice energies, Californians are getting much more and far more environmentally conscious. Any politician functioning on any system (oil or not) dependent on drilling offshore at a chance to the California scenic coastline, will have a really hard time staying elected.
