Legislature Sends Newsom Bill Closing Offshore Drilling Loophole Play

The California Legislature has sent the governor a bill that would further restrict offshore oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel and, indeed, along the entire California coast.

California law already prohibits the State Lands Commission from allowing the oil and gas industry to build any infrastructure supporting federal oil leases. But there is a dangerous loophole that remains: oil companies could use existing aging infrastructure to support new federal offshore drilling.

Assembly Bill 1448 is at the governor's office for a decision. The bill would prohibit the use of existing infrastructure to support new federal offshore oil and gas development.

The bill was carried by Assemblyman Greg Hart of Santa Barbara.

"It's very important because the federal government has proposed new offshore oil leases to facilitate drilling off the California coast," Hart said. "California has been a strong opponent of that for nearly four decades. We want to do everything we can to prevent that from happening. My legislation will not allow existing state infrastructure to be used to facilitate the offshore oil production that is proposed by the Trump administration."

Linda Krop is a lawyer with the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara. She says California already bans new offshore drilling.

"So this bill takes that a step further and also prohibits the use of existing infrastructure to support new federal offshore oil and gas development," Krop said. "It also protects our coast by eliminating a loophole in the state's prohibition on new leasing in state waters, which has been in effect since 1994."

Krop says the oil companies are trying to use their existing old and leaky platforms and pipes in federal waters to drill down at a slant and suck out oil from the state ocean bottoms within three miles of the coast. She says oil companies are already trying to, in essence, suck California's milkshake using their federal straws.

"There have been three proposals to do that from Platform Irene off Santa Barbara County. And now this area is in a national marine sanctuary," Krop said.

The problem is that Donald Trump can undo a national marine sanctuary with an executive order. He's done it before.

Back in Sacramento, Assemblyman Greg Hart says California legislators, Democrats and Republicans, are united in taking all steps possible to fight the Trump administration and Big Oil.

"Even though there's been a bipartisan consensus in California for a very long time that offshore oil drilling is really a threat to our economy and the quality of life in the marine environment, the forces that are trying to undo California's regulations are persistent and they've been winning in the short term," Hart said. "But I think ultimately there is a strong consensus within the state that offshore oil drilling is dangerous. In Santa Barbara, we know it better than anybody because of the 1969 Union Oil spill and the Refugio oil spill from 10 years ago. We have to do everything we can, and that's the point of this legislation, to continue to put some roadblocks up to protect our environment."

This story was partially reported by KCLU, our news partner in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.