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# Taking sides on offshore drilling
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/taking-sides-on-offshore-drilling/
- Published: 2008-07-03T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:02:53.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Environment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Experts: Drilling would bring no consumer relief*

*By ALICE OLLSTEIN Special to the Daily Press*

PACIFIC OCEAN Sen. John McCain (R- Arizona) is for it. Gov. Schwarzenegger is against it. And local officials, environmentalists and concerned citizens up and down the coast are mobilizing to defeat it.

Ever since President Bush declared his intent to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, claiming the move would ease gas prices and boost the economy, the political battle has raged on. California, with its beach economies and memories of oil spill traumas past, has worked particularly hard to keep the prohibitions in place.

Unsurprisingly,California’s Democrats have unanimously denounced the president’s proposal. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-San Francisco), and state Sen. Sheila Kheul (D- Santa Monica) have all made statements condemning offshore oil exploration.

Even Gov. Schwarzenegger, a McCain backer, has come out against it, saying at a Miami conference last month, “Anyone who tells you that offshore drilling will bring down our gas prices immediately or anytime soon is blowing smoke.”

Local and national organizations agree. Sarah Abramson, the coastal resources director of the Santa Monica-based environmental organization Heal the Bay, explained that offshore drilling would hurt the oceans, not help consumers.

“Heal the Bay feels that this would be a huge step backwards in shore protection,” she said. “Proponents are painting it as a panacea, but the reality is that it would not lower gas prices. The real answer is to start moving toward better fuels and renewables.”

The Surfrider Foundation has also issued a statement against the proposal.

“We’re opposed to lifting the federal moratorium because it would not provide immediate relief to high gas prices or reduce dependence on foreign oil,”said Alexis Henry,the communications manager for Surfrider, which has a chapter in Malibu. “With the potential increase of spills, it would threaten coastal and marine environments and put a strain on coastal wildlife, not to mention that burning the oil contributes to global warming.”

According to Jim Presswood, the energy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has offices in Santa Monica, the Bush administration should drill in the land it already owns instead of going for protected coasts.

“The Department of the Interior reported that 80 percent of U.S. oil is already open to development, so those are the areas that the gas companies should be developing,” he said. “There’s a Nevada-sized area of unused leases. The western Gulf of Mexico is already open, and there’s already some drilling going on off California, so they’re really going after the last barrels.”

The results, said Presswood, would be detrimental in a number of ways.

“This won’t help consumers at the pump, now or in the future. Since we have only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t impact the price of oil. Instead, we need to protect our beach economies because a lot of areas depend on pristine beaches for tourism. The real solution is breaking our addiction to oil.”

The NRDC has taken action by lobbying congressmembers,running ads on radio and in print and educating voters.Presswood said they will “remain vigilant and ward off attempts” to lift the moratorium.

Judy Dugan, the Research Director of Santa Monica-based OilWatchdog.org, is confident that the state will reject the president’s oil plans.

“California’s the last state to allow any kind of drilling offshore and for good reason,” she said. “The Santa Barbara spill may seem long ago in years but it’s still alive in the public imagination.”

She speculated that only oil companies and politician, not consumers, would gain from the measure.

“It’s a way for Big Oil to lock up a profitable asset, no matter the harm to California, and it’s a good talking point for politicians who refuse to grapple with the real answers — it’s an excuse to do nothing. \[The proposal\] has a certain populist appeal, because it can be expressed in one phrase by people who think that Americans are too stupid to understand reality, so it’s up to the public to educate politicians.”

Dugan’s group recently launched a feature on its Web site to “Send Congress Your Gasoline Bill” wherein citizens can send their congressmen an e-mail with their monthly gas bill and the following message: “We want you to do something about it. Please don’t tell me you can’t,or that it’s the way the free market works.You can regulate energy trading markets. You can regulate refineries, and demand that they increase the fuel supply on hand. You can take back the subsidies we taxpayers are giving to Exxon, Chevron and friends, then use these billions to expand renewable energy, build the public transportation we lack and cut our petroleum dependence.”

Dugan believes that lawmakers, whose gas expenses are taken care of, are “out of touch with what it costs to fill up.”She hopes her program will prompt action.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 3, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/070308.pdf?ref=smdp.com)