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A major weekend oil spill off the coast of Southern California contaminated popular Orange County beaches and killed wildlife, emboldening calls for the populous state and major economic engine to further cut ties with the oil industry.
But for a California that leads the nation with its push toward renewable energy, it still maintains vital legacy connections to fossil fuels, revealing the complications that come with balancing short-term economic gains and job growth against a greener future.
Many energy and environmental groups wonder if the high-profile spill, from an underwater pipeline connected to a platform, might quicken the march toward greener energy and power sources.
The spill, for instance, might sway more voters and lawmakers to come around on the climate-sensitive features of the pending budget and infrastructure legislation entangled in Congress. And it highlights the potential limitations of linking so much of the environmental policies growing increasingly popular in the U.S. to a sweeping bill under heavy negotiations.
It could bring about a stronger reaction from California itself, which is a car-heavy state, fosters a major agricultural economy that uses fossil-fuel powered equipment and transport — yet has been a U.S. leader in solar installation requirements and other moves away from traditional energy.
Here’s a look at four takeaways from the spill that could impact the Californian and national economies, as well as the future of drilling.
Jurisdiction jumble: state vs. federal. The spill of an estimated 126,000 gallons raises questions about state and federal jurisdiction and the status of future offshore drilling WBS00 NG00, which has been subjected to whiplash policy across the terms of two Democratic state governors, Jerry Brown and currently, Gavin Newsom. Former President Donald Trump pushed for more offshore drilling, while current President Joe Biden is pushing for less oil and more renewable energy as part of a “whole of government approach.” Biden has also maintained the status quo on drilling permits in other parts of the country.
The accident site, operated by Houston-based Amplify Energy
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sits outside the state’s jurisdiction. Once the oil industry moves more than three miles offshore, the waters controlled by the federal government. Hence, California has no say.
However, the pipeline connects the platform to a pump station in Long Beach, which California has jurisdiction over. In fact, that’s just how former Gov. Jerry Brown moved to limit how much the Trump administration at the time might have ramped up offshore production; Brown and the state legislature restricted how the oil could move once onshore, limiting the desire to pump more. Additional states flexed this power as well.
After Biden imposed a temporary moratorium on new offshore permits, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Jared Huffman, both Democrats, introduced bills to make the ban permanent on the West Coast. The legislation has been rolled into the budget reconciliation bill.
“When you drill you spill, and once again the inevitable has happened,” Huffman tweeted, in a push for that legislation to pass.
Costly loss. California has lost 90% or more of its coastal wetlands since settlement began in the 1500s. That makes the ones that are left, such as the Talbert Marsh near the mouth of the Santa Ana River, even more important. Increasingly, academic study has sounded the alarm about biodiversity loss, in part because it hurts food sources and risks spreading disease. Some argue that the value of natural capital should factor into GDP and other broad economic measures.
Read: So long, splendid ivory-billed woodpecker: 23 species from 19 states lost to extinction
Orange County alone also has dozens of popular beaches that millions of residents and visitors use. They generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state’s coastal economy every year.
“Once oil gets into the marshes and sensitive shoreline locations, it becomes very difficult to clean up,” said Charles Lester of the University of California Santa Barbara, in a commentary. “I am also concerned about longer-term impacts to sensitive wetland and rocky shoreline environments. Oil spills have a significant impact on our coastal economies, from fisheries to recreational activities, including beach closures.”
Curb demand, stymie supply. The state, whose economy at $3.2 trillion is the U.S.’s largest and if it were its own country, would rank as the world’s fifth largest, has moved to shrink the fossil-fuel industry’s footprint.
After the historic Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, which many say helped trigger the modern environmental movement, the state hasn’t approved any lease for offshore oil and natural gas production within its territorial waters. The state has permitted drilling on existing leases — action that environmentalists say works against curbing reliance on fossil fuels.
California produced 156.4 million barrels of oil in 2019, the last year for which statistics were available, according to the state Department of Conservation. About 7 million of those barrels were produced offshore. Production peaked at 400 million barrels in the mid-1980s. But California is still the nation’s seventh-largest oil producer, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Newsom this year issued an executive order stopping state issued new permits for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a key part of U.S. natural gas
NG00,
production, by 2024. Natural gas was a key fixture in reducing even dirtier coal use and has positioned the U.S. more squarely among global energy leaders, its proponents stress.
Newsom also directed the California Air Resources Board to “analyze pathways” to shutter all of the state’s oil wells by 2045. That’s the year the state is targeting to eliminate all fossil-fuel generation from the electric grid.
But the oil spill spurs environmental groups to push the influential state to act faster. “California’s timeline is clearly too slow,” Laura Deehan of Environment California, told the Sacramento Bee. “The state really needs to lead the way and accelerate the transition.”
Will of the people? One recent poll showed that 72% of Californians opposed new offshore oil development.
“I expect that many Californians will see this spill as yet more evidence that the state and the nation should make a swift transition to alternative energy sources, such as solar power and offshore wind,” said Lester. “Burning oil and other fossil fuels is one of the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions that are heating the planet and changing its climate.”
