Wally Herger, CA-02, just prevailed in his primary against a teabagger, but will he survive this fall against Democratic candidate Jim Reed, who is far more in touch with the beliefs of his California constituents when it comes to drilling and environmental issues?
You might think a Republican would reconsider the safety of deep water drilling after the endless eruption of the oil volcano in the Gulf.
You would be wrong. Herger still maintains that with our superior 21st Century technology we can drill-baby-drill with no harm to the environment.
Those of us in the reality-based community, including Jim Reed, see it differently.
One of my first real memories of tragedy was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. My entire school was cheering on teacher Christa McAuliffe, and when the shuttle blew up in midair, I remember standing with my sobbing classmates, trying to make sense of what we had witnessed.
As an adult, I felt a similar connection the day after September 11. In the midst of a national crisis, Congressmen from both parties and both chambers stood on the Capitol stairs and sang "God Bless America." I will never forget that moment and the sense of common cause it inspired in all who heard it.
Over in the Legislature, two Assembly members are working valiantly to institute a oil severance tax in the rat wheel that is also known as our Legislature. Round and round they go. How they hope to get 2/3, nobody knows. Yet, clearly it is important that the issue continue to come up in the Capitol's conversation, so that much makes these bills worth the time.
As oil companies continue to reap record profits amid strained state revenues, a pair of Democratic lawmakers are hoping to tap into their deep pockets by installing an oil severance tax that could relieve growing pressures to cut more state services.
Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Long Beach, introduced a bill Monday called the Fair Share Act, that would impose a 10 percent oil severance fee on extractions from California wells to bring in $1.5 billion to the state's coffers.
A similar bill that has already cleared one committee, by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, would impose a 9.9 percent fee, but would earmark the revenues to higher education funding. (CoCo Times 10/27/09)
But the fact is that there is never going to be 2/3 to get any oil severance tax out of the Assembly, let alone through both houses of the Legislature.
If the oil severance, or really any taxes, are going to be passed, it is going to require, for the time being, to go to the voters. The oil severance tax is supported by majorities in most polls. It will not be an easy campaign, as we saw from Prop 87 a few years ago. The oil companies will spend whatever it takes to avoid paying oil severance.
Yet we cannot continue to be the one state that doesn't charge oil severance. If there is going to be drilling in the state, the state should get something back to not only mitigate the costs of that drilling, but to also ensure that there is something left when the drilling is over. To ensure that when the oil companies leave the state, as is bound to happen, that we are left with an education system that can build innovators for the future.
It will take a strong case laid out by Democrats and other progressives, but as a Texan whose education was subsidized by such a tax, it is something that we have to do.
Just when you think you've seen it all, the Governor and his cronies pull another one on the people of California. While the economy created by the Bush "free-marketeers" has sent the country on an economic free-fall; while California sees its unemployment rate hit over 11% and while the number of Californians that have seen their incomes fall below the federal poverty level has increased to over 20% of the population, a report approved by a Governor's commission is recommending that we give a $14 Billion tax break to the wealthiest Californians.
So the Assembly is wrapping up their budget session, and it turns out that the Assembly came up $1.1 billion dollars short of the Senate's solutions. Oil drilling failed, and the local government raid on HUTA (gas taxes) failed as well.
So where does that leave us? These bills will go to the governor, and since there isn't concurrence, it will be roughly a $23 billion solution rather than $24 billion. But, the Governor has a line-item veto. He can make various cuts with his blue pencil. But $1.1 billion? Who knows. That seems like a tall order.
Considering what Schwarzenegger did the last time a partial solution was handed to him, I guess there's an outside shot that he'll just say no and open a new extraordinary session. But he'll probably just line-item some, and maybe make up the difference by eating into what is now a $900 million dollar budget reserve.
Is everybody ready to be back here in October?
...We'll have a couple days for final analyses, but let's remember that this is a terrible budget and a dark day for California.
...Let me clarify. The Governor can make line-item cuts but he doesn't necessarily have to, because this is a budget revision. He can also shift around the size of the reserve. In the end, he doesn't actually have to be in balance for a revision; that's a Constitutional need at the beginning of the process, as I understand it, not now. Clearly from the Governor's remarks, he's not going to veto the whole thing, so this is the "solution," for now. There also may be Constitutional problems with some of the stuff passed.
...Apparently, the Governor said, jubilantly, "We missed the iceberg". First, WE didn't miss anything, YOU dumped the iceberg on poor people. And second, if you really think you're in the clear, um, don't look behind you.
Maybe you've been following along, but if you haven't, the Senate essentially passed all of their budget bills, albeit with difficulty, and adjourned a session that started last night around 7:30pm at 6:16 this morning. The Assembly is still working through some of the final trailer bills, including the local government raids and the offshore drilling proposal at Tranquillon Ridge. Here's an incomplete roundup from the LA Times.
The worst elements of the bill were passed while everyone was asleep. They must be very proud of their work.
And of course, this is a rolling, perpetual crisis. Dan Walters is correct today when he says that the state now operates on 5-month budget cycles.
There have been some discussions about shifting to a two-year budget cycle to ease the one-year cycle's tight - and usually unmet - timetable. In reality, though, the state has shifted to a five-month cycle, with the latest version of the budget, which was undergoing the dreary drill of adoption Thursday night, being the latest example [...]
If the five-month cycle holds true, the deal's deficiencies will be acknowledged in October, when the state must redeem the IOUs it's sending to creditors. And then legislators will return to Sacramento to be entertained by lobbyists, plug the new holes and collect about $1,200 a week in tax-free per diem checks.
In January, the governor will propose a 2010-11 budget and the game will begin again.
It's as much that the legislature cannot fathom the extremity of the real budget problems as that the cumulative effect of kicking the can becomes greater with every kick. Of course, there's a way out - you could reduce useless tax breaks to corporations and increase revenue. But that's deeply unserious and verboten.
If ever the need for a Constitutional convention to fix the broken system in Sacramento has become clear, it's now, when 40 years of progress has been reversed in the dead of night.
Well, it's going to be a late night. The Legislature is set to convene at 2pm to consider the budget deal. Here's the Assembly floor report. I could write another "25 Things" just off of this document, some of the bits buried in there are amazing. Here's just one example:
Eliminates automatic cost of living adjustments (COLA) for CalWORKs and SSI/SSP grants. Also eliminates COLA's for the budgets of UC, CSU, and other state departments.
Also, IHSS workers, who make $12 bucks an hour, may have to pay for their OWN criminal background checks and fingerprinting. Just for bureaucratic-speak, I also like the absurdity of this: "Consolidates the Bureau of Electronic Appliance Repair and the Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation into the Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair, Home Furnishings, and Thermal Insulation." Done!
This will not be an easy vote. Democratic lawmakers in the rank and file are unlikely to rubber stamp this. In addition to Sen. DeSaulnier, I'm hearing that many other lawmakers are uncomfortable on a variety of measures, to the extent that the Assembly Speaker is not whipping votes on the offshore drilling proposal or the dissolution of the Integrated Waste Management Board (which costs $0.00 for the state). The City of Industry lobbyist-backed deal to securitize redevelopment project money and tangle 10% of property tax revenue for up to 30 years isn't a done deal, either.
A provision of the budget agreement, which faces a vote in the Legislature as early as today, would extend the life of the state's redevelopment areas, a proposal that Industry officials have pushed for more than two years. Critics say the move would be a gift of public funds to benefit the proposed stadium and other private development at the expense of cities and counties that need the money for healthcare, welfare and police services.
A similar measure backed by Industry died in the Legislature last year after complaints from local government officials. But late in the budget negotiations, the city and its allies helped revive the proposal.
"They were able to find a mechanism to provide the infrastructure for an NFL stadium, but they aren't able to find the mechanism to fund nutrition for a hungry child," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Wednesday. "It's galling. It's really galling."
AFSCME is running ads against the whole budget deal, and most advocacy groups have been quite critical. I would guess that most people in the Assembly have the perspective of indie Juan Arambula, that he'll vote for most of the budget "with a heavy heart and a clothespin on my nose." But I think some provisions could easily get struck down today, so it's worth letting lawmakers know what you think.
I interviewed Sen. Mark DeSaulnier just a few minutes ago for a series on CA-10 candidates. But I took the opportunity to ask him about the budget deal. Un unusually blunt and what I would characterize as irate language, DeSaulnier blasted the budget and the process that created it. "It's all awful," he said. "On a majority-vote level, with votes that require a majority vote, California still leads the nation. But on a fiscal level, we're living in the Dark Ages. The system is completely dysfunctional and maybe the only good thing is that people will finally see the kind of change we need. Sadly, too many people are still in denial about that change. But we can't go on like this. It's just a mess."
DeSaulnier thinks that the economy is unlikely to change dramatically to bail out this budget, and it will take a long time for General Fund revenues to get to a point to pay off the money borrowed from education. And so we'll remain in this dark place for some time.
The Senator is carrying a bill in the legislature to put together a Constitutional convention, and he is "more convinced than ever" about the need for it. He believes that, after the budget is put the bed, there is an urgent need, recognized by the leadership, to turn completely to reform. Sen. Steinberg has said to him that the message will be nothing but change, change, change. And the caucus wants to work, whether through a revision commission or reforms that could be put together with majority support, to do a "Constitutional convention in the building." Unfortunately, DeSaulnier said, everyone on both sides of the aisle immediately goes to the worst-case scenario of a convention, thinking that their gains and protections will be lost. But that's no excuse. DeSaulnier hoped he could get with Republican leaders like Sam Blakeslee to find common ground on a few reform issues, but he's not sanguine about those choices. "They're individually good people, but put them together and they're a cult, not a party. Milton Friedman's dead, move on."
When I asked what he would vote for on Thursday, he said "I will probably vote against most of it." DeSaulnier singled out two pieces that could not get his support: the offshore drilling in Tranquillon Ridge, and the raid on local governments. On the drilling, he doesn't understand why Democrats would approve such a proposal for a paltry $100 million dollars in this budget year. "I don't know why the Governor would do that. Whatever environmental record he claims to have will go down the tubes. I never thought he was particularly green to begin with, he tried to slow-walk AB32 and all sorts of environmental initiatives. He's the worst Governor in state history, just like George W. Bush was the worst President in history.
On the local government raid, DeSaulnier said that as someone who came from local government, he could not see clear to essentially bankrupt them. Those takings don't take place until December, according to him, so he would rather get the LAO involved, score the kinds of tax credits at the local level, things like enterprise zones that don't work and other giveaways to corporate interests, and suspend them to make local government whole. I think it's an interesting strategy, though I don't know if it could succeed. Tying it to local government needs is smart.
And by the way, the crazy redevelopment money scheme, to borrow against those future funds and securitize 10% of property taxes for 10-20 years? DeSaulnier called that "insane" and "illegal," and just a shadow play by Republicans "so they can go back to San Diego and Riverside and say they tried to save their local money and failed."
DeSaulnier has an election coming up, and thus an incentive to take a bold stand. But this is pretty darn bold. And if there are enough Democrats to go along with him, Republicans may indeed be forced to own this budget.
This is a big deal. John Burton just sent out an action alert to CDP delegates and supporters urging them to vote AGAINST an element of the budget negotiated by the Democratic leadership. Specifically, he wants the offshore drilling at Tranquillon Ridge voted down.
As you may have heard, legislative leaders and the governor have reached a tentative budget deal that the Senate and Assembly could vote on as soon as tomorrow.
One part of the package is a Republican-written bill that would allow offshore drilling in state-controlled waters off California's coast for the first time since the devastating 1969 oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast. This proposal is an affront to all Californians and we must urge lawmakers to vote it down.
This sweetheart deal for one oil company was negotiated behind closed doors, without any legislative hearings to allow public comment.
It strips the State Lands Commission - which has approved or rejected oil leases for the past 150 years - of this power and gives it to a commission controlled by the governor's administration. This commission would have unlimited authority to rewrite the lease to benefit the oil company.
The offshore drilling plan does not solve either this year's budget problems or systemic problems. That's because its promises of future revenue are not actually written into law.
This Republican offshore drilling scheme endangers California's environment. It would further pad the pockets of oil executives. And it does virtually nothing to solve the state's current or future budget problems.
Ironically, the same Republican legislators who support this sweetheart deal are the ones who refused to vote for our Democratic leaders' proposal for an oil-severance tax like the one levied in every other oil-producing state.
Please call your local lawmaker and urge him or her to say NO to new offshore drilling. Say NO to jeopardizing our coastline for minimal budget help this year or in the future.
At the end of the email, Burton reminds readers that these kind of backroom deals are part of why "it's so important to have a majority-vote budget in California so Republicans cannot hijack the budget process to make bad policy changes that are extraneous to the state budget." A-men to that, but tell it to the Democratic leaders who helped negotiate this.
Karen Bass was asked today by reporters why the offshore drilling bill was included in the budget agreement, and she replied, "It comes down to $100 million dollars." Apparently you can put a price on despoiling the coastline and destroying the environment. Turns out it's 1/880th of total budgetary spending.
It's good to see the Chairman of the CDP picking up on a campaign by the Courage Campaign and amplifying it. The offshore drilling plan will be considered in a separate trailer bill. It can be defeated.
California was, once upon a time, the leader in offshore drilling. In fact, the first submerged oil wells was in the Santa Barbara Channel. Public acceptance can change rapidly when you spill 200,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean. And change it did.
In many ways, that day in 1969 was the time when the environmental movement came of age. It had a real, tangible event to show the world of how quickly we can turn a once beautiful strip of coast into a toxic mess. And since that spill, we have cleared our coast of offshore drilling. But in the heat of the "Drill, Baby, Drill" McCain candidacy, George W Bush revoked the executive order putting a moratorium on offshore oil drilling. States across the South have invited oil companies to explore their coastlines.
America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to ween ourselves from it. To look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer. Anyone who tells you this would bring down gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke.
But with Arnold, any principle can be sacrificed for the all-mighty dollar. So when it became apparent the May 19 election was going to fail, he turned his attention to the Tranquillion Ridge Project. The Project claimed that it would bring $1.8 Billion into the general fund. Each step of the way, John Garamendi fought him from his post on the State Lands Commission.
Admittedly, the state could use the money. But that's not a good enough reason to subvert the authority of the Lands Commission, sell California's coastline in exchange for empty promises, ignore the wishes of Santa Barbara residents and dismiss the outcome of a long process of analysis and public hearings. The Lands Commission, in fact, was created in 1938 to bring more transparency to the awarding of oil leases after a scandal involving the Department of Finance.
If the governor really wants more oil money, there's a better way: He could resurrect a plan he introduced last year calling for a 9.9% tax on crude oil extracted in the state. California is the only state in the union that doesn't collect such an extraction tax, and Schwarzenegger estimated in November that it would bring in roughly $1.2 billion in the next fiscal year -- dwarfing the $100 million that would be generated by the Plains Exploration project. (LAT 6/8/09)
Drill, Baby, Drill is a recipe for disaster in both good and bad economic times. We should not be coompromising our goals of a clean and sustainable energy future for a few hundred million dollars. I'll be working to provide more depth on this issue, but in the mean time, consider emailing your legislator or joining John Garamendi's facebook group to support the State Lands Commission's position against drilling. We simply cannot afford another to turn our backs on 1969, the devastating consequences of a spill are just not worth the price.
As Brian noted, in the full list of the Governor's slash and burn budget, the offshore drilling proposal in Tranquillon Ridge off the Santa Barbara coast remains. After a key environmental group backed away from the plan, which originally was structured as a compromise proposal to allow an additional rig in exchange for ending all drilling in the channel by 2022 (which the Lands Commission determined was unenforceable), many expected the plan to be scrapped. But it remains, despite the fact that the California Lands Commission spoke out yesterday, calling on the legislature to put a stop to this power grab.
The State Lands Commission on Monday lashed out at an attempt by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow the first new oil drilling in California waters since 1969.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, chairman of the three-member panel, called the governor's effort "a naked power grab." At a contentious hearing in Santa Monica, the commission passed a resolution urging legislators not to go along with the plan, which would revive a drilling proposal off the Santa Barbara County coast that the commission killed in January.
The Commission doesn't out-and-out call this illegal. But they hold jurisdiction over oil drilling, and the Governor is simply trying to go over their heads. You can basically shut down the California Lands Commission if this goes through, because they will be rendered impotent.
And of course, while the Administration foregrounds the $2 billion dollars to be gained from allowing the leases in Tranquillon, he does not make a peep about charging an oil severance tax, to actually make the oil companies pay to take California's natural resources out of the ground.
Robert makes quick work of the new and not improved Gov. Schwarzenegger prescriptions for disaster, trying to fill an entire $21 billion dollar deficit (which is now more like $24 billion according to the Legislative Analyst) with cuts. I cannot completely argue with the decision to cancel the RAW (revenue anticipation warrants), because bad borrow and spend policies, as Noreen Evans explained, part of the problem in Sacramento, not the solution ("Like paying your bills with your credit card when you don't have the money to afford it.")
This is going to get worse, by the way. The offshore drilling plan Arnold proposed lost a key environmental supporter this week, threatening that $1.8 billion solution. And Tim Geithner's apparent suggestion that loan guarantees require an act of Congress, while immaterial to the budget at this point, really hinders the ability to solve the short-term cash crunch. Basically the entire budget would have to get passed before one dime of borrowing could take place, otherwise the borrowing is unlikely to even happen, and even when it does it will be prohibitively expensive.
So, what to do? I think Greg Lucas is on to something. It's time to embarrass Governor Hoover. Put his bill on the floor and watch it get a half-dozen votes.
Bringing the GOP governor's plan to a vote accomplishes several things.
It establishes how many initial votes exist for the plan. Not many, presumably. Will Republicans vote for it or are the cuts too deep even for them? Or should they choose to dismiss the action as a "drill" and not participate, an opportunity is presented for Democrats to score some coup on their political opponents.
A somewhat simplistic example: "All we hear from Republicans is that they want to cut state spending. Well, here's a chance to do so and yet they sit on their hands."
Bringing the proposal to a vote also attracts the media spotlight. Parents might be interested to know about the $6.3 billion in payments to public schools the governor would defer for one year, a figure that doesn't include the $8 billion the state already owes schools.
What the plan does to immigrants, the developmentally disabled, the elderly who receive in-home care also might be of interest to the public which so recently decided to make the fiscal problem worse.
The public might also like to know that $12 billion of the governor's $21 billion worth of actions are one-time and that embracing them makes it harder to solve future budget messes.
Essentially, it's time to build a set of facts and put people on the record. There has to be some long-term thinking here, and some public explanation of the implications of a Hoover-like budget. Like there was no reason for Democrats to play nice with George Bush when he was at 28% in the polls, there similarly is no reason to play nice with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is basically despised.
When you go beyond the headlines, there are several interesting elements of the Governor's May Revise - which by the way, was illegally delivered, under the February budget agreement, but hey, what's the law, right?
We know some of the major portions of the Governor's plan - cutting education, thousands of state employee layoffs, lots of borrowing (something like 40% of the gap through revenue anticipation warrants), selling public landmarks, etc. First of all, with respect to selling off public property, easier said than done.
Case in point: the governor's plan a while back to sell EdFund, the state's student loan guarantee fund. It was projected to bring in $1 billion, but still hasn't been sold (and was last valued at 50% of its original estimate). I mention that because in this proposal, the governor suggests $1 billion for selling off part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund. Maybe it's an easier deal than EdFund (and others in the past), but...
Some other interesting pieces:
• Despite the fact that Schwarzenegger adamantly insisted there will be not tax or fee increases as part of any solution, there in fact are new fee increases included. The Governor seeks higher fees, but significantly, those fees would hit some of the most vulnerable citizens in the state. For example, he raises fees for residents living in veterans homes throughout the state, adding $2.8 million dollars. What's important here is that he betrays his own rhetoric by raising some fees inside his own revised plan.
• While the budget deficit exists because of an historic drop in revenue during this Great Recession, instead of temporarily cutting various services, the Governor's revised budget would cut them permanently, particularly in programs like Medi-Cal, In-Home Supportive Services, SSI/SSP, regional centers, Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants. This despite, once again, the Governor reconciled his raid of local governments by saying that "hopefully the economy comes back." But even if it did, the permanent cuts to programs serving the most vulnerable elements of society would remain. The vast majority of those cuts would be implemented regardless of the outcome of the May 19 ballot measures.
• Never one to let an opportunity in crisis to slip by, the Governor would also allow the first new offshore drilling off the California coastline in 40 years, putting a major dent in any possible depiction of Schwarzenegger as some kind of environmentalist. Despite not being able to tax the severance of oil from California land, the Governor would lease new offshore drilling sites to bring in $100 million from the state. And this would nullify a ruling by the State Lands Commission that denied further oil leases. As recently as last summer, Schwarzenegger vowed not to allow new drilling off the California shore.
You won't read much of this fine print in the discussion of the budget, or the glorifying media profiles of the "Governator." But it's important, because every aspect of this reveals him as a cheap fraud.
The State Lands Commission scuttled a proposed compromise that would have brought new oil drilling to the Santa Barbara coast for the first time in California since 1969, in what is seemingly a victory for environmental and coastal protection advocates. However, some are arguing that the proposal, which would have mandated closure of 4 additional oil platforms off the coast within 13 years, should have gone through.
But a parade of local officials, residents and environmental activists insisted the plan would have advanced efforts to protect the coast by eventually closing four of the region's 20 platforms.
"For the first time in history, the public and the state will be able to shut down existing oil production," argued Linda Krop, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center and one of the people behind the proposal. "Without this project, they'll continue indefinitely -- perhaps another 40 years." [...]
Nineteen of the 20 platforms that dot the ocean off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties are in federal waters. Shuttering four of them, says Krop of the Environmental Defense Center, would make it difficult for the federal government to lease underwater tracts accessible from those platforms.
And with closure of the two processing plants, the prospect would have been more unlikely, she said.
Read the whole article. There was a significant green alliance in favor of this drilling-for-closure exchange. I tend to agree with the Lands Commission that the proposal for closure wasn't completely enforceable, but then, that's their job to write the law with some enforcement, isn't it? (I guess their concern is that these are federal waters and the state would be limited to enforce end-dates.) I also understand John Garamendi's stated rationale, that approving one lease would set off a parade of oil companies coming to sully the coast, but off course those are approved on a case-by-case basis as well.
If we're going to talk seriously about drilling off the coast in the future, there should be at least a couple bright lines - closure deals like this, and the implementation of an oil severance tax so that we're not the only state in the country that doesn't charge a fee to industry for taking our natural resources out of the ground.
It's an interesting debate - legislators are split, with coastal Assemblymembers opposing but the locals in Santa Barbara in favor, and even Lois Capps thinks it's a worthwhile deal. Endless oil and gas concerns off the coast ought to be dealt with, it's a good question to ask whether this is the right way.
Today's San Francisco Chronicle has a front page story on potential offshore oil rigs along the California coast - including regions where no such drilling currently exists, such as the North Coast.
The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay.
Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica and La Jolla in Southern California.
"These are the targets," said Richard Charter, a lobbyist for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund who worked for three decades to win congressional bans on offshore drilling. "You couldn't design a better formula to create adverse impacts on California's coastal-dependent economy."
The targeted areas include the coastline off of Humboldt Bay, Mendocino County, northern Sonoma County, most of the unspoiled waters off of Santa Barbara County's western shore, even Santa Monica and La Jolla. Exploration could be permitted as soon as 2010 and rigs could be in place by 2012.
All for what the article suggests would be merely 17 months' worth of oil supplies.
Neither Obama nor his Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar have made firm commitments on offshore drilling. They seem open to the concept, but might look at limiting it to the Gulf of Mexico.
What's needed is a firmer "no" from the new administration on offshore drilling here in California. The 1969 oil spill was devastating for Santa Barbara's coast and economy and spills continue to this day. Spills wreck the environment and as a result cost local economies jobs and economic security. Drilling isn't much of a solution for the country and it's not going to help California's worsening economy.
Unfortunately the Democratic surrender on drilling in September didn't help matters. Congress needs to reverse that reckless and panicked decision - it would certainly help stiffen Obama's and Salazar's spines. It's time for California and the US to abandon the failed models of the 20th century and protect our oceans and our jobs, instead of giving in to conservative manufactured outrage every time.
The most hotly anticipated State Senate election this year is in the 19th District covering Santa Barbara and Ventura County, between Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and Republican Tony Strickland. Though the two are almost polar opposites, the chunk of the district in Santa Barbara, where residents have long memories about the 1969 oil spill, makes it impossible for Republicans to win with their "Drill Now" message on energy. So Tony Strickland opted to run some ads that Al Gore might have run were he to be contesting in the district, highlighting renewable energy through wind, solar, algae, tidal and other forms. This is completely at odds with Strickland's doctrinaire Republican record, with votes against green building standards, minimum renewable energy standards, and even fuel-efficient tires. Strickland has taken money from Big Oil and stood with global warming denialists in the recent past. It's incongruous for him to carry a pro-environment message.
So I hooked up with the Courage Campaign and the California League of Conservation Voters to put together a little video highlighting this incongruity.
What's interesting is that the Courage Campaign's Web tool invited those supporters who received their email blast to spread the word, and they were so successful, both online political reporters at the Ventura County Star, the region's biggest newspaper, covered the video. More important, the Jackson campaign has been energized to fight back against some of Strickland allies' misleading ads on taxes, and in doing so buttresses the outside groups' take about Strickland's terrible environmental record.
So progressive groups are ensuring that Strickland gets away with nothing in this race, and in turn the Jackson campaign is fighting back as well and counter-punching swiftly and effectively. This is a growing success story in the 19th.
Some great people have been sashaying through the Big Tent to huddle up with the bloggers. And the traditional media has joined them, to take exciting pictures of people typing to show how the bloggers kick it. Rockin'!
I did get a chance to spend a few minutes with Van Jones, an environmental and green jobs activist, to talk about the future of energy and how we can beat the Republicans at their own game. He also offered a candid assessment of the state of the Presidential campaign.
Jones thinks that the progressive movement and Democratic groups have been "hurt by having a good candidate. We were so galvanized against Bush in 2004 that every outside group went nuts, threw everything we had at the Republicans, and we almost came up with the win despite a less inspiring candidate. This year, the spirit of 2004 has been lost. Obama made the mistake of defunding the outside groups and we've become complacent to an extent." Jones said that last week's hit by the Obama campaign on the McCain housing issue was good, but it needs to be a 10-week phenomenon, not a 1-week phenomenon.
On green jobs, which is Jones' real focus area, he stressed that we need to move the environmental conversation from a cultural one to a political one. The green-collar economy "can be a place for people to earn money, not spend money. We need collective action for green citizenship, to create the jobs of the future in a Green New Deal. As long as carbon is free we're never going to move forward." He was pleased by the recent efforts by municipalities and states (green jobs bills have been passed in Massachusetts and Washington state, and the US Conference of Mayors is on board as well), but recognizes that the federal government must be involved as well. "This is about laws, not gizmos. Technology cannot be the savior. This has to be a bottom-up, inside-outside AND a top-down strategy. If the Feds are MIA, human life will be MIA in the future."
We talked about the offshore drilling debate, where Jones clearly stated that the Republicans won the day by lying to the American people. He had three major points:
• There is no such thing as American oil. There is oil drilled by multinationals that is sent overseas to China and India. American offshore driling will do nothing to solve any American oil problems.
• We banned drilling in offshore areas not to save birds and fish, but because of coastal families and coastal communities, because kids were walking into the water and coming out with oil on them, because property values were plunging. Democrats should not be willing to throw away America's beauty for a 2-cent solution in 10 years.
• We've seen the new phenomenon of the "dirty greens," who want to have an "all of the above strategy" on energy, with solar and wind, but also clean coal and drilling offshore and shale and all these dirty polluters. "All of the above" is not a strategy. It's not a wise choice, but a stupid swipe at a persistent problem.
Democrats are right on price - if you cut demand and expand supply through renewables, the price will drop. They are right on people, because those steps will create millions of jobs. And they're right on the planet, because it's the only solution to preserve our environmental future. What the Republicans are offering is Happy Meal Politics, the kind of politics that offers everything for free with no residual consequences.
Jones is a great messenger, and a real leader in the green movement. Democrats would do well to listen to him.
Since he doesn't have any ideas of his own, and he can barely locate California's 4th District on a map, Tom McClintock has decided to pick up on the "Drill Now" movement coming from the deepest bastions of economic royalist and faux populist conservatism. His first ad of the 2008 election is a radio spot which shakes his finger at Congress for ignoring all that delicious oil under everyone's house that must be delivered immediately to Exxon.
"Liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Brown want to continue supporting federal laws that prevents us from tapping America's vast oil resources. That's how we got into this mess - and why gasoline prices are now breaking our family budgets," McClintock says at the beginning of the one-minute spot.
"America has nearly a trillion barrels of recoverable oil-more than three times that of Saudi Arabia-that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Brown won't even let us touch. In fact, more than 94 percent of our territory remains off-limits because of this foolish prohibition. If we want to change this policy, we've got to change this Congress," McClintock says.
94%! For instance, that park by your house doesn't have ONE oil derrick in it. And who knows what's under the floorboards in your den? 94%, sucka MC's!
"Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters," McClintock wrote in a column for the Auburn Journal, pointed out to us by the campaign of his Dem opponent Charlie Brown.
"And still Nancy Pelosi and her supporters in Congress continue to block the development of these vast American oil reserves."
Don't you idiots see it? The Chinese are stealing our purity of essence and draining our precious bodily fluids!
None of this is true, by the way. Even the Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney, who's in Southern California today in case you were wondering why you heard that death rattle this morning, had to acknowledge that the Cina-Cuba drilling myth was a lie.
But without lies, where would McClintock be? (um, running for the Board of Equalization?)
Just a quickie to give respect to some of the women in our California caucus.
Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is hammering home a simple message on offshore drilling:
Boxer said she had zero confidence in recent Senate Republican assurances that increased drilling will not lead to environmental damage from spills.
She pointed to recent comments from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), which were recently echoed by Sen. John McCain, the GOP presumptive presidential nominee, who said that "not a drop of oil was spilled" due to the Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the U.S. Minerals Management Service reported that the storm was blamed for no less than 146 oil spills from drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
"These are lies, just bald-faced lies," Boxer said. "You want to know about my conclusion about $4 a gallon gas? Just divide eight years by two oilmen in the White House and you have your $4 a gallon."
And here's Rep. Hilda Solis, who has been leading the fight from the Congress against Arnold's wage cuts, explaining the Paycheck Fairness Act on the blog Latina Lista (I give here extreme credit for using the brownosphere as a tool):
The House of Representatives made significant progress in closing the wage gap for all women last Thursday, especially women of color, by passing H.R. 1338, the Paycheck Fairness Act. Even though the Equal Pay Act was first signed into law in 45 years ago, women today earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. For women of color, the pay disparities are even worse.
Latinas earn on average 57 cents to every dollar that a man earns. African-American women earn just 68 cents to every dollar that a man earns.
These unacceptably low wage disparities for women are finally being address by Congress. The Paycheck Fairness Act will help empower women workers with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve pay equity with their male colleagues.
Even Speaker Pelosi is doing yeoman work for taking the heat on resisting a drilling vote while letting things roll over into the next Congress when the landscape will be more favorable.
Good for our strong women leaders. We need more of them.
I mentioned on Monday that Nick Leibham would be offering gas to residents of the 50th district discounted to the price in April 1996 when Big Oil first started funneling money to Brian Bilbray.
Today, ExxonMobil posted $11.7 billion in second quarter profits, the all-time record for a U.S. Company, so the $182,818 that Bilbray has received from oil companies throughout his career may seem like a drop in the bucket. But he's certainly delivered time and again for Big Oil: Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act (Use It or Lose It): No. Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act: No. Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act: No. Energy Independence and Security Act: No.
The response yesterday was- perhaps unsurprisingly- huge. Leibham's campaign manager described to me "lines down the road...people were so enthusiastic." Because pain at the pump is inescapable, it's immediate, it's obvious, and it's not a complicated issue. There's a clear choice being presented between the failed policies of the past- more drilling, and the policies of progress- investment in new and renewable energy, use of existing drilling leases, the elimination of tax breaks for Big Oil.
This is a race that's often flown under the radar in online circles, but with Bilbray refusing to even enter his district in order to defend his extremist voting record, it could get pretty interesting. Bilbray is desperate to avoid engaging on real issues, crowing about a veterans memorial but voting to continue the Iraq debacle and voting against the new GI Bill. Every chance he gets to bring about positive change, Bilbray stands in opposition. But when he can stand far outside his district and lob rhetoric, he's all for it.
While Bilbray continues to work against Americans, Nick Leibham got out, in the district, and did something that would actually help a little bit. It isn't much, but it's not supposed to be a solution. What it was supposed to be- and succeeded in being- is a sharp line of contrast between the priorities of these two candidates.
One of and for the people, the other bought and paid to oppose the people.
