January 17, 2016
In the buildup to the Paris climate summit in December, California’s legislature, its legislative leaders, the governor and key regulatory agencies made sure our state continued to be a U.S. leader on climate action.
They did us proud before and at the Paris meetings. Now that milestone is behind us and it’s time for the legislature and the governor to address the big elephant in the room.
It’s time to cut California’s contribution to pollution as one of the country’s biggest suppliers of oil.
Both the legislature and the governor have danced around the oil supply issue. In just the last year, the legislature has failed to pass bills that would close a loophole to prevent new oil drilling in state waters, tighten regulations on injecting oil waste into groundwater, ban open pit disposal of oil waste, or even just make sure consumers aren’t changing oil in autos more often than necessary.
Last year and in previous years, the legislature rejected bills that would set targets for reducing oil dependence. And in 2013 and 2014, they rejected imposing a moratorium on extreme methods of oil extraction, including fracking.
The governor has been equally resistant about addressing oil supply. For most of his term in office, he has held tight to the idea that reducing demand is enough, and at one point declared fracking as fabulous. However, last year he began publicly embracing the notion that oil needs to stay in the ground if we are to moderate the effects of climate change.
People and events change. One thing that has remained constant is the need to dramatically cut climate pollution to staunch the worst effects of climate change, from drought to dangerously rising sea levels. One of the biggest ways to meet that need in California is to stop being a big oil supplier.
This can be the year when policymakers help make cuts in oil supply without doing damage to the state’s economy. That’s partly because oil prices are in the tank.
As I write this, crude oil is selling on major markets for less than $31 a barrel. That’s down from over $145 a barrel in 2008. The Wall Street Journal reports that one leading market research firm concludes that “As many as a third of American oil-and-gas producers could tip toward bankruptcy and restructuring by mid-2017….” In short, the oil industry is demonstrating once again that it’s an unstable industry. Keeping the state attached to its production is not just bad for the environment, but is bad for the economy.
Pushing a transition to cleaner fuels, smarter transportation systems, and cleaner cars, trucks and buses is part of the answer and that’s where the governor and the legislature have done good work. Now they need to stop propping up oil drilling in this state at the expense of public health and the environment.
How do they do that?
There are a lot of answers to this, ranging from passing the kinds of legislation mentioned earlier to changing some of the market incentives. But given that we’re also beginning an election cycle, I focus here on a single political action that legislators and the governor can take to weaken oil’s grip on state policy.
Just say no to oil money. The governor and an overwhelming number of legislators have accepted and continue to accept campaign funds from the oil industry. I wrote about this in the October letter from Sacramento and in our 2015 legislative report card.
Recently I talked to one legislator who doesn’t take oil money, Assemblymember Tony Thurmond, about why he doesn’t. Thurmond lives in Richmond and represents a district that includes such contrasting areas as the wealthy neighborhoods of the Berkeley Hills to the industrial flats of Richmond where a large Chevron oil refinery is located.
He has been a reliable defender of the environment. As a Richmond City Council member, he voted against an oil refinery upgrade, citing fears that there could be environmental harm to the low-income residents of that community. He also helped start a construction job training program that includes solar installation training. In the legislature, his environmental voting record is strong.
On August 6, 2012, a pipe carrying light gasoline ruptured at that refinery, a fire started, and a huge plume of pollution floated over the community. Residents in Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo were warned to stay in their homes that evening for about 5 hours, and over the next weeks, about 15,000 people in the area sought medical help, including for breathing problems, sore throat, headaches and chest pains.
Thurmond remembers that evening well. He remembers pushing towels against the front door to try to prevent outside pollution from seeping into his home. He remembers his children’s fear, and his own.
He doesn’t take oil money, he says now, because a friend once advised him as he was starting his political career that he should never do anything that wouldn’t make his grandmother proud. His grandmother is no longer alive, and now he thinks about his two young children. Every day with every decision and every vote, he thinks about them and how to make them proud.
What kind of future will they have? How can he make sure they don’t breathe dirty air and that climate change and sea-level rise don’t curb their chances for health and happiness?
The oil industry continues its strong push to seek allies in the legislature but Thurmond won’t be one of them. He hasn’t been and he won’t be. His votes in the legislature show that. His conscience is clear.
There’s power in saying no to oil money. It’s time for all elected officials who care about the state, their constituents and their families to exercise that power.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Phillips
Director
Sierra Club California is the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 California chapters of the Sierra Club.
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