The County of Santa Barbara, California, took a major step in restoring our nation to self-reliance and productivity yesterday when County Officials voted in favor of off-shore drilling.

Now watch gas prices from the Middle East start to come down as we openly declare our self-reliance. And let's hope this will provide more jobs for U.S. Citizens.

Although I've reprinted the Associated Press flash here, you can read about the subject and the comments of readers in the San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 801D46.DTL


Santa Barbara County votes for offshore drilling
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer

(08-26) 18:48 PDT Los Angeles, CA (AP) --

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved a measure Tuesday to support offshore oil drilling, decades after an infamous 1969 oil spill coated the coastline and spawned the modern environmental movement.

While the board has no power to approve new drilling, officials debated for hours whether to send a letter asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to change long-standing state policy and allow oil exploration and extraction in the county.

Proponents claim drilling would provide a new revenue stream for a cashed strapped county and that modern advancements have made drilling safer than ever. But opponents, including Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, who recently authored an anti-drilling resolution that passed in the State Assembly, called the letter misleading because it was based on faulty studies.

"Supporting offshore drilling in Santa Barbara is like drilling in the Arctic wilderness," Nava told The Associated Press. "Santa Barbara is a symbol for the country and the world on the dangers that can occur with offshore oil drilling."

The board's largely symbolic move, approved 3-2, comes at a time when oil prices have hit record highs and new domestic oil and gas production have become key topics in the presidential race. Republican John McCain visited Santa Barbara in June to talk about his plan for dealing with the energy crisis — and it included support for offshore drilling. Democrat Barack Obama has said he would consider a limited increase in offshore drilling, although he opposes drilling in the Arctic reserve.

For 27 years, the federal Outer Continental Shelf off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico has been protected by the drilling ban. Experts have noted that lifting the ban would not produce any oil for five to seven years.

Offshore drilling has long been a touchy issue in Santa Barbara, a tony coastal community 100 miles north of Los Angeles. A disaster at a Union Oil Co. platform in 1969 coated miles of beaches with oil, killed thousands of birds and helped lead to the Clean Water Act and a moratorium on offshore drilling.

Representatives from conservation groups that formed after the historic oil spill, including Get Oil Out!, told supervisors the letter was "embarrassing" and "shortsighted."

In April, GOO and others agreed not to oppose an oil company's offshore drilling in exchange for money, land and a promise to shut down operations in Santa Barbara County in 14 years.

"The problem is we're addicted to oil and this addiction is slowly poisoning us all ... more pollution, more global warming and more economic instability," said GOO! President John Abraham Powell. "More oil is not the answer. It is the problem."

Supervisor Brooks Firestone, who co-wrote the request for a letter, wanted assurances from oil industry representatives that such a spill would not occur again because of modern advancements in drilling. Firestone's family leases land to an inland oil drilling company that has struggled with spills and last year he voted with the board majority in support of a federal moratorium on drilling.

"I don't believe a spill of that magnitude could occur ..." answered John Deacon, who has worked for various oil companies and now represents Tracer Environmental Sciences and Technologies