Schwarzenegger’s pending departure may not aid chances of revived oil drilling off Calif coast

Chance of oil drilling off Calif coast appears dim

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s surprise decision to pull support for a proposal to expand oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara County effectively killed any short-term prospects for the project.

Now, it appears the chances of reviving the proposal may not improve even after Schwarzenegger leaves office next year.

Gubernatorial candidates most likely to replace Schwarzenegger also oppose the project by Plains Exploration & Production, also known as PXP. In addition, public support for offshore drilling has eroded amid a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The history of oil companies that stand to make a great deal of money at public expense is that they wait until the political winds change,” said Richard Charter, energy adviser to Defenders of Wildlife.

“Obviously current events on the Gulf Coast created a set of circumstances in which it would be ill-advised for any candidate to publicly associate themselves with PXP — it would essentially be political suicide,” he said.

Schwarzenegger announced Monday that the spill off the coast of Louisiana had caused him to reconsider his support for the California drilling proposal. The Republican governor initially saw the Santa Barbara County project, which promised the state $100 million a year, as a way to help shore up the state’s budget deficit.

The 2008 deal created some unlikely partners. Several longtime anti-drilling groups in Santa Barbara promised to lobby for the drilling proposal in exchange for a commitment by the company to end its local drilling operations in about 15 years.

Plains Exploration & Production wants to slant drill up to 30 new shafts from an existing platform, passing from federal waters into state waters.

Supporters who celebrated the agreement as a way to end some drilling off the California coast did not view the plan as an expansion of drilling since it was off an existing platform. Opponents, however, feared it would open up the entire coastline to drilling.

The plan would need final approval from the three-member State Lands Commission. Schwarzenegger has one appointee and one ally on the commission and his announcement made it likely the entire panel would veto the proposal.

Houston-based PXP has not commented since the announcement.

But Linda Krop, an attorney representing the supporters, said it was now unlikely PXP would submit its plan to the commission. Krop said PXP may reach out to Schwarzenegger, but she wasn’t sure what could be done.

“It’s really frustrating,” she said. “We still believe strongly in our plan.”

Prospects may not improve even after Schwarzenegger leaves office. Both leading gubernatorial candidates — Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown — oppose the project.

Brown has consistently opposed offshore drilling and would like to see an increase in the production of renewable energy, said his spokesman Sterling Clifford. Whitman will continue to oppose the project until she can be convinced it would have a “near zero” impact on the environment, her spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said.

Republican candidate Steve Poizner supports the proposal but lags significantly behind Whitman in the polls. In a written statement, Poizner’s spokeswoman Bettina Inclan said advancements in technology and safety makes “offshore oil drilling a viable component of a comprehensive plan to solve our nation’s energy crisis.”

“He fully supports the … project and believes that it presents a unique opportunity to generate state revenues without new taxes, while moving our state and nation toward ending our dependence on foreign oil,” the statement said.

Currently, 27 platforms operate off the Central and Southern California coasts and produced 13.3 million barrels of oil in 2009.

Despite the dim prospects for the project in the foreseeable future, even opponents said they’ll likely see it come before state officials again.

Coastwalk chairwoman Fran Gibson, a leading member of the Oppose PXP Coalition that formed to defeat the project, expects the company to put the project on hold while the Gulf spill plays out.

Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, agreed.

“It doesn’t have a stake in its heart yet,” he said. “There nothing that says they won’t try to do this again. The message is we’re OK for now — but not forever.”

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Williams reported from Sacramento.