By Christine Neilson
Special to the OC Voice

Are Californians desperate enough for oil to overcome their deep-seated aversion to offshore drilling?

Will a new Democratic or Republican president and Congress lift the national moratorium on offshore drilling for oil instituted by former president George R. Bush, Sr., as requested by his son and current president, George W. Bush?

OIL SPILL VICTIM: Even during an economic slump Californians care about the environment, according to a survey. Photo: wikipedia.org

California’s offshore oil industry stretches back more than a century. The world’s first offshore well was drilled in 1897 at the end of a wharf in Summerland, just east of Santa Barbara.

The waters between Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands still hold most of California’s operating oil platforms.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service controls oil leases in federal waters, which start 3 miles off the California coast. Most of the state’s known oil fields lie not far from shore, in an arc stretching from Santa Maria to Long Beach.

A 1969 blowout at a rig near Santa Barbara spewed crude oil into the sea, coating or contaminating 30 miles of shoreline. The spill helped forge the modern environmental movement and led to state and federal moratoriums on new offshore drilling.

On Feb. 7, 1990, the steam tanker American Trader spilled an estimated 416,598 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean off of Huntington Beach. Read the full story

By John Earl and Lisa Wells
OC Voice

“The last thing George said to me, ‘Rock,’ he said, ‘Sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.’” Ronald Reagan speaking in the 1940 movie “Knute Rockne, All American.”

Ronald Reagan as the Gipper

In 1971, California Gov. Ronald Reagan dedicated 3,000-acres of land belonging to the U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton as a nature preserve known now as San Onofre State Park. Speaking like a Native American, Reagan referred to the intrinsic value of the land. “One of the greatest legacies we can leave to future generations is the heritage of our land,” he said, “But unless we can preserve and protect the unspoiled areas which God has given us, we will have nothing to leave them.”

What Reagan left us is now the 5^th most visited park within the the state’s 278-park system. Besides boasting the cleanest watershed in the region, it also houses endangered species like the Pacific pocket mouse, the arroyo toad, the southern steelhead trout, the California gnatcatcher, the tidewater goby and the least Bell’s vireo as well as the archaeological site, Panhe, a 4,000-year-old Juaneño Indian village. Popular campgrounds and world-renowned surfing spots such as Trestles are also part of San Onofre’s appeal.

But like the “Crying Indian” in the 1971 television commercial asking the public to stop pollution, Reagan might also shed a tear if he knew what was happening at his cherished park. Read the full story

By John Earl and Lisa Wells
OC Voice

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama accuse each other of bowing to “big oil,” and Huntington Beach mayor, environmentalist and Democratic candidate for congress, Debbie Cook, has taken hits in the local media for having large investments in oil corporations that many people blame for the global energy crisis that she has warned the public about for years.

Cook’s corporate investment records have always been on file at City Hall and open to the public, as required by law, but they have gained attention lately due to her desire to be the opponent of incumbent Dana Rohrabacher, and be elected in November to represent the 46^th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cook’s fossil fuel related investments, including natural gas, totaled between $72,000 and $710,000 from March 2007 through March 2008.

As an investor, she probably made the right choices: ExxonMobil, which made a record $40.7 billion last year; BP, the world’s 2^nd largest oil producer; and, CanArgo Energy Corp, Chevron, El Paso Corp, Schlumberger Ltd Netherlands, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and the Brompton Oil and Gas Income mutual fund.

But Cook’s alleged hypocrisy was the main topic of analysis in news accounts and editorials by the Orange County Register and the Huntington Beach Independent.

The Independent excoriated Cook for investing in oil companies that harm the environment-instead of companies that “make money off of environmentally friendly technologies.”

And Register opinion editor Steve Greenhut wrote in his blog that “It’s just funny when environmental advocates preach one thing, then do another with their own dollars.”

Editorial cartoons in both papers showed Cook greedily awash in oil stocks while advocating energy conservation. Read the full story

By John Earl
OC Voice Editor

Dan Kalmick of Seal Beach is the other Democratic Party Primary candidate seeking to unseat Republican Dana Rohrabacher and represent the 46^th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. Kalmick is a technology consultant for small and medium size businesses in Orange County and a member of the Orange County Fire Authority. At 25-years-old, he is relatively young for politics, and with little funding or name recognition outside of his home town he seems an unlikely victor. But he sees himself as the more moderate candidate who appeals to voters across the political spectrum by offering real solutions to the problems they care most about. He was interviewed in downtown Huntington Beach recently by the OC Voice. The following questions and answers are excerpts from that interview. For more information about Dan Kalmick go to his web site: www.kalmick2008.com.

The other two Democratic Primary candidates withdrew and supported you and you all said that Debbie Cook would be too liberal and to divisive [to win].

Right.

How are you less divisive than her?

Debbie Cook has a history of environmental activism. I don’t think Republicans and moderate decline-to-states are going to vote for her. She has a history of [putting] the environment over people. And in this district, 20,000 Republicans have to step across and vote for a Democrat [to win]. Read the full story

Or Joe & Cathy’s Ungodly Patriotism

By John Earl
OC Voice Editor

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Congratulations, you guys down there,” Bakersfield City Councilmember, Jacquie Sullivan, said over the phone when reached by the OC Voice.

She must have been smiling from ear to ear, just like Jan Crouch on Trinity Broadcasting Network, when she rejoiced, in her bouncy Bakersfield country-style voice, “I just heard about it, that’s very exciting news.”

Sullivan is the founder of In God We Trust – America Inc., a non profit 503c3 organization formed in 2002 “To promote patriotism by encouraging elected city officials to display our national motto ‘In God We Trust’ in every city hall in America.”

She was talking about the April 7 vote by the Huntington Beach City Council to make “In God We Trust” the city’s new motto to be hung in the council chambers.

The council debate preceding the vote was a sectarian skirmish, ill-timed for Mayor Debbie Cook, a democrat, who wants to replace republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher next November to represent the 46^th Congressional District,* where God and country are a normal part of political discourse and decision making.

In 2002, during her first one-year term as mayor (councilmembers rotate yearly to fill the position), Cook respected God and Country by keeping the two separate, as many believe that America’s most authoritative guide to law and order-the U.S. Constitution-requires elected officials to do-by not holding city sanctioned invocations.

Since starting her current term as mayor, however, Cook has followed tradition and the invocation is part of the city council’s official routine.

Cook, who told the Voice in a March interview that “I don’t talk about religion,” bristled when asked then if her change of heart had anything to do with her campaign for congress. “No! The Constitution has a prohibition against religious tests…So what was the next question you’re asking me,” she snapped.
Read the full story

Isn’t $250,000 Enough?

By John Earl
OC Voice Editor

As a candidate for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed “I don’t need to take any [campaign contribution] money from anybody else; I have plenty of money myself.”

And he warned that, “Any of those kinds of real, big, powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something.”

Five years later, Governor Schwarzenegger has collected over $124 million in campaign contributions from special interest groups, the largest chunk, over $20 million, coming from real estate, development and construction concerns, according to ArnoldWatch.org. And critics say he has served the needs of corporations over the needs of the people.

While cynics, who lament the loss of “one person one vote” to “one dollar one vote,” created by corporate donors and PACS, and call for public financing of campaigns as a solution, Huntington Beach Councilmember Don Hansen and some of his colleague’s think they have a better idea: allow unlimited individual campaign contributions to city council candidates.

Last August, Hansen proposed increasing the current $300 limit to $500 retroactively, but removed the latter when skeptics objected that past limit violations could be covered up. A subcommittee was then formed to study the overall issue of campaign regulation reform and to make recommendations to the city council at a later date, which it did at a March 17 study session.

Hansen chaired the committee and councilmembers Cathy Green and Jill Hardy joined him along with several H.B. residents. The committee met 5 times and reviewed campaign regulations for 7 other Orange County cities and the State.

Two main issues remain unsettled: spending limits and whether to redact personal address information from electronic (Internet) filings of candidates’ financial contribution updates. Read the full story