OC oil spill spotlights key state failures
After a massive crude oil spill off the coast of Orange County on October 1, various state and federal agencies have convened panels to analyze what transpired and come up with policies that prevent similar disasters in the future. Unfortunately, the state generally is more proficient at holding hearings than implementing useful solutions.
The state Assembly held a special oversight committee hearing in Costa Mesa on Monday to examine spill prevention efforts. These are useful exercises for providing the public with information given the troubling ecological and economic impact of such spills, but the hearing veered into predictable ideological rabbit holes.
“I do want to express my extreme disappointment in Amplify Energy’s refusal to participate in today’s hearing,” Assemblywoman Cottie PetrieNorris, D-Laguna Beach, said at the hearing. An Amplify subsidiary operated the oil platform connected to the ruptured underwater pipeline.
While Petrie-Norris argued that Amplify’s absence signaled that it doesn’t care about — or has something to hide — about the spill, the company’s response was more than reasonable. The company is facing multiple investigations and lawsuits, and is instead working “within the Unified Command as the response continues to wind down.”
Various lawmakers have taken their usual tack and used the disaster to argue for a ban on drilling off the coast. Some members of Congress have called for an end to new oil exploration efforts in federal waters, while others are seeking the shutdown of all offshore oil drilling.
Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, told the VoiceofOC that he will introduce legislation to that effect. Gov. Gavin Newsom last month attended a press conference that called for the end of coastal oil exploration. Yet putting the kibosh on drilling will only drive up the state’s soaring gasoline prices, and there are more intermediate options available. The state should focus less on posturing and more on common sense approaches.
For instance, few lawmakers talked about the likely cause of the recent spill. “U.S. Coast Guard officials have said they believe a ship’s anchor may have caught and dragged a pipeline connected to an offshore oil platform,” according to the Orange County Register.
That ties into the supply chain problems at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where a shipping bottleneck has caused as many as 111 container vessels to idle off the coast, sending them into areas where they normally wouldn’t anchor.
State and local responses to the spill have been less than stellar. Petrie-Norris wondered about the “protracted delay” between initial reports and any official response, and why sheriff’s officials waited until the next morning. “It seems mindboggling in a world where we’ve got people flying to Mars that we’re unable to inspect a reported oil spill in the dark,” the assemblywoman added.
By happenstance, the city of Huntington Beach had stockpiles of cleanup equipment, but VoiceofOC reported that the city’s mayor, Kim Carr, “raised questions over the communication gaps and conflicting information her city received from the U.S. Coast Guard in the early days of the spill.”
In other words, state and federal agencies reacted slowly and bureaucratically. Instead of embracing unnecessary and economically disruptive policies, California needs to admit that its current failures exacerbated this spill. And the governor should spend more time dealing with the port crisis than attending press conferences calling for the end of offshore drilling.