Oil spill renews calls to ban offshore drilling

SACRAMENTO » California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that sparked the modern environmental movement, and the latest spill off Huntington Beach is prompting fresh calls for an end to such drilling.

That’s easier said than done, even in California. While the state hasn’t issued a new lease in state water in five decades, drilling from existing platforms continues. Similarly, an effort in Congress that aims to halt new drilling in federal waters — more than 3 miles off the coast — wouldn’t stop drilling that’s already happening.

Speaking from Huntington Beach on Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged it’s easier to resist new drilling than to wind down what already exists. “Banning new drilling

not complicated,” he said. “The deeper question is how do you transition and still protect the workforce?”

Today, there are 19 oil and gas agreements in California’s coastal waters and 1,200 active wells. In federal waters, there are 23 oil and gas production facilities off the state’s coast.

A pipeline connected to one of those platforms in federal waters, run by Houston-based Amplify Energy, has spilled up to 126,000 gallons of heavy crude into the ocean.

Newsom said there is now a new sense of urgency to curb oil production, including by issuing more permits for well abandonment.

“It’s time, once and for all, to disabuse ourselves that this has to be part of our future. This is part of our past,” he said alongside other elected officials.

California remains the nation’s seventh-largest oil producing state. The industry employs more than 150,000 people and the state makes money from oil and gas leases.