By Timm Herdt
April 7, 2010
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/apr/07/conservationists-oil-company-reach-agreement-on/

VENTURA — Longtime foes of offshore oil drilling who believe they have found a way to permanently end oil development off the Santa Barbara coast released their new formula for doing that on Wednesday — by lending their continued support to a new drilling proposal.

Backed by Rep. Lois Capps, Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and other political leaders, the Environmental Defense Center publicly released an amended agreement with the Texas-based Plains Exploration & Development Co. that gives the blessing of local environmental groups to the oil company’s plan to drill new wells into state oil reserves at Tranquillon Ridge.

The document is a reprise of a similar 2008 agreement and is intended to address objections that led the State Lands Commission to reject the project in 2009.

One big change is the agreement was posted on the EDC’s Web site on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after it had been signed by the environmental parties and PXP officials. Language of the previous agreement had been kept secret from the public and state regulators.

In addition, the new agreement expressly gives the California attorney general and the Lands Commission specific authority to take PXP to court to enforce its terms.

All of the terms are dependent upon the Lands Commission granting PXP a permit to drill what would be the first new wells in state waters since the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The wells would be drilled from an existing PXP platform in federal waters.

If that permit is granted, PXP would agree to abandon three of the platforms it owns off Santa Barbara County within nine years and a fourth within 14 years. In addition, it would dismantle onshore processing equipment and donate nearly 4,000 acres to a public land trust.

“The beauty of this plan is the endpoint” said Capps, D-Santa Barbara, at an announcement ceremony held on a coastal bluff at Shoreline Park in Santa Barbara, with oil platforms visible in the distance. “In tomorrow’s world, they are not part of the horizon.”

PXP officials said their hope is to get a new hearing before the Lands Commission this year, but they have not yet decided when to resubmit their application for rehearing. Spokesman Scott Winters said in an e-mail that the proposal will continue to include an offer to pay the state $100 million in royalty advances “before oil production has even commenced.”

The new agreement did nothing to blunt the objections of the project’s most vocal critic, Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara.

“It’s the same old tired stuff we’ve seen before,” Nava said.
Nava praised the decision to publicly disclose the agreement, but said “not much has been changed.”

He said he remains unconvinced that PXP’s promises to eventually shut down the platforms are enforceable and the new language “merely repeats in a different way what the attorney general had the power to do anyway.”

EDC attorney Linda Krop said the timing of the agreement is significant because it comes just days after President Barack Obama announced he would not allow additional offshore drilling in federal waters off California until at least 2017.

The announcement and new agreement combine to ensure there will be no new drilling and that much of the existing drilling will be on its way out, she said.

With PXP’s platforms abandoned and onshore processing facilities dismantled, Krop said it will be “very unlikely” that new drilling would be economically viable.

Nava said he fears if the PXP project were to be approved it could open the door to new drilling in state waters, areas less than three miles off the coast.

“Santa Barbara will be the only place on the Western seaboard that has endorsed new drilling in state waters,” he said. “Why do we want that distinction? There will be a vigorous push to open up state lands to new drilling from onshore wells, and the PXP example is going to be used as a model.”

Under the agreement, PXP agrees to pursue a permit only through the Lands Commission, following established state policies. Last year, it worked with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote proposed legislation that would have allowed the project to proceed without Lands Commission approval.

“We made sure PXP agreed this plan would have to go through the Lands Commission, and none of this other funny stuff,” said former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, who is working with the EDC to promote the agreement.

The Lands Commission rejected the proposal on a 2-1 vote, with one of the no votes cast by former Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who left the office this year after being elected to Congress.

If a new vote is taken, the position taken by Garamendi’s replacement will be critical. Schwarzenegger has nominated Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, but the nomination has not yet been confirmed by the Legislature.

In confirmation hearings in February, Maldonado said he could not support the project because he was not convinced the agreement guaranteed the dismantling of platforms. Nava said lawmakers should reopen confirmation hearings so that Maldonado can be questioned about his views on the new agreement.