Oil drilling off California coast approved by House panel [View all]

[tabatha]

A GOP-led House committee has approved bills that open the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve to oil drilling, encourage oil shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and push new oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast.

Republicans say the measures provide energy security and a source of revenue to help pay for roads and bridges, but it was the offshore oil lease sales that sparked the most spirited debate. Any discussion of offshore oil drilling among Californians revolves around the 1969 spill off the Santa Barbara coast that dumped 200,000 gallons of crude across 35 miles of coastline.

Democratic Congressman John Garamendi of Walnut Creek referred to it as he offered objection after objection and amendment after amendment to stall the offshore drilling bill. "There is the probability of oil spills, small and on occasion large, when you drill from the ocean," he said.

But Republican Congressman Tom McClintock, who grew up near Santa Barbara, told fellow members of the House Natural Resources Committee that oil spills in California have been happening for centuries. "It goes back to 1542 when Cabrillo sailed up the coast of California and recorded a massive oil spill off of Ventura, Santa Barbara. It was natural spillage that was seeping up into the ocean. Carpenteria nearby got its name because the Chumach Indians used the huge tar deposits that washed up on the beaches to caulk their canoes."

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/02/01/31070/california-democrats-try-stall-oil-drilling-bills/