It's been nearly 40 years since an offshore oil well malfunctioned, polluting beaches in and around Santa Barbara, a playground for the rich and famous. But the images of oil-coated birds and other effects of the spill have continued to make expansion of oil drilling off the coast a political third rail that any office-seeker avoids.
So, it was not surprising that when President Bush called for lifting the federal ban on offshore oil drilling in July, California politicians from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down quickly denounced the action, even though the governor's endorsed candidate for president, John McCain, also supports marine oil development.
A funny thing has been happening among nonpolitical Californians, however. Facing historically high gasoline prices, they are warming up to importing less oil from the Middle East and capturing more from domestic sources, including deposits that can be reached only by wells off California's 1,100-mile-long coastline.
The latest confirmation of that shift is chronicled in a new statewide poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, which found that a slim majority now supports offshore oil, up sharply from the 39 percent support measured in 2003 in the first PPIC poll on the issue.
This rise comes even as Bush's approval ratings continue to slide and Barack Obama, who's opposed to offshore oil, enjoys a strong lead over McCain in the state.
To make the new political equation on energy even more interesting, support for nuclear energy appears to be rising, not quite to the halfway mark yet, but definitely higher than in the past. Opposition to new nuclear reactors had been another hallmark of California's energy politics, but it now appears to be fading.
The PPIC poll results mirror what's happening in other coastal states – most notably, Florida – on the offshore oil drilling issue, as well as the whole nation. What was once a political no-no is gaining political acceptance as an alternative to continued dependence on foreign oil.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans favor more offshore oil production, thus bolstering Republican demands in Congress to lift the federal ban. In a Rasmussen poll of Florida voters released last week, 57 percent favored offshore drilling.
Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, praised by Schwarzenegger as a co-warrior on global warming and other environmental issues, is now supporting more offshore development.
Few of us may actually like seeing oil platforms off the California coast. And as with any human activity, there is a certain risk attached to offshore production.
At the same time, however, it's a little hypocritical for California to continue consuming more than a billion gallons of gasoline a month while placing potentially large pools of oil off-limits to exploration, thereby exporting those negative impacts to some other locale.
Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.
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