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Yahoo!YES by Linda Krop, an environmental attorney living in Santa Barbara.
Proposition 87, or the Clean Alternative Energy Act, will appear on your ballot on November 7. This proposition seeks to raise funds for clean energy research and development by assessing the oil industry a fee for the privilege of extracting oil from within the State of California. This fee would be similar to those imposed by the federal government and other states, such as Texas, Alaska, and Oklahoma.
California is the only major oil-producing state in the country that does not impose a comparable fee on oil produced from its wells. Prop. 87 would level the playing field with other states and ensure that Californians receive their fair share from those profiting off this public resource.
Prop. 87 is expected to raise approximately $4 billion during the next 10 years. These funds will be used to expand our use of cleaner energy alternatives and reduce California’s dependence on gasoline and diesel by 25 percent. Specifically, the fees generated by Prop. 87 will fund consumer rebates for the purchase of alternative fuel vehicles; provide incentives for increased use of wind, solar, and other renewable energies; assist with the development of alternative technologies and infrastructure; provide funds to help local governments upgrade public vehicle fleets; and fund research in support of alternative energy development. By reducing oil consumption, Prop. 87 will reduce pollution that causes global warming and threatens public health. California’s air quality is the second worst in the nation. Pollution from cars, trucks, and buses that run on gas and diesel is responsible for asthma, lung disease, and cancer.
Prop. 87 will also create thousands of new jobs in the clean technology sector and spur California’s economic growth. A study by economists at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy estimates that Prop. 87 will help create new industries, technologies, and tens of thousands of good paying jobs in California.
These advances will be funded by oil drilling fees imposed on oil companies, not consumers. The California Attorney General has confirmed that Prop. 87 makes it illegal for oil companies to raise gas prices to pass along the cost to consumers. Clearly, the oil industry can afford this fee. The oil companies that oppose Prop. 87 made a combined $78 billion in profits last year alone, and $20.5 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Those of us who reside and work in Santa Barbara County are well aware of the impacts caused by our continued reliance on oil and gas for energy. Oil and gas development contributes to our local air pollution, degrades water quality as a result of platform discharges and oil spills, threatens wildlife, interferes with our commercial fishing economy, and imposes a visual blight on our scenic coastline. The oil industry hopes to increase, not reduce, oil development in our area. Venoco, Carone, and Plains Resources propose new oil and gas development offshore Point Arguello, Carpinteria, and Ellwood. At the same time, BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, wants to build a massive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal off the coast of Ventura County.
Californians know better. Now is not the time to increase our dependence on finite fossil fuels such as oil and gas. Now is the time to make clean choices for our energy future and to build an economy on 21st century energy technology. We must do everything in our power to support clean, renewable alternatives that will protect our health, our environment, and future generations.
Prop. 87 is supported by the American Lung Association of California; the Coalition for Clean Air; the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; Nobel Prize-winning scientists; university researchers; and environmental, consumer, local, governmental, and public health organizations. For a full listing of Yes on 87 endorsements and supporters, visit YesOnCleanEnergy.com.
NO by Robert Bakhaus, longtime Santa Barbara resident and Libertarian philosopher.
In the 18th century, a popular injustice was taxing those who disagreed with you in order to subsidize your own “enlightened” view. The Anglican Church of England did it to the Puritans, many of whom fled to America in order to do it to the Anabaptists and Quakers, and so on. Fortunately, today we believe in freedom of thought and don’t persecute dissenters — or do we?
When the late, great philosopher Ayn Rand published her essay “America’s Most Persecuted Minority: Big Business” in 1967, she could have been talking about today’s politically correct persecution of big oil. On our November ballot, Prop. 87 asks us to stick it to the oil industry with yet another tax, this time to subsidize “alternative energy.” Consumers angered by the recent jumps in gas prices might very well be tempted to shoot themselves in the foot by punishing the oil industry with a tax to be spent on “alternative energy” competitors. Take that, big oil!
Such simplemindedness does not take into account that almost 50 cents of each gallon is currently the cost of direct taxes alone. An 18.4 cent federal tax added to the average state’s 21 cents in taxes is then added to almost 9 cents in local taxes — or more, if Measure D or Prop. 87 passes.
As for the indirect taxes: Ouch! Those are the taxes hidden in the cost of doing business, extorted from oil companies on every conceivable pretext: OPEC monopoly pricing and domestic wellhead taxes, union-imposed regulations requiring American bottoms for shipping crude along the coast, pipeline taxes, and refinery taxes, to name just a few.
In such a risky business with so many volatile variables and so much political persecution, it’s a wonder big oil bothers to sell in this country. Foreign markets pay much more than America does. Not long ago, in 1998, the price for gasoline in the U.S. dipped below a dollar; in Europe’s cheapest market (Greece), it is $4.32 a gallon.
While oil company profits averaged 7.7 percent in 2005 — less than most other industries — governments make an undeserved killing with their taxes. With government making far more money than the oil industry, if people had justice in mind, they’d advocate rolling back the government’s obscene windfall profits from every rise in gas prices. But we hear nary a peep suggesting government be compassionate and roll back taxes. All we hear are calls for higher gas taxes to punish oil usage; the only voices heard scream, “Investigate the price-gouging oil industry!”
Unfortunately, America has not progressed much farther than our theocratic ancestors who persecuted heathens and barbarians at every turn, acting for “the greater good.” We’ve still got to save souls, even if it kills them. Only now, we’re persecuting “soulless corporations” by libeling Shell, Texaco, and Gulf Oil for corporate greed while ignoring their governmental tormentors’ bottomless gluttony.
Double-clicking on any word or phrase in this story will open a reference window with definitions and links to other reference material.
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Posted by petersterling
'Buy America Energy' should be our focus for the future. We could have $2.50 gasoline from our own local supplies.
The world oil shortage is political, not geological.
In the U.S., the government prohibits drilling offshore, effectively blockading American companies from supplying oil to Americans so that foreigners can make obscene profits from our energy stupidity.
Half the home sales in Santa Barbara are foreclosures because we are sending all our money overseas for foreign oil, when it could be staying here for safe American oil and local jobs.
The entire economy and our communities are facing collapse because of the irrational ongoing attack on American Energy.
If the much maligned oil companies went on strike, within a month half the population would be dead;
Our entire modern society is build on fossil fuels.
Without hydrocarbons fuel you would soon be walking. You couldn't be driving cars, and it wouldn't do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn't be able to get there, as they would be walking too.
The food distribution system would quickly grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline due to lack of electricity,
Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own food assets and those we could reach by walking to them.
Without hydrocarbons fuel people in hospitals would be dying faster, because they depend on electrical power and natural gas for warming to stay alive. But then stoppages would soon include water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving.
FACT; There is between 2-3 billion barrels of proven-probable barrels of oil within 20 miles of the Santa Barbara County shores alone.
FACT; This could produce 300,000 to 500,000 barrels a day for 10-20 years, replacing more than half of California's oil imports, while generating billions in County, State and federal royalties, and make the County the wealthiest in the nation.
Or the County can continue to suffer 6,000 tons per year or airborne pollution from natural oil-gas seeps and not get a nickel in revenues or health benefits and continue bankrolling our enemies.
Change is urgently needed, or the American economy will soon disintegrate.
The OPEC-Russia-chavez oil cartel is not just looting the United States, but the whole world, and will accumulate over $1.5 trillion in net profits this year. At their current rate of take, OPEC-Russia will acquire enough cash to buy majority control of every leading company in the United States within six years. And you are voting into power the very American-energy-traitors who are doing this to you and your country.
Put American's Energy Supplies First:
petersterling (anonymous profile)
August 22, 2008 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Unlike MTBE, little is known about the impacts of ethanol releases into groundwater or the environment. However, because ethanol is the primary ingredient of beverage alcohol, which is classified by the California Proposition 65 Committee and other cancer experts as a human carcinogen, many are concerned about the possibility that ethanol may pose a cancer risk. Additionally, independent researchers have determined that ethanol in groundwater can extend plumes of other more potent gasoline carcinogens (benzene, toluene, etc.) up to 25%. In addition, ethanol is less effective than MTBE at fighting air pollution, and due to transportation and supply problems, will likely increase gasoline prices."
Stella Sez, Hemmings Motor News, July 2000
http://clubs.hemmings.com/clubsites/c...
CharliePeters (anonymous profile)
December 29, 2008 at 5:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)