California board urges no new oil drilling offshore

The California State Lands Commission voted 2-0 to urge the state legislature to reject Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to allow the state’s first offshore oil drilling lease since 1969.

Mr Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance is expected to introduce a bill to the legislature in the next few weeks to allow the lease for Plains Exploration & Production, an independent oil and natural gas producer based in Houston.

This would reverse a Lands Commission vote in late January to reject essentially the same proposal for the PXP project.

Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, commission chairman, called Mr Schwarzenegger’s proposal a “naked power grab”.

The Plains proposal would also call for the end of production at four platforms off Santa Barbara in state waters in 14 years as well as the elimination of two onshore oil processing plants. Oil platforms in federal waters would not be affected.

Reuters