[CRNMC] Oil Lobby sets new spending record in Sacramento

[Community Rights Network]

Western States Petroleum Association spent $6.1 million in 3 months

 by Dan Bacher

 The new numbers for the amount of money spent on lobbying in Sacramento in
the first three months of 2014 just came in from the Secretary of State's
Office and guess who finished first?

 Yes, holding fast to number one is that august body of environmental
stewardship known as the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA),
"making sure lawmakers don't forget about the Big Oil little guy,"
according to Stop Fooling California. (http://www.stopfoolingca.org)

 The Western States Petroleum Association, the most powerful corporate
lobbying group in Sacramento, spent $6.1 million in just 3 months.
Amazingly, this is more money than the association has spent in any one
year over the past five years!

 The organization spent $5,331,493 in 2009, $4,013,813 in 2010, $4,273,664
in 2011, $5,698,917 in 2012 and $4,670,010 in 2013.

 In spite of all of this money spent, a bill imposing a moratorium on
fracking and acidizing for oil extraction in California passed through the
Senate Environmental Quality Committee on April 30 by a 5 to 2 vote.
Senators Mark Leno, Jerry Hill, Loni Hancock, Hannah-Beth Jackson and Fran
Pavley voted for Senate Bill 1132, while Senators Ted Gaines and Jean
Fuller voted against it.

 Authored by Senators Holly Mitchell and Mark Leno, SB 1132 would require
the Natural Resources Agency to facilitate an "independent scientific
study" on well stimulation treatments (fracking and acidizing) and their
hazards and risks to natural resources and public, occupational, and
environmental health and safety by January 1, 2015.

 “People must come before profits,” said Senator Mitchell after the vote.
“My community needs jobs, but those jobs need to be safe for workers and
surrounding communities.”

 Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum
Association and former Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA)
Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called "marine protected
areas" in Southern California, wasn't very happy with the results of the
Committee vote, especially after her organization spent $6.1 million
lobbying at the Capitol over the past three months. You can bet that her
association and the oil companies will spend many millions more attempting
to defeat this bill in the Legislature in coming months.

 In her blog on the WSPA website (
http://www.wspa.org/blog/post/where-and-whom-we-stand-sb-1132), Reheis-Boyd
stated:

 *"The passage of Senate Bill 1132 from the Senate’s Environmental Quality
Committee is neither a surprise nor an indication that this poorly written
legislation is gaining support. *

 *While the theater of SB 1132 plays out in Sacramento, SB 4 is already the
law of the land throughout California. Last year, Governor Brown signed
into law regulations that received strong bipartisan support in the
Assembly and Senate. Many of those 'rallying' around SB 1132 voted for SB
4, the strongest and most stringent regulation on hydraulic fracturing in
the country. *

 *Anti-oil activists are attempting to push hydraulic fracturing
moratoriums in Sacramento and in local governments throughout the state – a
strategy that just suffered a major setback. Their tactics include
spreading misinformation about water use, chemicals, industry transparency,
and jobs. *

 *Shockingly, the anti-oil camp’s attacks on oil production reached new
lows last week when several of the leading anti-oil groups took aim at
petroleum industry workers when they dismissed as unwanted and unworthy the
hundreds of thousands of jobs our industry supports. This disappointing
tactic was summed up in the headline of a recent letter to the Los Angeles
Times: 'Some jobs aren’t worth it.' *

 *Of course the petroleum industry cares about California’s environment and
water supply. This is why we believe SB 4 provides important and necessary
oversight. Hydraulic fracturing is not just a new industry fad that was
concocted for the sole purpose of harming humanity. The reality is quite
the opposite. Lost in the hysteria is the historic fact that hydraulic
fracturing has been employed in California for nearly six decades without
environmental incident or hazard. It is why the United States is
experiencing a welcome and rewarding energy renaissance that is benefiting
consumers nationwide and dramatically improving our nation’s energy
security."  *

 Yes, Reheis-Boyd and her industry really "care" about California's
environment and water supply. That's why she and her cohorts on the MLPA
Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force made sure that the questionable "marine
protected areas" created in Southern California under her "leadership" fail
to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution, corporate
aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than
fishing and gathering. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp)

 Reheis-Boyd, state officials and MLPA advocates ensured that these alleged
"marine protected areas" were good for big oil and ocean industrialists -
and bad for fishermen, tribal gatherers and the public trust.

 In one of the biggest conflicts of interest in recent California history,
Reheis-Boyd also "served" on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces to create
so-called "marine protected areas" on the North Coast, North Central Coast
and Central Coast. She also currently sits on a federal "marine protected
areas" panel.

 As she was serving on these panels, the oil industry was engaging in a
frenzy of environmentally destructive fracking operations off the Southern
California coast, as revealed in an Associated Press and Freedom of
Information Act investigation last year.

 The process that Reheis-Boyd oversaw created "state marine reserves" that
violate the traditional gathering rights of the Yurok Tribe and other
California Indian Tribes to harvest seaweed, mussels and fish, as they have
done for thousands of years. In addition, the privately funded process
rejected numerous requests by Yurok Tribe scientists and lawyers to present
scientific studies that countered the terminally flawed and incomplete
"science," based on flawed assumptions. (
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2011/07/15/lop_yurok_6-29_11.pdf)

 As Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribe member and Coastal Justice Coalition
organizer, said before a direct action protest against the MLPA Initiative
in Fort Bragg in July 2010, “The whole process is inherently flawed by
institutionalized racism. It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political
entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.” (
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/24/18654645.php)

 More recently, the industry that Reheis-Boyd says "cares about
California's environment and water supply" was engaged in over 100
violations of California’s new public disclosure rules for fracking and
other dangerous oil production methods. The violations were uncovered by a
Center for Biological Diversity analysis of records from the state, the oil
industry and South Coast air quality regulators.

 In a letter to Governor Jerry Brown, the Center pointed out that state
regulators with the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources have
failed to disclose legally mandated reports for 47 frack jobs and notices
for more than 100 uses of other risky oil production techniques.

 “This lack of disclosure underscores the failure of current regulations
and the need for strong action that will protect public health and safety
and the environment,” the letter says.

 “Californians are in the dark about dangerous fracking in their
communities because Gov. Brown’s oil regulators won’t follow their own
minimal notification rules,” said Center attorney Hollin Kretzmann in a
statement. “These regulatory failures are another reminder of the urgent
need to halt fracking to protect our air and water from contamination. Gov.
Brown must recognize that halting fracking and the other dangerous well
stimulation methods is the only way to protect Californians."

 The problems revealed by the Center’s analysis include the following:

 • Missing Fracking Reports: At least 47 frack jobs conducted in Southern
California in January and February do not have a well stimulation report on
DOGGR’s website, despite a requirement that such documents be posted 60
days after the fracking event.

 • Late posting: Dozens of other fracking reports were posted late — and
only after the Center informed state officials of the unlawful delay.

 • Missing chemical data - Other fracking reports are missing critical
information, including the chemical composition of fracking waste fluid and
where this fluid was disposed of. A Kern County oil company was recently
fined for disposing of such fracking wastewater in an unlined pit.

 • Missing Acidizing Notices: The state’s website does not show notices for
57 uses of acidization in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Acidizing uses
high quantities of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids in combination with
other harmful chemicals to dissolve oil-bearing formations underground.

 • Missing Gravel Packing Notices: Gravel packing, a well stimulation
method that uses dangerous chemicals, has occurred in Orange and Los
Angeles counties approximately 51 times so far this year, according to the
South Coast Air Quality Management District. Yet state oil regulators have
not posted a notice of a single instance of gravel packing from anywhere in
the state, despite regulations requiring such notification.

 A recent Center report also found that fracking, acidizing and gravel
packing operations employed 12 dangerous “air toxic” chemicals hundreds of
times in the Los Angeles Basin over a period of a few months.

 For more information, go to:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/fracking-04-30-2014.html


 If the petroleum industry really "cares about California’s environment and
water supply" like Reheis-Boyd claims it does, why did the industry engage
in 100 violations of California’s new public disclosure rules for fracking
and other dangerous oil production methods, as documented in the Center for
Biological Diversity's report?

 You can bet that Reheis-Boyd's group and Big Oil will continue to spend
millions this year to defeat Senate Bill 1132 and any other bill that
challenges their plan to frack California. A ground breaking report
released on April 1, 2014 by the ACCE Institute and Common Cause reveals
that Big Oil spent $123.6 million to lobby elected officials in California
over the past 15 years, an increase of over 400 percent since the 1999-2000
legislative session, when the industry spent $4.8 million.

 The report also examines historical campaign contributions by the largest
firms in the oil and gas industry. Over the last fifteen years, Big Oil has
spent $143.3 million on political candidates and campaigns – nearly $10
million per year and more than any other corporate lobby. (
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/14/how-big-oil-bought-sacramento/)

 When combined, Big Oil's lobbying spending and campaign spending in
Sacramento amounts to $266.9 million over 15 years.

 Yet this is mere pocket change, the "cost of doing business" for the oil
industry, since the industry makes many billions of dollars in profits
every year as gas prices soar for consumers at the pumps. The oil industry
has made over $31 billion in profits in 2014 to date. (
http://www.stopfoolingca.org/)

 Take Action Now!

 As the oil industry plans the expansion of fracking under Senate Bill 4
and gas prices soar at the pumps to boost oil industry profits, Governor
Jerry Brown is fast tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to
build the peripheral tunnels. The proposed tunnels would divert Sacramento
River water for use by corporate agribusiness interests, Southern
California water agencies and oil companies expanding fracking and steam
injection operations.

 The construction of the twin tunnels would hasten the extinction of
Central Valley salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other
fish species, as well as imperil salmon and steelhead populations on the
Trinity and Klamath rivers. The tunnels would not create one single drop of
new water - and would do nothing to alleviate the current drought if they
were in place right now.

 On March 4, Restore the Delta and Food and Water Watch revealed that much
of the area that the oil industry could frack for oil and natural gas in
California is located in and near toxic, drainage-impaired land farmed by
corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley. (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/05/18751984.php)

 To sign a petition urging Governor Jerry Brown to ban fracking in
California, go to the Food and Water Watch action alert:
https://secure3.convio.net/fww/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=193
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