Nearly 40 years after a disastrous oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast galvanized the nation and gave birth to the modern environmental movement, the county Board of Supervisors is poised to vote today in support of offshore drilling.
Proponents of the measure argue that America cannot turn away from a homegrown energy source at a time when the country is dangerously dependent on foreign oil and technology has made offshore oil drilling safer than ever.
Opponents, however, deride today's scheduled vote asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to change state policy and "allow expanded oil exploration and extraction in the Santa Barbara County region" as an exercise in polls, politics and posturing.
The vote is largely symbolic -- the supervisors have no power to approve new offshore drilling, and Schwarzenegger has already come out against it. But it underscores both the issue's volatility and this coastal county's changing profile.
With gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon and a presidential election in the offing, even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama in recent weeks have cautiously embraced the possibility of offshore drilling.
The vote is as much about the tension between inland and coast as it is about the price of a barrel of crude, which peaked at nearly $150 in July. Population and political power have been shifting away from the more liberal southern waterfront region, and the Board of Supervisors has a conservative, pro-industry majority for the first time in about a decade.
The result: An expected 3-2 vote to support increased oil drilling off the same beaches that were covered with the corpses of birds, seals and dolphins after more than 3 million gallons of crude oil leaked from an offshore drilling site in 1969.
Supervisor Brooks Firestone co-wrote today's measure to voice support for offshore drilling. Just a year ago, however, he voted with the board majority in support of a federal moratorium on such drilling.
Back then, he said in an interview Monday, "we didn't need the revenues. Property values were such that we were paying our own bills. We didn't need the jobs. Employment was very sound. But the threat to the tourist industry, if we were going to have sticky beaches, that would be a disaster."
Firestone has since changed his mind, he said, because "technology has preempted that last argument. We do need the jobs. We do need the money. We do need the oil."
