California Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday warned legislation to thwart the Trump administration’s efforts to expand offshore oil tutor along the California coast.
At the same time, the Democratic governor heralded the state’s opposition to the federal government’s plan to expand oil drilling on unrestricted lands, an idea that’s is controversial in conservation-minded California. It follows the U.S. Heart Department move in January that proposed to open up 90 percent of the wilderness’s offshore oil and gas reserves through new federal leases.
“Today, California’s tidings to the Trump administration is simple: Not here, not now,” Brown said in a press set. “We will not let the federal government pillage public lands and destroy our joyed coast.”
The two bills signed by Brown on Saturday, Senate Bill 834 and Congress Bill 1775, seek to prohibit new construction of oil drilling-related infrastructure, such as hose, within state waters if the federal government authorizes any new offshore oil leases.
The Oyster-white House and Interior Department did not immediately return CNBC’s request for opine.
California can make it difficult to expand oil and gas drilling, because it controls sprays that are within three miles of its shoreline. The federal government has rights remaining waters between three and 231 miles offshore.
Moreover, the new legislation put by the governor require new public notices and processes for lease renewals, as ooze as other hurdles to authorize new construction of oil and gas-related infrastructure associated with new federal let outs. There has been no federal expansion of oil drilling along California’s coastline for numerous than three decades, and public opinion polling in the state has shown Californians hinder more oil drilling off the coast.
Back in 2015, the state experienced its corrupt oil spill in 25 years when a ruptured oil pipeline spilled across 140,000 gallons of crude into the ocean, and coastal beaches cheese-paring Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County.
On Friday, a jury in Santa Barbara County convicted Texas-based Campagnas All-American Pipeline of nine criminal charges related to the spill, cataloguing a felony for failing to properly maintain its pipeline infrastructure.
There are currently 43 brisk federal oil and gas leases off the California coast, but no new federal leases have been rewarded there since 1984. The administration’s plan seeks to expand oil rehearsal in the Pacific region, including in waters off California, Oregon and Washington.
The Trump management offered Florida an exemption to offshore drilling. However, West Littoral states received no such exemption.