Double Standards Are No Standards At All
Double Standards Are No Standards At All
by Andy Caldwell
Santa Barbara County and local environmental organizations are doing everything they can to prevent Exxon from restarting a pipeline that would allow them to transport oil produced from offshore wells. As a way of background, the reason the pipeline is not in use currently has to do with the fact that the previous owner of the pipeline suffered a rupture around 7 years ago on land. Nevertheless, the spill made its way to the ocean and the company was prosecuted for the mishap due to environmental impacts of the same. Exxon was forced to shut down production and another oil company went bankrupt because this pipeline, through no fault of these oil companies, sprang a leak. Subsequently, Exxon bought the pipeline and now wants to resume operations, but all the agencies involved are dragging their feet in the permitting process.
Meanwhile, the owners of the Lompoc wind energy facility forgot to get a permit that would allow them to kill eagles once they start operating. I found it interesting that the US Fish and Wildlife Service sprang to the aid of this project in helping them obtain a determination that a permit would be coming forthwith allowing the plant to begin operation. A local reporter wrote that “extenuating circumstances” prompted the federal agency to expedite its permit process.
Sad thing is that nobody, I mean nobody, in local, state, or federal government looked at the “extenuating circumstances” that caused nearly all offshore oil production in our region to come to a grinding halt even though the pipeline break was beyond their control. Hundreds of jobs were lost while our local economy suffered tens of millions of dollars in lost wages and taxes.
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom is trying to sue the remaining domestic oil companies in the state for having contributed to climate change while California is importing more and more oil from the Middle East and South America with nary a concern for the environmental impacts arising from these foreign sources.
Now the Biden administration has allocated some $10 billion to capture carbon from industrial facilities and transport it by way of pipelines to store it underground. These pipelines, cumulatively some 65,000 miles long, would be four feet wide and buried 30 feet underground as reported by Janet Levy in American Thinker. This, despite the fact there has been numerous leaks and one pipeline explosion resulting in dozens of injuries that required evacuations and hospitalizations. Moreover, no long-term studies have been completed on the effects and risks associated with transporting and storing some 70 million tons of CO2 annually.
So, we have dozens of companies that want to move CO2 across the country via pipelines to store it underground, yet when So Cal Gas had a problem with their underground storage of natural gas that resulted in injuries, the Center for Biological Diversity criticized then Governor Brown "because state regulators' hands-off approach to underground injection helped set the stage for this catastrophe”.
According to a coalition that has formed against these CO2 pipelines, a CO2 pipeline break would spread a carbon dioxide plume a mile or more wide. Carbon dioxide is harmful to humans and, in high enough concentrations, can cause death within minutes. CO2 gas is odorless, colorless, unable to ignite, heavier than air, and is an asphyxiant!
Finally, as the federal government warns of the deaths of sea life from climate change, offshore wind farms are killing dozens of whales and thousands of other animals including endangered species and the federal government is doing nothing.
Tennessee Williams, the playwright, and screenwriter, stated that “The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite”! Examples abound these days of lying hypocrites and nobody seems to be the wiser.
Andy Caldwell