County Supervisor Laura Capps is leading taxpayers and consumers off a financial cliff by way of her effort to eliminate oil and gas operations in our county. The first part of her proposal would consist of forbidding new oil and gas drilling. The second would amortize existing oil operations. Amortization is a process by which the county government would tell oil companies that they have already realized their investment-backed expectations and therefore the county can shut down their operations without getting involved in a takings claim. That sort of wishful thinking on Capps’ part is fraught with peril for the industry and its workforce, not to mention consumers and taxpayers.
For a fuller explanation of the legal and technical arguments against this action, I recommend you read the comment letters from both the California Independent Petroleum Association (see here) and the Santa Barbara County Taxpayer Advocacy Center (see here)
These public comment letters clearly spell out the fact that the amortization effort is clearly illegal with respect to the takings of mineral rights/assets and several other legal concerns. That is, the proposed amortization ordinance amounts to nothing less than malfeasance on the part of Capps and her colleagues. In short order, the county will get sued and they will lose, meaning taxpayers (they will pay for the cost of the lawsuit and damages) and consumers (they will pay higher prices at the pump) will suffer the consequences. The three supervisors (Capps, Lee, and Hartmann) who support this effort are merely virtue signaling in an echo chamber and everybody knows it. Nevertheless, with this amortization ordinance hanging over the oil industry’s head, it and the many other companies that service it, will have to think twice about continuing to invest in their operations here.
These kinds of actions explain why we are on the verge of $8 per gallon gasoline. More refineries are closing because they don’t have enough oil and gas to process that is produced in this state and the actions by this board will only accentuate and accelerate their predicament. Yet, that doesn’t mean we can do without the fuels we need every day. What it does mean is that we will be importing gasoline by tanker to CA from half-way around the world, India, and South Korea, to be specific, and Capps will consider that an environmental victory of sorts.
Moreover, it is incredulous that Capps and company continue to ignore the reality that oil is more than just a fuel stock. Upwards of one-half of every barrel of oil can be used to produce thousands of byproducts and derivatives that our society and economy can’t do without.
For instance, I have challenged this board time and again, that if they eliminate oil production, how and where are they going to get the asphalt to pave our roads? They won’t allow our local oil producers to truck their production out of the county, but they are okay with shipping and trucking the same products to us here?
Of course, the supes are hoping that the elimination of oil and gas operations in CA will force people to switch to renewable energy to power our vehicles and homes. Yet, it is impossible to manufacture any vehicle, including an electric vehicle, without oil byproducts and derivatives, such as plastic, which is ubiquitous and omnipresent.
What follows is a very short list of a few of the byproducts of the oil and gas industry. Please review it and share it. It demonstrates that oil and gas have been a godsend, which is more than I can say for Laura Capps and company.
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Laura Capps feeds the masochistic pseudo empathy and liberal mindlessness of too many Santa Barbarans. They consider Trump building a ball room a sign he's a dictator. They care more about criminal rights than those of law-abiding citizens. They think bike lanes are more important than trees. The saying used to be a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. Now I think it will take a lot more than a mugging for them to wake up.
Things have to get much worse before they get much better on the central coast. Perhaps when central Coast citizens and taxpayers have to pay 15 or $20 a gallon of gas and $10 for a loaf of bread and $25 for a gallon of milk… and that will happen sooner rather than later under the woke liberal Democrat Commie regime now in place in every elected office …
Perhaps they will wake up from their splendid political slumber and stop electing Lunatics like Laura Capps and Salud Carbajal.
Well… They cannot say you did not want them year after year meeting after meeting…
Professor Mark McIntire