A bill aimed at ending offshore oil drilling in state waters calls for officials to negotiate with companies that own the leasing rights to the last three of those platforms, all off the coast of Orange County.
State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, said the goal of his bill, SB 559, is a quick and fair end to the local risk of “economic and environmental catastrophe” that comes with offshore drilling. Without the negotiated settlements his bill proposes, the platforms could legally keep operating until they run dry, possibly after several decades.
“Each oil spill has massive impacts that not only result in direct costs to the state, such as for cleaning our beaches, but indirect costs from the damage to our coastal economy,” Min said in an interview and via email.
“To the extent that ending offshore drilling eliminates the risk of oil spills from those platforms, that is a massive net savings for California residents.”
Min pitched a similar idea a year ago, months after an October 2021 oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach that closed beaches in Orange and San Diego counties, fouled estuaries and hurt everybody from swimmers and homeowners to big hotel operators and local commercial fishermen.
But Min’s plan died last year after the state Assembly passed a separate but potentially related proposal, to have the California Lands Bureau study how much oil operations have cost the state. Now, with the state armed with some of that information (the study is expected to be concluded by the end of next year) Min believes the Lands Bureau will be better equipped to negotiate decommissioning deals favorable to taxpayers.
Still, cost will be key. Based on the amounts spent to close down other offshore oil operations, the cost of shutting the three platforms off the coast of Orange County – known as platforms Eva, Emmy and Ester – would run between $1 billion and $2 billion. How much of that would be paid by oil companies, and how much by taxpayers, would…
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