RUMBLING ELEPHANTS, TREMBLING GRASS: Even on a good day, there’s more bad blood between Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal and Assemblymember Pedro Nava than in five drivers’ ed instructional films combined. And last week, there were no good days.

All that simmering animosity and festering acrimony boiled over. Yet again. This time, Nava availed himself to new technology — his Facebook page — to deliver a political bitch-slap. Carbajal was content to do his talking with money, raising $50,000 at a Montecito fundraiser for Kamala Harris, one of Nava’s key competitors in our representative’s quest to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for Attorney General. Where it all started between these two, no one knows for sure. But the chicken bone now lodged in their collective throats is the proposal by oil giant Plains Exploration & Production Company (a k a PXP) to expand drilling in state waters of an underwater field called — with no intentional irony — Tranquillon Ridge off Point Conception.

Back in January, this deal was rejected by the State Lands Commission, despite surprising and overwhelming support from an alphabet soup of every Santa Barbara environmental organization capable of posting a Web site or plugging in an answering machine. Much to their intense chagrin, Nava campaigned against the deal. Many still feel burned. In the meantime, the Tranquillon Ridge proposal refused to go quietly into anybody’s long good night. As the state’s budget crashed and burned, PXP lobbyists insinuated themselves into the good graces of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who regarded the billion dollars in state revenues the oil project promised — throughout the course of many years — with unallayed prurient interest. In the most recent round of budget cuts, the Gubernator pushed hard to ramrod the PXP plan through the Legislature’s throat. If he couldn’t get what he wanted from the State Lands Commission, the governor proposed creating a brand new review board — stocked with cherry-picked appointees loyal to him — to determine the wisdom of PXP’s proposal. Even those environmentalists who initially supported PXP were appalled and said so.

Leading the charge in the Legislature against the reincarnation of the PXP plan was Nava, who issued at least five press releases a day blistering it. If approved, PXP would be the first new offshore oil lease in state waters in 40 years, he stated, setting a reckless precedent that threatened the entire California coast. Although PXP narrowly squeaked by in the Senate, it was killed overwhelming by the Assembly. For this, Nava can legitimately claim full bragging rights.

As last week’s legislative showdown wound down, Nava began making accusations on Facebook that an unnamed Santa Barbara County elected official and Democrat was “actively supporting the Gov’s attempt to bring oil drilling to Santa Barbara,” adding, “That a Santa Barbara elected would weigh in on the side of oil drilling is offensive.” Naturally, the Facebook crowd wanted to know who. Reporters did, too. Nava declined to answer. “I’ll decide the time and place,” he said. When and where would that be? “It’s like pornography,” Nava explained. “I’ll know it when I see it.” Around the fourth floor of the County Administration building, however, everyone knew that 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal had been burning up the phones lines, calling various legislators and their staff on the subject. Carbajal, however, adamantly denied lobbying on behalf of PXP; he stated he made it clear to everyone he spoke to that locals opposed the cram-down process adopted by the governor. But he also made it clear that the community’s environmentalists had enthusiastically supported the deal and for good reason. Carbajal said he told his Sacramento contacts that if the Legislature were to approve PXP, they needed to make sure that all the concessions S.B. environmentalists had extracted were included. And there were a lot. A $100 million “advance” on oil royalties to the state. The $1.5 million in cash to the County of S.B. to buy clean buses and reduce greenhouse gases. Nearly 4,000 acres of land dedicated to the public. And, best of all, a drop-dead date by which PXP agreed to shut down Platform Irene — located in federal waters — plus two others. By that time (December 2022), PXP also pledged it would shut down four onshore oil processing facilities. As it stands now, no oil company ever signs any piece of paper committing to shut down any facility at any specific time. It just isn’t done.

Nava ultimately would conclude that the drop-dead provisions of this deal were not legally enforceable. So did the State Lands Commission. So, too, did the state Attorney General. Many statewide environmental groups wound up opposing the deal, in part, because of this. They worried that by saying yes to PXP — after years of just saying no to any and all oil proposals — the state and the county would send a dangerously mixed message to a federal government itching to sell more offshore leases to a profit-bloated oil industry. Then and now, the environmental establishment was absolutely convinced the deal was airtight and impregnable. Like-minded people differ all the time on tactics and strategy, sometimes violently. But for S.B. enviros, this wasn’t so much a disagreement as a knife in the back. Throughout the course of negotiations, they claim they’d taken pains to keep Nava in the loop. They knew they were in uncharted territory, and his support was crucial. Nava’s staff members met with the enviros regularly. No red flag was ever waved until just before the Lands Commission meeting in January. Even then, they insist, Nava agreed not to oppose the deal outright, but merely to remain neutral. Nava remembers it differently. “I can’t explain how it is people interpreted what happened,” he said. “No one could point to anything I did that could remotely be considered affirmative. My staff never indicated support for the project.” In any case, Nava secured enough signatures from Senate and Assembly colleagues in January to do serious damage. The project sank.

Now, he’s sunk it twice. Having rallied no fewer than 60 statewide environmental organizations at his side last week, Nava has cause for celebration. Notably absent from that list, however, were Santa Barbara enviro organizations. No amount of champagne, it seems, can wash the sour taste of January from their mouths.

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