Thursday, March 19, 2009
Having attended the State Lands Commission hearing and being familiar with the PXP proposal and after reading the March 5, 2009 letter from EDC, GOO and CPA ["Still Fighting," independent.com/tranquillonletter], it is important to remind readers of the following facts:
The PXP/EDC Confidential Agreement is unenforceable: The California Attorney General and legal counsel for the State Lands Commission agree that the terms of the secret deal cannot be enforced. Any supposed benefits are a fiction. This includes the carbon neutrality and land donation.
PXP produced a memo that admitted that parts of the land donation may never occur: A memo from the attorneys for PXP to State Lands Commission staff admitted the land donation may never occur because PXP did not own all of the land proposed to be donated.
Nothing in the confidential PXP/EDC Agreement required that the platforms be removed: EDC admitted at the State Lands hearing that nothing in the agreement required that the platforms be removed. In spite of prior EDC public comments to the contrary, platform removal was not part of the agreement.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) could require continued drilling after any mythical “end date”: MMS owns the PXP lease. MMS refused to incorporate any “end date” as a part of the lease. At the State Lands hearing, they said they could compel continued drilling if oil remained as they are required by law to extract all available oil. In fact, should PXP attempt to cease operation before all the oil is extracted, MMS could conduct a “top sale” where the lease is sold to another operator who agrees to extract the remaining oil.
Project would result in extending oil drilling in Santa Barbara: Since the “deal” is unenforceable and opens up a whole new oil field it would result in extending the life of Platform Irene.
There were many reasons to oppose the PXP/EDC deal, including the precedent setting nature of what would have been the first offshore oil drilling in California State Sanctuary land in 40 years. No significant public policy change should be made on a secret deal that evaded public review and analysis. The State Lands Commission did the right thing by rejecting the deal. We should be grateful they protected our coast from more offshore drilling.
-Frank Drouillard, Jack Eidt, Penny Eloa, Judy Fogel, Patt Healy, Charlotte Masarick, Ozzie Silna, Steve Uhring, Larry Wan