Learning California’s Lesson
In Opposition to Capps Amendment to HR 2231
June 28, 2013


    When Juan Cabrillo first sailed up the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, he noted a massive natural oil slick – that’s how vast are California’s petroleum resources.  

    We hear much about the Bakken shale oil formation that has produced unparalleled prosperity for North Dakota.   

    And yet, California’s Monterey Oil deposit is nearly five times the size of the Bakken field.  California has 1.6 BILLION barrels of untapped offshore oil in unleased acreage right now that can be reached with slant drilling from on shore.

    But California’s resources are placed off limits by the ideological extremism that is now on full display courtesy of the amendment offered by my colleagues from California.  They have had their way in California for a full generation – and I have watched their folly take what once was renowned as America’s Golden State and turn it into an economic basket case and a national laughingstock.

    California’s unemployment rate is the second highest in the nation at 8.6 percent.  North Dakota’s is the lowest at 3.2 percent.  Yesterday the average price per gallon of gas in California was $4.03; in North Dakota it was just $3.69.  Since 2000, California’s reliance on foreign oil imports has literally DOUBLED.

    They’re not helping the environment.  When I grew up in Ventura County 50 years ago, everyone on the coast kept pans of turpentine in their garages to wash off the ubiquitous gobs of natural tar that you couldn’t avoid as you walked on the beach.

    The offshore oil development of that era relieved the natural pressure that had polluted the waters of the Santa Barbara channel for centuries and over several decades the tar disappeared and the beaches have never been cleaner.  Those were also the days when California literally led our nation’s economy, people had good paying jobs and low energy bills and families seeking a better future flocked to California.

    Now those same families flee FROM California. 

    If I sound bitter, it is because I am.  I have watched their policies destroy the promise and prosperity of my Golden State.  For God’s sake, don’t let them destroy our country.  

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