Ryan ChartrandSan Luis Obispo congresswoman Lois Capps (D-Calif.) went head-to-head with Republican John McCain earlier this week when the presidential candidate held a rally in Santa Barbara to discuss energy issues.
McCain visited Santa Barbara on Monday and Tuesday; the first day for a private fundraiser with local Republicans, the second for a green energy rally at Museum of Natural History alongside Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
MSNBC reported that the demonstration outside the rally was the largest anti-McCain gathering they’ve seen this election season.
McCain recently proposed lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling in an effort to increase domestic oil production and ease consumer gas prices.
“The immediate problems of high gasoline prices and of our strategic dependence on foreign oil are upon us,” McCain said in Santa Barbara. “And on recent days, I’ve been setting forth a plan of action. When people are hurting, and struggling to afford gasoline, food and other necessities, common sense requires that we draw upon America’s own vast reserves of oil and natural gas.”
He went on to speak about the other facets of his energy platform – including investing in nuclear technology, developing a cap-and-trade system, modernizing the nation’s electric grid, and offering tax incentives for green energy usage – but never specifically spoke about expanding offshore drilling at the rally.
“In these and other ways, we can meet the challenge of global warming with all the resources of human ingenuity at our disposal. Like other environmental challenges – only more so – climate change presents a test of foresight, of political courage, and of the unselfish concern that one generation owes to the next,” McCain said.
Capps fired against McCain in a press teleconference alongside state senator Barbara Boxer on Monday, saying that the proposal to lift the oil moratorium is evidence of a hypocritical energy platform.
“This is a total gimmick; we aren’t going to drill our way out (of an energy crisis),” she said. “John McCain has flip-flopped on the energy issue and now he’s threatening the livelihoods of the workers who depend on a clean coast.”
Capps and environmentalists nationwide reacted strongly to McCain’s proposal, countering that the effect on gas prices would be negligible while the negative effect on the coastal environment would be long-lasting.
“McCain wants to threaten our $70 billion coastal economy,” Capps said. “This Bush-McCain policy is nothing more than a sweet deal for big oil companies.”
“(Lifting the moratorium) is going to hurt our economy, it’s going to hurt our environment, and it’s going to hurt our health,” Capps continued.
Offshore drilling is an especially hot topic in Santa Barbara, which saw the state’s worst oil spill in 1969. An estimated 3 million gallons of crude oil spilled out into the ocean when a blowout occurred from an oil platform six miles offshore, killing thousands of marine birds and animals and leaving a massive oil slick that still has remnants today. That historic spill has often been cited as a catalyst for the nationwide environmental movement.
“Those of us who’ve seen the effects of oil drilling on our coasts need to educate the rest of the America,” Capps said in reference to the spill.
Boxer said that lifting the moratorium is in effect a gift to big oil companies.
“We already know that 80 percent of the offshore oil is in already drillable areas,” she said. “Yet only 21 percent of those drillable areas are being drilled.”
Cal Poly public policy graduate student Hans Poschman traveled the two hours south to see McCain speak on energy issues.
“He has a good platform. It’s very moderate; he understands how to protect our environment without harming the economy,” Poschman said.
“(McCain’s opponents) say its going to take 10-12 years for a (drilling ban lift) to affect gas prices, but they’ve been saying that for 10-12 years,” Poschman continued.
“If we’d started offshore drilling 10 years ago, maybe gas prices wouldn’t be where they are now.”