Any day now California Governor Jerry Brown will sign state legislation banning any “new construction of oil and gas-related infrastructure in state waters.”
This doesn’t mean that the Trump Administration’s plans to open the Pacific Ocean to offshore drilling for oil is dead. It just means that there will no processing of any new offshore oil in California because Big Oil won’t be able to get it onto shore.
New York and New Jersey have led the way with this manner of opposing offshore drilling in the Atlantic. Similar state legislation had been introduced in South Carolina but couldn’t even get a public hearing.
But a word of caution.
This state legislation won’t stop seismic airgun blasting to explore for oil off the shores of California, New York or New Jersey. This is the most pressing concern for the ever-growing “no drilling” movement because exploration could start as soon as it gets the green light from the US Department of Interior.
Maybe these states can come up with a creative way of addressing this destructive seismic technology that also threatens the tourism, commercial fishing and recreation along both coasts.