California Air Resources Board

The ARB is declaring that cap and trade goals are challenged because carbon capture is not mature and caps alone may drive industrial polluters out of California. Driving polluters out of California should be a goal because the state does have a goal to phase out oil and gas production, and oil and gas in California is particularly polluting. This has to be a part of our climate solution. We do have electric solutions for energy, transportation and buildings, and this has to be where we put our efforts, not on keeping oil and gas in business and furthering the dangerous supply-driven market for fossil fuels. 

Oil and gas production in my region (Santa Barbara and Ventura) is increasingly using steam flooding and cyclic steam, which are very energy and GHG-intensive processes. Proposed projects here would double our GHG emissions and would worsen air quality as they have done in adjacent Kern County. The steam generators propose burning a large amount of commercial natural gas, taking supplies away from buildings and costing ratepayers. Local citizen opposition has kept oil expansion at bay for now, but the oil industry is trying to buy themselves a pro-oil county supervisor seat. If that happens, some companies here have told investors they have room for 10,000 new oil wells. The oil industry would argue that the state has all oversight and locals have no control over massive increases in GHG and criteria pollution. They would also be drilling through the Santa Maria groundwater aquifer that is the sole source of water for north Santa Barbara County (the water supply for hundreds of thousands of people), with many pathways for potentially permanent contamination, and current operations in the area regularly start fires that could rage out of control.

Exxon also wants to restart offshore oil drilling in Santa Barbara County including using the corroded pipeline that caused a massive offshore oil spill in 2015 that damaged our tourist economy and shut down fishing and other industries. Prior to shut down 8 years ago, theirs was the largest facility source of GHG emissions in the county as well. Keeping offshore oil shut down is in California's interest. California has long outlawed offshore drilling in state waters and lobbied against new federal leases. Our climate plan should not encourage any continued offshore production of any kind. 

Remove all free allocations from the oil and gas sector as they encourage the use of high-GHG thermal production, which also increases criteria pollutants and injures the health and safety of all California residents, with extra-high impacts on those living near and downwind of thermally-enhanced oil production.

The goal of cap and trade should be to drive out fossil fuels and replace them with renewable sources of energy.

Please do not make it easier for oil and gas to continue poisoning our communities.