Destroyed Rig Continues to Leak Oil

The offshore oil drilling rig that exploded, burned, and sank off the coast of Louisiana continues to spill oil at the rate of 42,000 gallons per day into the Gulf of Mexico.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63O27L20100426

Offshore Oil Rig Explodes, Burns and Sinks

An oil drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded late Tuesday, and burned fiercely until it sank on Thursday. 11 workers are missing and 17 were seriously injured. For details, see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36683314

Our sympathy goes out to the victims and their families and friends.

The environmental and health costs of the explosion and its aftermath are still unknown. Just the air pollution from the burning rig is massive, but that could pale before the potential pollution from oil, as the well that the rig had just finished drilling could be spilling over 300,000 gallons of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

California's fisheries, marine habitat and scenic coast are too valuable to risk this kind of damage. We should not endanger our coastal environment and human lives and health for the sake of a little more gas for the cars and a lot more money for the oil companies.

Even before the explosion, it was clear that drilling for oil off of California is a bad idea (see the March 30 post: http://peterallenforag.blogspot.com/2010/03/drilling-for-oil-dry-hole.html); this confirms it.

No more oil rigs off the coast of California.

Meg In Wonderland

Meg Whitman claims her business experience would help her run California.

She also says she will cut 40,000 state jobs.
(http://www.kron.com/News/ArticleView/tabid/298/smid/1126/ArticleID/5691/reftab/622/t/GOP%20Gubernatorial%20Candidate%20Meg%20Whitmans%20Job-Cut%20Pledge%20Questioned/Default.aspx)

Since one of California's big problems right now is a high unemployment rate, it is not clear how firing 40,000 people would help that.

And, what Meg is saying she would do as Governor is exactly the opposite of what she did at eBay. According to her own website: "When she joined eBay, the company had just $4.7 million in revenues and 30 employees; when she retired in March of 2008, ten years later, the company had nearly $8 billion in revenues and 15,000 employees worldwide..."

It looks like Meg's business experience is in doing the opposite of what she claims she can do for California.

Proposition 16 - PG&E's Scheme To Buy (More Of) A Monopoly

How far will PG&E go to protect its monopoly? Too far, judging from the huge amount of money PG&E is spending to buy votes for Proposition 16, and its misleading claims in support of its pet initiative.

Currently, communities can choose to stop taking service from PG&E by joining a municipal utility district, or taking the more limited step of buying their electricity from another provider by means of community choice aggregation. But even thinking about taking either of these steps will trigger a massive retaliatory response by PG&E, making getting out of the utility's stranglehold very difficult.

Just ask the folks in Davis, who tried to escape PG&E, only to be bombarded with something close to $15 million in spending by PG&E to defeat the effort at the polls. Which means it must have been worth more than $15 million to PG&E to keep them as captive customers.

PG&E has been using its standard scorched-earth litigation strategy against the not-s0-mighty South San Joaquin Irrigation District, which had the nerve to propose to provide electric service to 35,000 PG&E customers (at a lower cost).

And PG&E has pulled a bunch of dirty tricks, including scare tactics, threats, and bribes, to thwart the Marin Energy Authority's efforts to implement community choice aggregation. It got so bad that the CPUC slapped PG&E on the wrist for its behavior: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/AGENDA_RESOLUTION/115960.pdf

So it is already difficult to get away from PG&E to join a municipal utility or community choice aggregator, given that PG&E will do, say and spend just about anything to stop such a move. And now PG&E wants to make it even harder.

If passed, Proposition 16 would require a two-thirds vote for a municipal utility to expand its service territory (or possibly even to sign up new customers). PG&E is threatening to spend up to $35 million to pass the initiative. PG&E's arguments as to why we should vote for the measure are heartwarmingly philanthropic:

"1. What will this ballot initiative, Proposition 16, do?

Yes on Prop 16 – The Taxpayers Right to Vote Act – does only one thing… it ensures that voters will have the final say—by requiring a vote—when local leaders decide to spend public dollars or incur public debt to go into the retail electricity business.

2. Why is Prop 16 necessary?

When local governments enter the retail electricity business, it can cost taxpayers millions or billions of dollars in public money or debt. These are risky long term capital decisions that can impact local spending on other budget priorities, can increase consumer electric rates, and cannot be easily reversed...Especially in difficult times like these, why shouldn’t taxpayers have the final say on decisions of this magnitude?"

One can reasonably ask the question: why would PG&E spend $35 million to look out for the welfare of California taxpayers? Answer: They would not do so. They are spending it solely to look out for their own bottom line.

Instead of spending $15 million every time some community wants to bolt, they can spend $35 million one time to lock them all in. PG&E admitted this to its investors: http://pgandeballotinitiativefactsheet.blogspot.com/2010/03/peter-darbees-weird-prop-16-soliloquy.html. (Otherwise PG&E would likely face a shareholder suit for wasting its money.)

The only competitive threat to a monopoly is the possibility it will lose that monopoly. PG&E will spend whatever it takes to preserve its monopoly. Proposition 16 is designed to do that, by eliminating the only potential competition to PG&E. Proposition 16 will not provide voters a choice - it takes the real choice away. Vote no on Proposition 16.

Why Do Soldiers in Iraq Have to Pay to Call Home?

This is not directly an issue for California's Attorney General, but it is emblematic of how our society's priorities have gotten really skewed.

I received a brochure, asking for a donation to the USO, so it could provide pre-paid phone cards to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they can phone home for free. Details are here: http://www.uso.org/whatwedo/usoprograms/usooperationphonehome/

There is something very wrong here. We will send our soldiers to the far side of the planet to get shot at and blown up, but they have to pay to call their families? As a society, we won't even cough up the money for our soldiers to call home, while we are giving billions of dollars to Halliburton, Blackwater, and DynCorp? (And to bribe various Afghans and Iraqis.)

My guess is that someone is making money - lots of money - charging American soldiers for their phone calls home. There should be outrage at this, and a congressional investigation, but since the Democrats and Republicans have enabled this shameless corporate profiteering in all segments of our society, they can no longer recognize that this is simply wrong.

The Oil Empire Strikes Back

I don't actually think that oil companies are inherently evil. Really. But there is a problem when large, wealthy corporations act as though their only responsibility is to maximize short-term profits, at the expense of our health, our communities, and perhaps even our long-term survival.

The bigger problem is that under current law, the corporations are largely correct in that assumption. We need to change the laws governing corporations, so their responsibility under the law extends beyond their most recent quarter's stock price. Instead of relying upon the courage and conscience of a relative few corporate executives who have embraced social and environmental responsibility, we need to raise the lowest common denominator, so that all corporations must take the interests of people and the environment into consideration.

If we did that, then the Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro would not be trying to eviscerate AB 32, California's landmark law on global warming. As oil companies that operate refineries in California, Valero and Tesoro must believe that implementation of AB 32 will result in them selling less gasoline. Less gasoline sold means less $$$ in their pockets. So they are trying to halt implementation of AB 32: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100404/ap_on_bi_ge/us_calif_climate_law_backlash.

Burning more gasoline is bad for people's health and the environment, and global warming may be a threat to human survival. Valero and Tesoro know that. They just don't care. We can make them care, by passing laws that require higher levels of corporate responsibility and accountability.

In the meantime, we should ignore their arguments that we should sacrifice our health, our environment, and our lives on behalf of their stock price.

Eastman and Harman Try to Stretch the Truth

I was a prosecutor. John Eastman and Tom Harman really want people to think they are prosecutors. Too bad that they are not really prosecutors.

Eastman, a Republican candidate for Attorney General, who until recently was dean of Chapman University's law school, tried to have the ballot say he is an "Assistant Attorney General." He isn't. And certainly not in California, although he is working on one case for the attorney general of South Dakota.

Harman, another Republican candidate for Attorney General, and a current member of the Legislature, tried to have the ballot describe him as a "Prosecutor." He isn't. He did sign up for an eight-week volunteer prosecutor program, but he has not tried a single case.

Fortunately for the truth, those designations were rejected. (Eastman sued to try to overturn the Secretary of State's determination, but he lost.)

More details are at: http://www.metnews.com/articles/2010/ag040210.htm
and:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/02/local/la-me-eastman2-2010apr02

Kamala Harris - Will Kill To Get Elected

As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris gained notoriety for her opposition to the death penalty. Now, however, as a Democratic candidate for Attorney General, she has decided that the death penalty is really okay. Her campaign website is notable for its utter silence on the issue (at least I couldn't find it anywhere), and according to the San Francisco Chronicle she has flipped her position. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/03/MNUJ1CNFH9.DTL)

The logic is hard to follow as to why the death penalty is a bad idea if you are district attorney, but a good idea if you are attorney general. Unless, of course, she thinks being anti-death penalty helps you get elected in San Francisco, and being pro-death penalty helps you get elected statewide.

Selling California - Cheap

In a blatantly boneheaded attempt to avoid facing the roots of California's budget crisis, the Schwarzenegger administration is proceeding with a plan to sell a number of office buildings, and then lease them back from the new private owners. And pay a large commission on the sale. The logic is obvious - get a bunch of cash now, so the budget looks better, and let someone else worry about 20 or 40 or 60 years of lease payments stretching into the future. It is nothing but another smoke-and-mirrors budget trick.

Selling the buildings is a bad idea for a number of reasons:
1) If you are going to sell a large amount of real estate, do it when the market is high, not when the market is low. This is probably the worst time to sell commercial real estate in recent memory.

2) Don't sell something you plan to occupy for a long time. Why should we pay forever to rent what we already own? How much will California have to pay when the leases run out in 20 years, and it goes to renew? How much leverage will California have in negotiations? Will it threaten to relocate?

3) These buildings are a long-term investment paid for by California taxpayers, and the governor (and the legislature) want to sell them for a short-term gain to cover up their inability to balance the budget. This sort of resembles what Bernard Madoff went to prison for.

4) The deal reeks of cronyism, with the broker handling the deal and the commercial real estate interests buying the properties standing to benefit at the expense of California taxpayers. But it is easy to give away something that someone else, like the citizens of California, paid for. And I am sure it is just a coincidence that the broker chosen for the deal (CB Richard Ellis) has been a significant contributor to Schwarzenegger and his causes.

5) It is a stealth form of union-busting. By selling the properties, California would pay the new landlord for maintenance and cleaning, instead of paying its own employees, meaning Schwarzenegger can get rid of hundreds of unionized state employees. The new landlord will likely hire lower-paid workers and pocket the difference as profit, so California won't save any money, but the janitors will find it even harder to make ends meet.

Selling ourselves into eternal debt for the financial equivalent of a bowl of porridge now is short sighted, and a quintessential example of the budget shams that have kept us mired in our current mess. Tell the governor and your legislators to stop this misguided sale of California's future.