Dan Bacher Posts

As crews struggle to clean up crude oil off the beaches and wildlife along the Santa Barbara County Coast, dozens of people with an inflatable pipeline, hazmat suits, and a 20 foot tall mock oil derrick gathered at the Goleta Valley Community Center outside Santa Barbara on Wednesday, June 24, to urge the State Lands Commission to reject Venoco's bid to expand offshore drilling. Santa Barbara Oil Spill clean up cost soars to $92 million

Tribal water activists presented short films about threats to Northern California's rivers from Governor Jerry Brown's drought plans at Arcata's D Street Community Center on the evening of Friday, May 8.
The films included the Yurok Youth Fish Kill video, Sovereigns Water and the Shasta Dam raise video, according to event organizer Regina Chichizola.

Restore the Delta (RTD), opponents of Governor Jerry Brown's rush to build massive Peripheral Tunnels that would drain the Delta and doom sustainable farms, salmon and other Pacific fisheries, today responded to the prospect of a secret settlement of the debt Westlands Water District owes to US taxpayers and the near extinction presently of Delta Smelt.

It's hard to believe, but the Obama administration has selected Chevron, the San Ramon-based corporate giant known for environmental destruction and the violation of human rights throughout the world, as a finalist for its "corporate excellence" award!
According to a State Department news release, "The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs has announced the selection of nine finalists for the Secretary of State's prestigious 2014 Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE)."
The Secretary of State has awarded the ACE since 1999 to recognize American companies that

The state and federal governments have been in collusion with Big Oil in California for decades - and people concerned about the future of fish, wildlife and the oceans are fed up with the fact that Southern California's oceans were fracked at least 203 times over the past 20 years.

The "North American Strategic Leadership Forum" selected Governor Jerry Brown's Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build two massive tunnels under the Delta as the "Project of the Year" for 2014. The very same $67 billion plan that also comes with scathing criticisms from the National Academy of Sciences Sciences, a panel of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service scientists, the Delta Independent Science Board, and of course, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The debate over the pros and cons of Proposition 1, Jerry Brown's $7.5 billion water bond, is very important, but an even bigger issue in any environmental battle or process is the money behind the campaign. The big corporate money behind the water bond largely determines who the bond will benefit — billionaires, corporate agribusiness, oil companies and The 1%, not the people, fish or wildlife of California.

There are few in the mainstream media who challenge the political establishment's false claim that California is a "green" leader, yet here is more indisputable financial data showing how Big Oil in fact is the largest corporate lobby in the state and owns both the Democratic and Republican parties. The battle over Yes on Measure P, the initiative to ban fracking and other extreme oil extraction techniques in Santa Barbara County, is a David vs. Goliath battle that parallels the No on Proposition 1 campaign.

Opponents of Proposition 1 say Governor Jerry Brown's $7.5 billion water bond is an expensive and unfair taxpayer giveaway to special interests, including Big Oil and Big Ag, that won't solve the drought or help secure California's water future. They see the latest contribution as one of many by powerful corporate interests to pay for slick campaign ads to trick the voters into approving the controversial measure.

Opponents of Proposition 1, the controversial State Water Bond, today blasted Governor Jerry Brown and the measure's backers for taking $850,000 in contributions from big agribusiness donors to pass public funding for water transfers to enrich them – and to enable the biggest dam-building program in California history.

An analysis of environmental grants that the Walton Family Foundation gave to conservation organizations in 2013 reveals that NGOs supporting Proposition 1, the water bond on California's November ballot, received $9,234,866 in grants while opponents of the controversial measure received none. The Walton Family Foundation is governed by the descendants of Sam and Helen Walton, the founders of retail giant Walmart.

Only in a Big Oil state like California would a Legislator have to author a bill to ban offshore oil drilling in a "marine protected area." And only in a Big Oil state like California would the Legislature vote against a bill to stop oil drilling in a "marine protected area."

Environmental groups in California are butting heads over Governor Jerry Brown's proposed tunnel fix to the state's water problems. Critics contend the bond program would actually degrade the environment further, and is only a short-term stopgap.

In the latest episode in the sordid saga of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels, two environmental groups revealed on June 20 that even an economist hired by BDCP officials won't sign off on the controversial project. Dr. David Sunding, an economist on the faculty of the University of California-Berkeley and a principal with The Brattle Group, said at the recent Continuing Legal Education Water Law Conference in San Diego that "given the financial uncertainties if he were a water agency, he would not sign off" on the BDCP.

Remember Jerry Meral, the guy who claimed the "Delta cannot be saved" while he was working for the Brown administration on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build the peripheral tunnels? Well, it appears that Meral has run afoul of the state's laws governing lobbying activities at a time when corruption and conflicts of interest are mushrooming in California politics.

The California State Senators who voted 'No' on the fracking moratorium bill on May 29 received 14 times as much money from the oil and gas industry, as those who supported it. The averages break down glaringly: $25,227 for those who helped strike down the moratorium and just $1,772 for the bill's supporters. Under intense pressure from the Western States Petroleum Association, the California State Senate rejected the bill that called for a cease to all hydraulic and acid fracturing until the government completes a scientific study of the practices' impacts on human and environmental health.

In spite of the millions spent by Big Oil on lobbying in Sacramento every year, the California Senate Appropriations Committee voted 4 to 2 to approve a bill, SB 1132, to place a moratorium on fracking in the state. The bill now moves to the California Senate floor.

California Gov. Jerry Brown's administration is stepping up its efforts to fast-track the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build the peripheral tunnels, as revealed in a memorandum sent to Department of Water Resources. Delta advocates criticized the memo for being the latest in a series of actions taken by the Brown administration to rush the construction of the peripheral tunnels before permitting of the process is complete — and before any financial plan or agreement to pay for the tunnels, estimated to cost $67 billion or more, is in place.

Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and former press spokesman for the Westlands Water District, admitted in an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) what the anti-fracking community has known for a long time – once they figure out how to make the Monterey Shale economically viable, the water usage will ramp up significantly.

The new numbers for the amount of money spent on lobbying in Sacramento in the first three months of 2014 just came in from the Secretary of State's Office, and guess who finished first?