Publisher’s Notebook: Do Earth Day Right

Don’t Let Up in Cabrillo Port Fight

BY ANNE SOBLE

The communities of Malibu, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Barbara and their neighbors received an Earth Day present two weeks ahead of schedule on Monday night with the denial of pipelines for the controversial Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas floating storage and regasification unit that international energy conglomerate BHP Billiton would like to see stationed off the local coast for 40 years. But it’s clear this week that this gift needs protection as there are round-the-clock negotiations to try to render the decisive action of the California State Lands Commission meaningless. Phalanxes of attorneys are pouring over the convoluted language of the state and federal licensing process for projects such as Cabrillo Port. Some of these lawyers and energy consultants are the same people who had a hand in writing the Deepwater Port Act and now hope to use the Byzantine legal processes they helped create to their own advantage.

These backroom machinations make a resounding denial of the project by the California Coastal Commission an imperative and mean that pressure on Governor Schwarzenegger to veto Cabrillo Port must continue. Similarly, the Congressional investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency has to remain in the media spotlight. Documents that show White House manipulation of the EPA have to be made public. The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez’ staff has begun exploring ways that the Administration’s catch-all phrase, “national security,” might be used in California to not only override CCC action, but any other adverse rulings on LNG projects. Bush has already thumbed his nose at Canada’s environmental objections to an LNG facility off the Maine coast. The independent voters of the Golden State won’t fare much better. Cabrillo Port should not be allowed to become the symbol that not only is California unable to control its energy destiny, it also is reluctant to take aggressive stances to alter the pattern of planetary exploitation and degradation that is the touchstone of contemporary society. This year, we might have a chance at a real Earth Day celebration.