Governor’s LNG ‘Message’
Has Coastal Residents Concerned
• Spokesperson for
Schwarzenegger on Energy Policy Says ‘His Position Has
Not Changed’
BY HANS LAETZ
A mass mailing to coastal residents by Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has some worried that the governor
is backsliding on his recent pledge that he has not made up his
mind about a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal off the
Malibu coast. But a spokesman for the governor says there has
been no change in position.
The form letter sent by the
governor’s Office of Constituent Affairs late last month
appears to endorse the concept of LNG imports, and says
“his administration is working to ensure that BHP
Billiton’s proposal to build the Cabrillo Deepwater Port
LNG Facility 14 miles off the coast of Oxnard would follow
California’s stringent environmental,
health and safety guidelines.”
One LNG opponent, Shirley Godwin, said
she is worried that the governor’s latest letter omits
important language from past correspondence. “One of the
things that is missing is the line that he hasn’t made up
his mind yet,” she said. “That is very conspicuous
by its absence.”
LNG opponents and their scientific experts
have said there is no way the plant could be built without
significant waivers of air pollution and safety rules.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson checked and
affirmed that “the governor has not changed his
position.” Bill Maile, the governor’s spokesman on
energy matters, said from his Sacramento office “I
can’t get into the minds of other people, but his
position has not changed.”
Schwarzenegger, being sworn in for his
first full term this week, holds veto power should the Cabrillo
Port initiative from BHP Billiton win regulatory approval from
five federal and state agencies. Decisions on the floating
industrial facility to be anchored 16 miles off Point Dume are
expected this spring.
Godwin and other anti-LNG activists note
the governor has been on record as supporting the BHP Billiton
project, until a terse statement was issued in the
governor’s name in late October. “I have not
taken a position on the BHP project at Oxnard, or any LNG
project. As governor, it would be inappropriate for me to take
a position on any specific project before the review process is
complete,” the statement read.
Opponents note that Cabrillo Port is 14
miles from the Malibu City Limits and 22 miles from Oxnard. The
governor’s most-recent letter also erroneously describes
the environmental impact of twin undersea gas
pipelines coming ashore in an Oxnard wildlife park,
activists said.
Rory Cox, a San Francisco-based
environmental activist, said the governor’s
Christmas-time letter doesn’t surprise him. “Like
many controversial matters, he seemed to time this right in the
middle of the holiday season, when he knows a lot of people
aren’t paying attention,” he said in an e-mail
Tuesday.
Key Schwarzenegger advisers and
strategists are on the LNG industry’s payroll, and
BHP Billiton is one of the largest lobbying spenders in a
State Capitol awash with special interest money, activists
said.
Members of the Malibu/ Oxnard
anti-LNG group, called Coastal Advocates, are working with the
California Coastal Protection Network to lobby against Cabrillo
Port. CCPN Executive Director Susan Jordan told supporters last
week that $30,000 has been raised locally towards the estimated
$500,000 legal effort to block the plant.
Local activist Ozzie Silna has pledged to
match the first $100,000 raised in Malibu and Oxnard, and
Jordan said last week a second donor has pledged to match the
second $100,000 donated here. The City of Malibu has also
donated $50,000 to the fight.
The money is being spent to hire lawyers
and expert witnesses who have already managed to find
substantive safety and environmental problems with the proposed
$800,000,000 LNG terminal, Jordan said. Cabrillo Port is
already nearly two years behind schedule as federal and state
regulators examine the more than 1400 specific objections filed
by local residents.
Those objections will be evaluated in a
final, third version of the project’s Environmental
Impact Report, scheduled now to be released in late
February. The California State Lands Commission will hold
a public hearing, probably in Southern California, in
early March, and the California Coastal Commission
will likely vote on it in mid-April.
The project must also be approved by
the Coast Guard and U.S. Commerce Department, and then win a
key waiver of anti-smog rules from the Environmental
Protection Agency. If it is approved by all five agencies,
then the Governor has final veto power.
A final decision on the high stakes
project, worth more than $5 billion to Australia’s
largest company, is expected by June.
