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Schwarzenegger's budget is an oil spill, off the California Coast
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Governor Schwarzenegger met with local officials to discuss budget options and impacts on local communities.
Last week the California Sierra Club and 24 other environmental organizations signed a letter opposing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to extend offshore oil drilling leases on the California Coast off Santa Barbara, supposedly to help fill the $19 billion hole in the California State budget crisis.
(As of now, according to Schwarzenegger, the State of California will cease to operate for lack of revenue, by the end of July, 2009, if the legislature doesn't pass a budget full of cuts and, measures for increasing revenue without new taxation, as of June 15th this year, 2009.)
Various reports cite a possible $1.8 billion in increased state revenue, which would, at first, seem to go a long way towards easing California's pain, but, that $1.8 billion is really $1.8 billion---maybe, over 13 years time, between now and the year 2022, when, supposedly, Houston-based Plains Exploration and Oil Production Company will stop drilling.
How much would the State of California get, to solve its budget crisis this year? One hundred million dollars, which is not going to fill much of a $19 billion hole.
Meanwhile, a guest on today's KPFA Radio Morning Show, 06.03.2009, reported that California is the only state in the union that does not tax oil drilling profits, and that, doing so could generate $1 billion, 1/19th of this year's budget shortfall, this year.
I can't be the only one who's sick and tired of listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Greenwash, spew about clean coal, emissions free nuclear power, electric cars, or two big new hydroelectric dams he wants to build, all in the name of halting catastrophic climate change. And now---about filling the state's $19 billion dollar budget hole with $100 million for new offshore oil drilling leases, even as he resists taxing extant oil drilling in California, and, instead, proposes radically hiking community college tuition, cutting mental health and HIV services, selling off public assets, and closing most of the state's public parks.
If it weren't for Schwarzenegger's emissions free nuclear wet dream, I'd be expecting him to propose a few clean coal-powered uranium mines in Death Valley Monument before the end of the week.
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