Facing Again Threats to California's Protected Coast, this time by the Trump Administration-Our Talk with the Ocean Foundation's Sr. Fellow, Richard Charter

The battle for California's coast has erupted once more as offshore drilling returns to Santa Barbara and threatens to spread northward along the entire Pacific coastline. This alarming development follows Trump's late April executive order, which targets even our most protected ocean areas—National Marine Sanctuaries—for oil and gas exploration for the first time in history.

Richard Charter, Senior Fellow at the Ocean Foundation and veteran defender of our coastal ecosystems, explains that this aggressive push by the administration targets specific areas off Bodega Head, Sea Ranch, Gualala, Point Arena, and Mendocino Village. Unlike previous attempts to drill offshore, this one specifically targets marine sanctuaries—areas that took decades of scientific research and public advocacy to establish as protected zones.

The consequences of offshore drilling disasters are etched into California's history. From the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill to the 2015 Refugio disaster (where oil traveled 150 miles along the coast) and the 2021 Huntington Beach pipeline rupture, California has repeatedly suffered from industry negligence. These aren't just environmental catastrophes—they directly threaten coastal economies dependent on tourism, fishing, and recreation.

What's particularly disturbing is how the administration is dismantling protections from within. Many NOAA scientists have resigned rather than approve drilling permits in sanctuary waters. Safety regulations designed to prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster are being removed. Even President Biden's January withdrawal of the Pacific coast from oil development—a legally binding protection that courts have upheld—is being simply ignored.

The public has until June 16th to comment on the proposed five-year offshore leasing program through SaveMyCoast.org. Charter reminds us that California's coast isn't just any coastline—it's a global model for marine protection, with carefully designed networks of protected areas studied by planners worldwide. The ecosystem here supports one of the planet's most productive upwelling systems, essential not just for marine life but for the oxygen we breathe.

As Peter Douglas, founder of California coastal protection, famously said: "The California coast is never saved, it's always in the process of being saved." Now is the time to continue that fight.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Offshore Drilling Threats
• 6:31 Trump's Executive Order Impact Analysis
• 14:36 News Coverage: California Drilling Resumption
• 19:27 Richard Charter's Environmental Defense History
• 28:42 Marine Sanctuaries Under Unprecedented Attack
• 38:35 Deep Sea Mining and Seabed Threats
• 47:57 Taking Action Before June 16 Deadline
• 52:36 Congressman Huffman on Ocean Protection

Transcript

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Welcome

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to the Resilient Earth Podcast, where we talk with speakers from the United States

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and around the world about the critical issues

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facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking

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from the tiniest of actions to the grandest of gestures

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so that we can continue to thrive

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and survive for generations to come.

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I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers

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Scott and Tree (Theresa) Mercer of Mendonoma Whale

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and Seal Study located on the South Mendocino.

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and North Sonoma coasts.

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The music for this podcast

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is by Eric Allaman an international composer,

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pianist and writer Living in the Sea Ranch.

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Discover more of his music, animations, ballet

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stage and film work at EricAllaman.com.

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You can find Resilient Earth

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on Spotify, Apple and Amazon Podcasts,

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iHeartRadio, YouTube, SoundCloud and wherever you find your podcasts.

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In this week's

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episode, we are taking on Trump's executive order at the end of April

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about offshore drilling, which has begun

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this week, again here in California, off

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the coastline of Santa Barbara by Houston based Sable Offshore.

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Next week we're going to talk about deep sea mining and what's happening there.

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One of the biggest and longest term defenders of our oceans

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and coasts is a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation, Richard Charter,

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who lives just down the coast from us in Bodega Bay.

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When he wrote to me that these people pushing for offshore drilling

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are going for places right off Sea Ranch,

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right off Gualala Right off Point Arena,

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all the way up to Mendocino Village, right off the coast there.

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I knew we had to talk about this.

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We'll start the episode with a couple of news clips.

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Then we'll dive into the conversation I had with Richard this week.

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You might ask, Why isn't that a good thing to drill for these resources?

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Don't we need more oil and minerals to power our devices, our cars?

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And now AI?  (artificial intelligence-machine learning)

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Aren’t there great stores of resources

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just waiting for the taking? 

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Well,

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let's talk about that.

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Have we forgotten about

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the devastating oil spills of the past that decades

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later still have ongoing negative impacts

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to those fragile ecosystems,

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which in turn is not good for us either?

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There's a complex cycle of life underneath these shining oceans

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that we look out upon - a cycle of life that, hey, powers

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the very oxygen we breathe.

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They're the lungs of this planet.

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Humans have a

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great deal of hubris and often a vast ignorance

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as to the destructive actions they take and mask as

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Let's say for national security

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or for American prosperity.

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Yeah, those words are being thrown around quite a bit lately.

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Hubris is excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often

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synonymous with arrogance.

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Both of these topics offshore drilling and mining, as well as deep sea

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mining, have a number of people up in arms

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wondering what can they do?

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Well, we're going to talk about what organizations like

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Surfrider Ocean Conservancy and NRDC,

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the National Resources Defense Council, are doing to take action.

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You can support them if you wish, or you can take action

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now with our legal representatives.

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And there's always ways to protest.

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And the next day after this executive order for offshore drilling, what struck

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many of us in the environmental community

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as completely bonkers

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was that NOAA the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

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came out with a gushing press release

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in support of that executive order.

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Something was off.

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So I dug a bit and discovered it was a White House

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transplant from the Trump administration.

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Kim Doster, who was installed

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that month of April as NOAA's director of communications.

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In advance of that executive order.

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They planned it all

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We’ll start the episode with a couple of news clips.

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Then the conversation I had with Richard this week.

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The last time again we spoke was how President Biden

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was protecting our coasts right at the end of his term.

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We were extremely worried back then

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that the Trump administration would come in and do everything they could

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to bulldoze through that, tear it all up any way they could.

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So here we are back discussing it again.

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Richard mentions how decades ago singer songwriter Bonnie Raitt

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even got involved in the protests in Fort Bragg against offshore drilling.

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So what can we do again

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about this danger to our coasts, to our fragile ecosystems,

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to our fishing and tourism industries, to the people who live

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and thrive along our coastal areas all across our country?

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Keep listening and find out.

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At the end, I'll give you more details and insight.

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I'll even play an old movie clip that applies

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even more so today.

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I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host of Resilient Earth Radio.

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Thanks for listening and supporting our efforts to bring you

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critical issues and positive actions.

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Environmental leaders are speaking out after the Trump administration

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called to reopen our national coasts to oil and drilling.

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ABC NEWS CHANNEL 4 South Carolina News Report: Surfrider,

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a nonprofit that works to protect and preserve oceans and coastal beaches,

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about the impact offshore drilling has on our coast.

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Offshore drilling is a dirty and damaging practice, very harmful 

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to the environment through every stage of the process,

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but it's also very harmful to coastal communities and economies.

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and so what we've seen over the past 15 years is incredible grassroots opposition.

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These oil drilling companies used seismic blasting, which is loud sounds or explosions.

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So that's very damaging to whales and dolphins

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and other kinds of marine mammals.

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To be looking at renewables, we need to be looking at solar

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and wind and geothermal, you know, supporting energy efficiency.

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And ultimately, we can't drill our way to energy independence.

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It's a finite resource.

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So that's our goal, is to get Congress to act

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and to pass a law to permanently protect

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not just South Carolina, but, you know, other regions of the U.S.

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from new offshore oil drilling.

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The California Coastal Commission is imposing a hefty fine on a Texas

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oil company for working in a protected area off the Gaviota Coast.

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Hundreds of people spent the day listing the pros and cons of restarting

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the pipeline that ruptured in the 2015 Refugio oil spill.

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News channel reporter Mina Wahab has the details.

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If we can't, if we can't protect our coastline

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and our waters and our home, then what do we have left?

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It's a question that's been on the minds of seasoned and budding environmentalists.

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We request that you enforce every one of their recommendations.

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On this lawless entity.

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Sable, thank you very much.

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I hope you do the right thing.

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Thursday, the Coastal Commission voted 9 to 2 in favor of imposing penalties

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against Sable Offshore.

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The people in the commission staff

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and on the Coastal Commission, are very frustrated

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that they've been trying

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to work cooperatively with a company that hasn't been working with them at all.

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For months, environmentalists 

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have been urging the Coastal Commission to hold Sable Offshore

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accountable for what they say is a clear violation of a stop work order

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and irreversible damage of the surrounding habitat.

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It all came to a halt Thursday.

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Sable now faces an $18 Million penalty in order to restore the environment

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it allegedly damaged and a long term cease and desist order.

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They impose the maximum penalty, so that shows

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how upset the Coastal Commission was, in fact.

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Several commissioners said they are so frustrated,

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they said we don't have to be here.

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We shouldn't be here.

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If Sable had just followed the law, submitted its applications

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to do all this work on Gaviota Coast, they might’ve had permits by now.

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In terms of next steps, environmentalists say they hope the attorney general steps

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in to make sure Sable is unable to restart the pipeline (but they DID restart MAY 15, 2025.)

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In Santa Barbara, I'm News Channel reporter Mina Wahab.

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RIchard Charter says “Hey”  

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Hey, Richard, Thank you so much for taking the time to join me today

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to talk about such a serious situation that's facing us.

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What is that?

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We have so many emergencies on the environment right now.

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It's kind of..

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I know...It's hard to also weather them.

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I everybody is a bit in overload.

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Well, I have learned that the younger people

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are taking it hard because they don't remember.

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James Watt.

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We remember James, what he was going to do a lot of bad things

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and he didn't because we were patient and we outlasted him.

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And I used to have a friend in Florida who was with the Sierra Club,

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he was about 90 years old, and he used to always tell me,

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just don't worry about it, Richard.

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Just outlive ‘em.

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Just outlive them.

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That's one way to get back.

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Outlive them.

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and so that's my theory this time.

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Well, why don't we dive right in and talk about what the serious issue

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today that we are talking about when it comes to offshore drilling.

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The executive order and what has been happening since then.

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What can be done?

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Why is this not a good idea?

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Even though the phrase continues to be used,

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and that is for national security and for American prosperity.

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Almost everywhere you look about reports in support of offshore drilling,

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you'll hear those that phrase and what can people do?

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So take it away, Richard.

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Well, what we are facing right now is a deadline

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for public comment of June 16th.

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So there's still time to deal with this or what is called

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the five year offshore oil and gas leasing program

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and the five year oil and gas leasing program.

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This time differs from every previous one.

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You know, the last two administrations, first of all, we've had, first

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a congressional moratorium and then a presidential moratorium.

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So they've never included California.

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This time, the Trump administration is focusing

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specifically on California.

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And in spite of the fact that on January six, the previous president

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justifiably and honorably

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issued what's called an executive withdrawal

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of the that included the whole California coast, the whole Pacific Coast.

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And that's been standing up in court, that Section 12A of the OCSLA Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act

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type of withdrawal.

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That's it.

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We talked about that last episode with you. Yes.

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Done by Obama previously in Alaska.

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The court held it up, you know, upheld it.

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But Trump's pretending it doesn't exist,

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even as yesterday, a bill began to move

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in the House of Representatives to abolish the Biden

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withdrawals.

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So we know that Republicans think

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it must be good, it’ll work because they think they have to reverse it in Congress.

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Trump is just ignoring it and saying, Well, I'll drill everywhere.

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We call it drill, maybe drill.

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And the five year offshore leasing program is specifically focused

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on the most sensitive parts of the California coast,

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including for the first time ever within our national marine sanctuaries.

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Unheard of.

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So that's illegal because 

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national marine sanctuaries generally have a designation document.

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They have a management plan and they have regulations

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that ban, for example, Greater Farallones bans any disturbance of the seabed.

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So you couldn't even build a pipeline.

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But the Interior Department is proceeding

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as if the national marine sanctuaries are open season.

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And that, of course, has caused

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the number of people which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

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Administration NOAA here in California, to leave the agency

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just recently because they were

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told that they would have to approve permits for offshore

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drilling in sanctuary waters if they stayed.

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They were also told that they didn't wear their badge

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all the time while they were at work, they'd be fired.

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So we've had a series of resignations,

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early retirement, what's

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called the fork in the road retirement, where people with extreme

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amounts of knowledge and competence have left the agency

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suddenly.

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So we're losing what I call institutional memory.

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And I had a chance to speak with the (now former) Superintendent

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of the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank, Maria Brown

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(let go 2 weeks ago) recently in person (at the International Ocean Film Fest in San Francisco)

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and she had told me that when they came in and they cut the 20%, they didn't

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ask her to go in and look at the perhaps lowest performing areas.

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They took her top scientists. (Richard, Yeah)

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And they're coming for another 20%, she said.

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So not only are they gutting these agencies,

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but they're installing their own people, too, as I could tell, just by looking at

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who wrote the press release in support of this

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These executive orders for both offshore drilling and for deep sea mining.

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And this woman came from the White House anyway,

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so that you see where these changes are happening.

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And this is

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all being architecturally designed very carefully

00:16:26:19 - 00:16:29:23
by the oil and gas industry who put up

00:16:30:03 - 00:16:33:03
most of the money for the Trump

00:16:33:06 - 00:16:33:20
victory.

00:16:33:20 - 00:16:38:05
And in the campaign and we've known

00:16:38:05 - 00:16:44:08
for several years that a group called the Heritage Foundation,

00:16:44:10 - 00:16:47:21
ironically named, they have an office on Capitol Hill.

00:16:47:21 - 00:16:52:02
I used to walk by it every day on my way to work, the idea

00:16:52:02 - 00:16:55:13
being that they would undo as much as possible

00:16:55:15 - 00:17:00:04
of the nation's environmental laws and they are literally gutting

00:17:00:06 - 00:17:02:13
the environmental protections

00:17:02:13 - 00:17:06:12
in order to go after drilling in areas

00:17:06:12 - 00:17:10:22
where it's previously been outlawed and where they do go after it.

00:17:10:24 - 00:17:14:04
They have done things like remove the safety

00:17:14:06 - 00:17:17:23
mechanisms that would prevent another Deepwater Horizon, you know,

00:17:17:23 - 00:17:22:24
deepwater blowout preventer and how often those would be inspected.

00:17:23:01 - 00:17:25:08
They are going after posting

00:17:25:08 - 00:17:30:10
of a bond by oil companies to make sure that if something does go wrong,

00:17:30:12 - 00:17:33:03
the taxpayer doesn't have to pay for it.

00:17:33:03 - 00:17:36:16
And so first, if you're going to attack something,

00:17:36:18 - 00:17:38:08
you remove the protection

00:17:38:08 - 00:17:41:18
which we're seeing with the personnel that have left NOAA now,

00:17:41:20 - 00:17:47:06
and then you remove the laws that can be used to protect it in court

00:17:47:08 - 00:17:50:17
and then you go after the heart of the coast.

00:17:50:19 - 00:17:52:21
And that's exactly what they're doing.

00:17:52:21 - 00:17:55:00
And so we're

00:17:55:02 - 00:17:57:07
taking advantage of the first

00:17:57:07 - 00:18:02:00
opportunity to comment, which is right now.

00:18:02:02 - 00:18:05:16
And if anybody has a track record

00:18:05:18 - 00:18:10:11
of understanding these issues, it's you and the Ocean Foundation

00:18:10:13 - 00:18:15:23
for the decades of work you have put into protecting our coast.

00:18:16:00 - 00:18:20:14
And you must have seen so much happen over these these decades.

00:18:20:16 - 00:18:26:03
Keep in mind that the Fort Bragg oil hearing,

00:18:26:05 - 00:18:31:20
which took place in I think about 1985, was the largest then

00:18:31:22 - 00:18:36:13
and remains the largest public hearing in the history of the state of California.

00:18:36:15 - 00:18:41:08
It went on for 23 hours continuously with people from the community

00:18:41:08 - 00:18:45:22
coming in to testify against drilling off of Mendocino.

00:18:45:24 - 00:18:47:24
And it was still going on.

00:18:47:24 - 00:18:51:11
There were still 700 people signed up to testify

00:18:51:13 - 00:18:55:17
when the Interior Department secretary, then Hodel,

00:18:55:19 - 00:18:59:03
shut down the hearing and we had to have the Mendocino

00:18:59:03 - 00:19:03:09
Children's Choir sing The Ballad of the Mendocino Coast.

00:19:03:09 - 00:19:08:08
As we gave T-shirts to the hearing panel

00:19:08:10 - 00:19:13:06
that said, I survived the Mendocino oil hearing and they marched out.

00:19:13:07 - 00:19:14:22
This was to prevent a riot.

00:19:14:22 - 00:19:18:09
I mean, there were still 700 people signed up to testify,

00:19:18:09 - 00:19:20:16
and they were listening to Bonnie Raitt play music

00:19:20:16 - 00:19:24:13
on a flatbed truck out in front of the hall in Fort Bragg.

00:19:24:15 - 00:19:26:23
So we have some history here.

00:19:26:23 - 00:19:27:12
And this.

00:19:27:12 - 00:19:30:03
And that was Bonnie Raitt in person, wasn't it?

00:19:30:03 - 00:19:32:04
That was Bonnie Raitt in person.

00:19:32:04 - 00:19:37:10
And we have seen on this coast

00:19:37:12 - 00:19:39:13
a confrontation between

00:19:39:13 - 00:19:43:15
the people that love the ocean and the oil industry.

00:19:43:15 - 00:19:46:03
We've seen that about three times.

00:19:46:03 - 00:19:51:01
I think this is the fourth time where it's been, you know, them or us.

00:19:51:05 - 00:19:54:17
And I so I'm not giving up.

00:19:54:17 - 00:19:57:15
We've beat these people before.

00:19:57:15 - 00:20:02:10
And we have, as the secretary of interior, a gentleman who has a background

00:20:02:10 - 00:20:05:10
in developing accounting software

00:20:05:16 - 00:20:08:07
that was called Great Plains.

00:20:08:07 - 00:20:10:12
And anyone. I remember that.

00:20:10:12 - 00:20:13:13
Anyone who was in the accounting business, you know,

00:20:13:13 - 00:20:16:13
and that, you know.

00:20:16:13 - 00:20:19:13
Chief Financial Officer they call it great pains

00:20:19:19 - 00:20:22:10
because it was a flawed piece of software.

00:20:22:10 - 00:20:26:17
So that's who is now in charge of our coast.

00:20:26:17 - 00:20:30:07
And I think we will outlast him, frankly.

00:20:30:07 - 00:20:34:07
I think this business of, you know, going after Marine

00:20:34:07 - 00:20:38:10
sanctuaries is frankly, is a real mistake.

00:20:38:12 - 00:20:41:05
I mean, just even from their point of view, it's

00:20:41:05 - 00:20:44:24
technologically a mistake because they can't drill safely.

00:20:44:24 - 00:20:46:23
We keep having spills here, as you know.

00:20:46:23 - 00:20:49:12
And secondly,

00:20:49:14 - 00:20:50:17
these people don't

00:20:50:17 - 00:20:53:17
know what they're doing and they have no idea that a national

00:20:53:17 - 00:20:58:07
marine sanctuary is the most defensible of any of our coastal protections.

00:20:58:07 - 00:21:02:19
So they're headed into a big storm, but they've gotten rid

00:21:02:19 - 00:21:06:02
of the NOAA scientists that could have predicted the storm.

00:21:06:04 - 00:21:07:19
You know, predicted the storm.

00:21:07:19 - 00:21:12:11
There's nobody there's nobody to save them from what they’ve set themselves up for.

00:21:12:13 - 00:21:17:24
Well, I know there's a number of locals in Mendocino and Sonoma counties

00:21:18:01 - 00:21:21:10
that have responded to a lot of the social media posts

00:21:21:12 - 00:21:25:01
that I have been putting out there to raise awareness about this

00:21:25:01 - 00:21:29:23
June 16th comment period timeline that we've got until that date.

00:21:30:00 - 00:21:33:13
And there are a lot of people who are up in arms about this

00:21:33:13 - 00:21:37:13
that do not want this to happen along our coast.

00:21:37:15 - 00:21:40:05
So they're all asking what to do.

00:21:40:05 - 00:21:42:17
We have made it as easy as possible

00:21:42:17 - 00:21:45:10
to take action because Interior Department

00:21:45:10 - 00:21:50:05
has a very complex website where lots of long URLs and whatnot.

00:21:50:05 - 00:21:52:17
So we put a new facade on that.

00:21:52:17 - 00:21:58:24
We put a new coat of paint on it that SaveMyCoast.org, SaveMyCoast.org,

00:21:58:24 - 00:22:02:09
and that will allow you in two clicks

00:22:02:11 - 00:22:05:19
to comment on the five year leasing program.

00:22:05:21 - 00:22:08:24
Now, there are some things to know as you comment.

00:22:08:24 - 00:22:10:09
It's very easy to comment.

00:22:10:09 - 00:22:12:11
What you say is important.

00:22:12:11 - 00:22:16:08
We don't want to just generate a lot of comments like don't do it

00:22:16:10 - 00:22:19:17
and have them say, well, everybody had the same comment.

00:22:19:17 - 00:22:22:17
You know, it's like somehow or another

00:22:22:20 - 00:22:27:06
we need to have people talk about what they know about this coast.

00:22:27:06 - 00:22:31:03
If you're a commercial fisherman and you have a particularly

00:22:31:03 - 00:22:34:03
productive spot out there or you know,

00:22:34:08 - 00:22:37:13
talk about that, if you know something about

00:22:37:15 - 00:22:43:09
the geology of the area, talk about that, because it so happens, as you'll see,

00:22:43:11 - 00:22:47:19
as you click through the website and you wind up in the comment area,

00:22:47:21 - 00:22:51:23
they're looking for what is called

00:22:52:00 - 00:22:54:11
a comparative analysis, in other words,

00:22:54:11 - 00:22:59:11
relative environmental sensitivity versus potential for oil.

00:22:59:13 - 00:23:05:00
And here that equation is always a low potential oil reserve

00:23:05:02 - 00:23:09:15
versus high environmental sensitivity, the highest environmental sensitivity

00:23:09:17 - 00:23:16:09
because of the ocean upwelling systems where you have irreplaceable

00:23:16:11 - 00:23:20:06
upwelling of nutrients from the deep sea.

00:23:20:08 - 00:23:25:00
One of the four most productive upwelling systems on the planet right here.

00:23:25:02 - 00:23:28:02
And then you start looking where the oil is.

00:23:28:05 - 00:23:30:21
And this is why, of course, we have expanded

00:23:30:21 - 00:23:34:00
the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

00:23:34:02 - 00:23:37:24
We would have liked to have taken it further than Point Arena, but we took it

00:23:38:00 - 00:23:39:06
to Point Arena.

00:23:39:06 - 00:23:44:00
And the reason we did that is because we know that the areas where

00:23:44:00 - 00:23:47:08
the oil industry has previously wanted to drill

00:23:47:10 - 00:23:50:02
are right off of Bodega Head,

00:23:50:02 - 00:23:55:01
right off of Sea Ranch immediately in front of Sea Ranch, right off Gualala,

00:23:55:03 - 00:24:00:04
right off of Point Arena itself, in fact, where the existing Farallones

00:24:00:04 - 00:24:04:09
Sanctuary ends at Alder Creek North of Point Arena (in Manchester).

00:24:04:11 - 00:24:08:08
The oil industry seems to think there are some interests outside

00:24:08:08 - 00:24:12:04
of the sanctuary boundary there as well as inside the sanctuary,

00:24:12:06 - 00:24:15:06
and that moving north right off of Mendocino Village,

00:24:15:10 - 00:24:19:09
which is why we had the largest public hearing in the history of California,

00:24:19:11 - 00:24:23:17
logically in Mendocino Village, these these people are going

00:24:23:17 - 00:24:26:17
after the heart of our coast.

00:24:26:19 - 00:24:27:12
I think people

00:24:27:12 - 00:24:32:07
hear in Sea Ranch, too, once they get informed,

00:24:32:07 - 00:24:37:04
better about what's happening will also pitch in as well.

00:24:37:10 - 00:24:41:02
Yes, I think so. Now

00:24:41:04 - 00:24:44:21
we're talking about the northern California coast

00:24:44:21 - 00:24:51:00
along the Sonoma, Mendocino counties, but down in the Santa Barbara area,

00:24:51:02 - 00:24:53:06
you sent me the news about Sable Offshore (Houston-based

00:24:53:06 - 00:24:56:06
oil production company) and I looked at more news about that.

00:24:56:08 - 00:25:00:22
Why don't we touch on that for a moment, if you would.

00:25:00:24 - 00:25:04:12
We had in 2015

00:25:04:14 - 00:25:08:17
a pipeline carrying offshore oil

00:25:08:19 - 00:25:11:08
called the American Plains Pipeline

00:25:11:08 - 00:25:15:00
Company or Plains Pipeline break

00:25:15:03 - 00:25:19:23
ruptured broke open in 2015 on the east side,

00:25:19:23 - 00:25:24:19
on the shoreline side of the freeway, 101 freeway in Santa Barbara County.

00:25:25:00 - 00:25:27:20
A decade ago. In 2015.

00:25:27:20 - 00:25:33:13
And the Refugio Oil pipeline turned out to be as thin as an onion skin

00:25:33:15 - 00:25:35:11
It had not been monitored, it

00:25:35:11 - 00:25:39:23
had not been what they call “pigged” to inspect its integrity.

00:25:40:00 - 00:25:40:23
And it broke open.

00:25:40:23 - 00:25:45:13
And a gentleman in Texas who was operating the pipeline, the pump station,

00:25:45:15 - 00:25:50:15
he saw a drop in pressure up in Santa Barbara from Texas

00:25:50:17 - 00:25:52:07
skyscraper in Houston.

00:25:52:07 - 00:25:55:05
He turned up the pressure higher

00:25:55:05 - 00:25:58:05
and that caused this

00:25:58:10 - 00:26:01:10
rupture in the pipeline to leak more oil,

00:26:01:11 - 00:26:06:04
the oil then went through a culvert under the highway, under Highway 101

00:26:06:04 - 00:26:10:01
and into the ocean, never needed to go in the ocean.

00:26:10:02 - 00:26:13:00
There was no spill response plan.

00:26:13:00 - 00:26:18:06
The oil leaked under Highway 101, through a long culvert.

00:26:18:06 - 00:26:21:07
If I'd been there, I'd be probably in jail.

00:26:21:07 - 00:26:23:17
I would have taken out a backhoe.

00:26:23:17 - 00:26:25:08
This was like an agricultural area.

00:26:25:08 - 00:26:28:01
I would have taken a backhoe, and plugged the culvert.

00:26:28:01 - 00:26:33:15
I probably would have then driven the backhoe into the hole and I would have ...

00:26:33:15 - 00:26:34:20
Anything to stop that. Right?

00:26:34:20 - 00:26:37:01
Anything to stop it from getting in the ocean.

00:26:37:01 - 00:26:41:00
I probably then would have gone to the Coastal Commission and said,

00:26:41:02 - 00:26:46:03
“I forgot to get a permit” because this was all happening very rapidly.

00:26:46:03 - 00:26:48:09
But nobody

00:26:48:11 - 00:26:50:01
did anything.

00:26:50:01 - 00:26:52:11
They let it go into the ocean where it traveled

00:26:52:11 - 00:26:55:14
150 miles on the ocean.

00:26:55:14 - 00:27:02:12
And so, you know, you have an unnecessary spill caused by negligence

00:27:02:14 - 00:27:06:07
that caused irreparable damage to the ecosystem.

00:27:06:07 - 00:27:08:01
It's still being analyzed.

00:27:08:01 - 00:27:10:08
What happened there ...

00:27:10:08 - 00:27:13:05
it never needed to reach the ocean.

00:27:13:05 - 00:27:19:19
And then this was servicing oil from three offshore platforms

00:27:19:21 - 00:27:23:08
called Heritage Harmony and Hondo.

00:27:23:10 - 00:27:26:09
And of course, those platforms were shut down

00:27:26:09 - 00:27:31:05
because the pipeline that transported their oil was broken.

00:27:31:07 - 00:27:34:00
A company called Sable, a smaller company.

00:27:34:00 - 00:27:40:17
Which now, just yesterday restarted those three platforms and is planning to

00:27:40:19 - 00:27:45:05
without complying with a number of orders by various state agencies,

00:27:45:05 - 00:27:49:17
including in particular the California Coastal Commission,

00:27:49:19 - 00:27:53:24
went ahead and started the platforms and plans to restart producing oil.

00:27:54:01 - 00:27:56:09
And severe penalties even.

00:27:56:09 - 00:27:58:04
Yeah, and severe penalties.

00:27:58:04 - 00:28:00:22
And they're just above the law

00:28:00:24 - 00:28:02:07
as far as we can tell.

00:28:02:07 - 00:28:03:15
They think they're above the law.

00:28:03:15 - 00:28:07:12
And if you look at this in the context of the five year

00:28:07:12 - 00:28:11:10
offshore leasing program where we're going to have new leasing,

00:28:11:12 - 00:28:14:20
what we see is the reason

00:28:14:22 - 00:28:20:08
that the industry, the oil industry is so interested in that particular area,

00:28:20:08 - 00:28:25:08
Santa Barbara Channel is that the north end of the

00:28:25:10 - 00:28:28:10
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary,

00:28:28:11 - 00:28:31:13
There are tracks within the sanctuary that they want to lease.

00:28:31:14 - 00:28:35:09
We think within a year, I mean, everything has been speeded up.

00:28:35:09 - 00:28:39:05
Once the five year program is finalized, this Interior Department

00:28:39:05 - 00:28:44:07
is devising shortcuts for the normal environmental studies

00:28:44:07 - 00:28:48:01
and the environmental documents that would have to be done.

00:28:48:03 - 00:28:53:12
But they can shortcut those those those permits and get in there.

00:28:53:12 - 00:28:57:24
So they're they're they're targeting first, I would add, all the evidence

00:28:57:24 - 00:29:01:21
points toward their targeting the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary first.

00:29:01:21 - 00:29:04:21
For drilling.

00:29:04:23 - 00:29:08:02
And it seems like with the Executive

00:29:08:02 - 00:29:13:08
Order (by Trump), it seems like it includes

00:29:13:08 - 00:29:19:01
both drilling for oil but also for minerals.

00:29:19:03 - 00:29:19:22
That will be 

00:29:19:22 - 00:29:23:17
we believe, a separate executive order.

00:29:23:19 - 00:29:26:09
In other words, there is the offshore

00:29:26:09 - 00:29:29:09
oil and gas leasing five year program.

00:29:29:12 - 00:29:32:08
James Watt, when he was Secretary of the Interior

00:29:32:08 - 00:29:37:19
in about 1982, tried to do what was called a hard minerals leasing program.

00:29:37:21 - 00:29:42:05
And he specifically targeted area off of Humboldt County

00:29:42:07 - 00:29:45:00
Del Norte County and Southern Oregon,

00:29:45:00 - 00:29:48:00
up about as far north as Coos Bay

00:29:48:03 - 00:29:51:10
for what is called the Gorter Ridge lease sale.

00:29:51:12 - 00:29:55:01
And this was partly off the Northern California

00:29:55:01 - 00:29:58:10
coast, partly off of the coast of Oregon.

00:29:58:12 - 00:30:03:16
And the idea was that minerals called Polymetallic Sulfides

00:30:03:18 - 00:30:07:21
that are found around seafloor hydrothermal vents or hot springs

00:30:07:23 - 00:30:11:10
on the seafloor would be extracted,

00:30:11:16 - 00:30:16:13
basically bulldozed with remote undersea bulldozers ground up,

00:30:16:15 - 00:30:20:16
and the slurry brought to shore probably appears

00:30:20:18 - 00:30:24:14
the slurry would be brought to shore in Humboldt Bay

00:30:24:16 - 00:30:27:08
and in an approved harbor at Humboldt Bay.

00:30:27:08 - 00:30:29:16
These polymetallic what they also called

00:30:29:16 - 00:30:33:01
the nodules, right?

00:30:33:07 - 00:30:33:17
they’re different.

00:30:33:17 - 00:30:35:21
There's three kinds of sub sea mining.

00:30:35:21 - 00:30:39:23
One is what we have here goes to the California coast,

00:30:40:00 - 00:30:42:13
which is the poly metallic sulfides.

00:30:42:13 - 00:30:46:10
Copper, lead, and zinc primarily low value minerals.

00:30:46:12 - 00:30:49:15
Then there are minerals that plate themselves

00:30:49:15 - 00:30:54:03
almost like electroplating onto vertical structures.

00:30:54:05 - 00:30:59:06
There's one in the Monterey Bay Sanctuary called the Davidson Seamount.

00:30:59:08 - 00:31:03:24
There appear to be some interest, appears to be some interest in some subsea

00:31:04:01 - 00:31:08:10
mining around Santa Rosa Island and the Santa Barbara Channel.

00:31:08:10 - 00:31:10:17
That would be a separate comment period.

00:31:10:17 - 00:31:13:17
And meanwhile, on the seafloor,

00:31:13:23 - 00:31:17:06
the international Seabed Authority (ISA),

00:31:17:08 - 00:31:23:04
which is a global decision making body, is looking at what are called

00:31:23:06 - 00:31:25:17
basically nodules or

00:31:25:17 - 00:31:30:05
rocks that are spread across the sea floor, that have cobalt, manganese

00:31:30:07 - 00:31:33:00
and an area called the Clarion Clipperton Zone,

00:31:33:00 - 00:31:36:16
which runs from Hawaii roughly to Mexico.

00:31:36:16 - 00:31:38:13
It's wider than the continental U.S.

00:31:38:13 - 00:31:45:09
and that process is not finished determining that it can be done safely.

00:31:45:09 - 00:31:47:17
They know that some exploration

00:31:47:17 - 00:31:52:03
that they did in on the deep sea for nodules actually

00:31:52:03 - 00:31:56:18
50 years later, perhaps a century later, still showed damage to the seafloor.

00:31:56:18 - 00:32:00:10
So President Trump

00:32:00:10 - 00:32:03:20
in his interest in proceeding

00:32:03:20 - 00:32:07:09
without having to consult other countries and because the U.S.

00:32:07:09 - 00:32:11:11
is not part of the International Seabed Authority.

00:32:11:13 - 00:32:16:24
He yesterday declared that American Samoa,

00:32:17:01 - 00:32:20:09
which has an exclusive economic zone, which is U.S.

00:32:20:09 - 00:32:25:06
waters about American Samoa, of course, has a moratorium on seabed mining.

00:32:25:08 - 00:32:28:21
He disregarded that and said we're going to have

00:32:28:23 - 00:32:32:05
seabed mining off of American Samoa under U.S.

00:32:32:05 - 00:32:33:12
authority.

00:32:33:12 - 00:32:37:11
Now, it's an authority we don't have because we never signed

00:32:37:11 - 00:32:38:09
the Law of the Sea.

00:32:38:09 - 00:32:41:15
But he is going to try

00:32:41:17 - 00:32:45:06
to do seabed mining off of American Samoa.

00:32:45:06 - 00:32:49:19
And these are very large, remote controlled

00:32:49:21 - 00:32:55:10
devices that crawl along the seabed and tear everything

00:32:55:11 - 00:32:59:09
to pieces, basically, or suck up the nodules.

00:32:59:09 - 00:33:02:09
The nodules are alpha emitters.

00:33:02:09 - 00:33:07:00
They're radioactive enough that it violates EPA

00:33:07:02 - 00:33:12:03
regulations to process these on a ship in terms of radioactive exposure.

00:33:12:05 - 00:33:17:04
But here in California, we expect the mining of the seabed

00:33:17:04 - 00:33:22:00
to begin off of Humboldt and Del Norte County and then eventually off

00:33:22:02 - 00:33:24:11
Santa Rosa Island in the Santa Barbara Channel.

00:33:24:11 - 00:33:28:05
But that comment period has not been named yet.

00:33:28:07 - 00:33:31:21
Thanks for thanks for clarifying that, because,

00:33:31:23 - 00:33:32:08
you know,

00:33:32:08 - 00:33:36:14
I've watched a congressional hearing recently with both the The Metals Company

00:33:36:14 - 00:33:41:24
out of Vancouver and Impossible Metals (San Jose CA) and some scientific experts.

00:33:41:24 - 00:33:49:02
Jared Huffman was there and that is, again, about that deep sea mining aspect.

00:33:49:04 - 00:33:52:13
There are some crossovers, so I wanted to clarify some of that

00:33:52:13 - 00:33:56:21
because we are talking about that in next week’s episode of

00:33:56:23 - 00:33:57:09
Resilient Earth

00:33:57:09 - 00:34:00:10
and there's a lot to be discussed about that.

00:34:00:10 - 00:34:06:17
And the Clarion-Clipperton Zone was one area that The Metals Company has a lease in.

00:34:06:19 - 00:34:10:13
But when it comes to some of the language,

00:34:10:13 - 00:34:15:00
it also says offshore seabed minerals.

00:34:15:00 - 00:34:19:20
So I wanted to get a clarification of where where those territories lie.

00:34:19:22 - 00:34:23:02
we are watching both very carefully.

00:34:23:04 - 00:34:27:05
We're watching the oil drilling proposal closest

00:34:27:05 - 00:34:30:16
because or third of the way through the comment period.

00:34:30:18 - 00:34:34:09
counties are looking at resolutions the state of California,

00:34:34:11 - 00:34:37:18
The state of Oregon and the state of Washington have

00:34:37:20 - 00:34:43:02
in the past have worked together to confront this type of thing.

00:34:43:02 - 00:34:46:23
I can't predict, but I believe that I have some evidence

00:34:46:23 - 00:34:48:05
that that will happen again.

00:34:48:05 - 00:34:52:17
A unified front between California, Oregon and Washington to confront

00:34:52:17 - 00:34:58:24
what Secretary (Doug) Burgum is trying to do here off of California.

00:34:58:24 - 00:35:01:23
But we're not we're not done with that yet.

00:35:01:23 - 00:35:03:09
And once we’re done with that,

00:35:03:09 - 00:35:07:11
we will move on and pay very close attention to deep sea minerals.

00:35:07:13 - 00:35:12:17
If anybody wants to learn about deep sea minerals, we for some reason,

00:35:12:18 - 00:35:16:23
I'm not sure why we did this, but exactly one year ago

00:35:16:23 - 00:35:22:24
we did a film, a 20 minute documentary at THEDEEPMOVIE.org and you can learn

00:35:23:01 - 00:35:26:05
more than you ever wanted to know about deep sea mining

00:35:26:05 - 00:35:30:04
and all of the impacts at THEDEEPMOVIE.org.

00:35:30:06 - 00:35:33:14
And, you know, while you're eating dinner or maybe not

00:35:33:14 - 00:35:36:15
while you're eating dinner, but you know, at your leisure.

00:35:36:15 - 00:35:38:19
It's an excellent film. Yeah.

00:35:38:19 - 00:35:44:07
Now I know that going back to the offshore drilling,

00:35:44:09 - 00:35:48:11
that Surfrider organization has actually taken

00:35:48:11 - 00:35:51:21
a lawsuit out against the Trump administration,

00:35:51:23 - 00:35:56:20
and the defenders of wildlife have also been taking action.

00:35:56:20 - 00:36:00:02
And so there are a lot of groups that seem to be lining up

00:36:00:04 - 00:36:03:14
to take action along with the Ocean Foundation.

00:36:03:16 - 00:36:06:16
We have some very good lawyers in those groups you mentioned

00:36:06:22 - 00:36:08:12
working for those groups.

00:36:08:12 - 00:36:10:05
That's good to hear.

00:36:10:05 - 00:36:13:21
people really want to know, can they help?

00:36:13:23 - 00:36:16:20
You know, there are ways to support those organizations

00:36:16:20 - 00:36:20:24
by contributing monetarily to them. But

00:36:21:01 - 00:36:24:11
tactical actions that people can take are right now

00:36:24:11 - 00:36:27:11
are crafting messages of impact

00:36:27:16 - 00:36:31:08
for this comment period before June 16th

00:36:31:10 - 00:36:35:17
and your website there save SaveMyCoast.

00:36:35:19 - 00:36:39:03
SaveMyCoast.org Gives the link

00:36:39:03 - 00:36:43:09
to that federal agency where you can respond.

00:36:43:11 - 00:36:47:23
Correct and what what we have found in the past with federal agencies

00:36:47:23 - 00:36:51:22
that try to do irrational things to the California coast,

00:36:51:24 - 00:36:55:16
they don't know any of the history of how people feel

00:36:55:16 - 00:36:58:21
about this coast or the history, as Peter Douglas

00:36:58:21 - 00:37:02:10
used to always say, the California coast is never saved.

00:37:02:10 - 00:37:05:10
It's always in the process of being saved.

00:37:05:15 - 00:37:06:21
He was absolutely right.

00:37:06:21 - 00:37:09:01
It's always in the process of being saved.

00:37:09:01 - 00:37:14:18
So you get federal agency, third floor of the department of Interior

00:37:14:18 - 00:37:19:08
on 18th and C Street in Washington, DC, and they think,

00:37:19:08 - 00:37:24:02
Oh, here's a map of California, Oregon and Washington.

00:37:24:04 - 00:37:27:13
We'll just drill anywhere we want.

00:37:27:15 - 00:37:32:07
And whenever that happens or whenever that has happened in the past,

00:37:32:09 - 00:37:35:09
they underestimate the backlash.

00:37:35:09 - 00:37:37:24
In other words,

00:37:38:01 - 00:37:41:10
they have no idea what they're getting into.

00:37:41:10 - 00:37:43:09
And so

00:37:43:09 - 00:37:45:04
we need to remind them.

00:37:45:04 - 00:37:48:12
And of course, this time, not only are they targeting

00:37:48:12 - 00:37:52:17
national marine sanctuaries, we have a series,

00:37:52:19 - 00:37:54:23
a whole network on this coast.

00:37:54:23 - 00:37:56:08
People, coastal planners

00:37:56:08 - 00:38:00:06
come from all over the world to study how we protect this coast.

00:38:00:08 - 00:38:05:10
We have marine protected areas that were created by the state of California

00:38:05:12 - 00:38:10:12
through a negotiating process, consent and consensus by various stakeholders

00:38:10:14 - 00:38:13:23
that lie in many cases within the sanctuaries

00:38:14:00 - 00:38:17:00
or, you know, between the sanctuaries.

00:38:17:01 - 00:38:21:08
And as we were doing these marine protected state, marine protected areas,

00:38:21:10 - 00:38:25:12
the operational theory was they needed to be close enough together

00:38:25:14 - 00:38:28:05
so that if one of them got hit by a disaster

00:38:28:05 - 00:38:31:24
or chemical spill or oil spill, any kind of

00:38:32:01 - 00:38:35:04
problem like that, that the others would be close enough

00:38:35:04 - 00:38:38:10
to be able to genetically serve

00:38:38:10 - 00:38:42:09
as a genetic reservoir to replenish the marine protected areas

00:38:42:09 - 00:38:43:15
to the north and south.

00:38:43:15 - 00:38:45:24
The currents reverse off this coast.

00:38:45:24 - 00:38:47:13
They go north part of the year

00:38:47:13 - 00:38:50:23
and there's a nearshore counter currents going south part of the year.

00:38:51:00 - 00:38:54:01
So the idea being that there is a

00:38:54:03 - 00:38:56:03
ability here

00:38:56:03 - 00:39:00:01
to create a scientific basis for these comments.

00:39:00:01 - 00:39:03:01
In other words, we're not just saying

00:39:03:06 - 00:39:07:02
we're worried about the view, we're worried about the ecosystem,

00:39:07:02 - 00:39:11:08
the fishery, our economy, which is based on a clean coast.

00:39:11:08 - 00:39:11:14
Period.

00:39:11:14 - 00:39:14:20
(Leigh Anne brings up the fishing industry.) Yeah,

00:39:14:22 - 00:39:19:08
they will be weighing in, I have been assured.

00:39:19:08 - 00:39:23:02
And then you have all the tourism, of course, and the eco tourism

00:39:23:04 - 00:39:24:09
and the environments.

00:39:24:09 - 00:39:27:16
These are fragile underwater environments.

00:39:27:22 - 00:39:33:18
And these MPAs, these marine protected areas have been showing

00:39:33:20 - 00:39:37:11
how valuable that conservation

00:39:37:11 - 00:39:41:16
and protection has been over time as they studied it.

00:39:41:18 - 00:39:45:21
I have met with teams of people from Indonesia and elsewhere.

00:39:45:23 - 00:39:49:05
They travel here specifically to study

00:39:49:07 - 00:39:51:17
how we protect this coast,

00:39:51:17 - 00:39:56:04
the network of marine protected areas at the state level,

00:39:56:06 - 00:39:59:24
the national marine sanctuaries at the federal level.

00:40:00:01 - 00:40:04:20
And then of course, things like the Biden withdrawals, you know, making it off

00:40:04:20 - 00:40:09:21
limits illegal to put, you know, offshore drilling here.

00:40:09:23 - 00:40:12:17
And they want to go home to their country

00:40:12:17 - 00:40:16:08
and create a similar network of protections.

00:40:16:10 - 00:40:21:17
This is a model for the whole world, what we've done on the California coast.

00:40:21:17 - 00:40:25:21
And so I don't think the Interior Department really

00:40:25:21 - 00:40:29:14
has come to realize what they've run into.

00:40:29:16 - 00:40:36:17
You know, the buzzsaw of public opinion and economic vital economic interests.

00:40:36:19 - 00:40:38:00
This is not,

00:40:38:00 - 00:40:41:23
you know, just some random coastline somewhere.

00:40:42:00 - 00:40:47:10
This is the place that people decided to create a model for coastal protection.

00:40:47:12 - 00:40:53:11
And I think that consciousness is going to arise again

00:40:53:13 - 00:40:56:18
partly in new generations.

00:40:56:20 - 00:40:59:05
But, you know, they

00:40:59:05 - 00:41:01:00
we're going to have to demonstrate it.

00:41:01:00 - 00:41:04:10
We can't just assume that the Interior Department

00:41:04:10 - 00:41:07:11
is going to figure all this out without our help.

00:41:07:14 - 00:41:09:05
We're helping the Interior Department.

00:41:09:05 - 00:41:12:21
We made it easier to access their comment Web site,

00:41:12:23 - 00:41:17:15
you know, which was arcane and hard to get to.

00:41:17:15 - 00:41:18:20
SaveMyCoast.org.

00:41:18:20 - 00:41:21:17
It's pretty easy to remember.

00:41:21:17 - 00:41:25:05
People can, you know, submit a comment

00:41:25:05 - 00:41:28:11
while they're waiting for their dentist to get to their opinion.

00:41:28:13 - 00:41:32:24
You know, they're not going to take our coast to the dentist, that's for sure.

00:41:33:01 - 00:41:36:07
So what happens after June 16th?

00:41:36:09 - 00:41:38:09
We don't know.

00:41:38:09 - 00:41:40:03
One thing we've noticed, the reason

00:41:40:03 - 00:41:44:02
our website has a headline that says Drill, MAYBE, drill?

00:41:44:02 - 00:41:48:05
One thing that we've all noticed about the Trump administration

00:41:48:05 - 00:41:52:16
is that they change their minds...a lot.

00:41:52:18 - 00:41:54:20
On a dime. About a lot of things.

00:41:54:20 - 00:41:59:04
This is one of the one of the factors that drove people crazy

00:41:59:06 - 00:42:03:10
who were working at NOAA who had to decide what they were going to do

00:42:03:10 - 00:42:07:20
as employees for NOAA was one day

00:42:07:20 - 00:42:10:20
they'd say, Your job is gone.

00:42:10:23 - 00:42:13:16
The next day they'd say, Your job is fine,

00:42:13:16 - 00:42:16:16
and the next day your job is gone.

00:42:16:21 - 00:42:19:06
And it was driving them nuts.

00:42:19:06 - 00:42:22:24
And so they quit because you can't,

00:42:23:01 - 00:42:25:14
you know, function in a world like that.

00:42:25:14 - 00:42:30:10
This was when Elon Musk was in charge of firing people and that now he seems

00:42:30:10 - 00:42:35:05
to have gone back to his Tesla factory, and making strangely shaped trucks.

00:42:35:05 - 00:42:40:06
But, you know, the bottom line is that this was

00:42:40:08 - 00:42:42:00
deliberately presented

00:42:42:00 - 00:42:45:00
to people within the agency to be confusing.

00:42:45:02 - 00:42:45:17
Could Trump change his mind about drilling off the coast of California?

00:42:45:17 - 00:42:46:09
Absolutely.

00:42:46:09 - 00:42:53:06
He's changed his mind about three times a week.

00:42:53:07 - 00:42:54:16
Look at tariffs.

00:42:54:16 - 00:42:56:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:56:23 - 00:42:59:04
And businesses just don't work that way.

00:42:59:04 - 00:43:02:07
They need to have some sort of ability to forecast.

00:43:02:07 - 00:43:06:18
And if you have constantly changing things,

00:43:06:18 - 00:43:10:22
it's hard for even businesses to function, let alone people.

00:43:10:22 - 00:43:14:19
They call it a five year plan.

00:43:14:19 - 00:43:16:08
It's not a plan.

00:43:16:08 - 00:43:21:06
If it gets changed every time they have a whim.

00:43:22:05 - 00:43:24:00
One thing we have here in California,

00:43:24:00 - 00:43:27:01
we're getting really tired of these oil spills,

00:43:27:01 - 00:43:30:07
not only the Refugio spill in 2015, but again

00:43:30:07 - 00:43:33:05
off of Huntington Beach in 2021.

00:43:33:18 - 00:43:38:19
We had a subsidy pipeline that was supposed to be buried in the seafloor,

00:43:38:23 - 00:43:42:24
and it was supposed to have a failsafe mechanism at the platform

00:43:42:24 - 00:43:46:04
so that if the pressure dropped, would shut off the flow of oil.

00:43:47:04 - 00:43:50:12
The pressure drop didn't shut off the flow of oil.

00:43:50:12 - 00:43:54:09
They're still investigating as to whether somebody had short circuited

00:43:54:09 - 00:43:56:09
that failsafe mechanism.

00:43:56:09 - 00:43:59:02
The burial of the pipeline and casing

00:43:59:02 - 00:44:02:17
and concrete appears to have well, it wasn't

00:44:02:17 - 00:44:05:09
a condition of the actual permit

00:44:05:09 - 00:44:08:18
from the Coast Commission, but it looks like it was never done.

00:44:08:20 - 00:44:13:15
So an anchor on a ship, you know, a containership

00:44:13:17 - 00:44:17:17
looks like it caught the pipeline, dragged it and broke it.

00:44:17:19 - 00:44:20:23
You can't come to a state like California

00:44:20:23 - 00:44:24:00
where we've had these environmental insults one after another,

00:44:24:00 - 00:44:27:18
whether you start with 69, the blowout Santa Barbara,

00:44:27:20 - 00:44:33:00
you know, Union Oil platform, a blowout in 69, which even Richard Nixon,

00:44:33:02 - 00:44:35:14
when he came to see it, he passed, he created

00:44:35:14 - 00:44:39:16
most of the environmental laws that Trump is now removing, you know,

00:44:39:16 - 00:44:44:04
because he came Richard Nixon came out and looked at the Santa Barbara blowout.

00:44:44:06 - 00:44:48:00
Now we have, you know,

00:44:48:02 - 00:44:52:08
about every five years we have an accident

00:44:52:10 - 00:44:55:21
with our remaining offshore oil facilities.

00:44:55:21 - 00:44:58:17
And we're phasing it out for that reason. In California.

00:44:58:17 - 00:45:03:17
We're sick and tired of companies that with

00:45:03:19 - 00:45:08:10
full knowledge, operate with negligence and destroy our coast.

00:45:08:10 - 00:45:11:14
And so I think that's another factor

00:45:11:14 - 00:45:14:14
that is going to play into these comments.

00:45:14:16 - 00:45:15:23
We've had it.

00:45:15:23 - 00:45:19:17
We don't need any more spills here from this industry.

00:45:19:17 - 00:45:21:20
If they wanted to operate here,

00:45:21:20 - 00:45:25:14
they could have been precautionary enough to act safely.

00:45:25:15 - 00:45:27:03
They could be precautionary enough

00:45:27:03 - 00:45:29:18
to respect our national marine sanctuaries,

00:45:29:18 - 00:45:33:08
but we're not going to go easily when they come along and say,

00:45:33:08 - 00:45:36:18
Oh, the sanctuaries are where we want to drill.

00:45:36:20 - 00:45:37:18
That's what they're saying now.

00:45:37:18 - 00:45:39:22
(with emphasis) Well, sorry, it's illegal!

00:45:39:22 - 00:45:45:06
You know, it took 25 years to create these sanctuaries and then expand them.

00:45:45:08 - 00:45:47:00
We have layers of protection.

00:45:47:00 - 00:45:49:16
Each one will wind up in court.

00:45:49:16 - 00:45:52:13
You know, Monterey Bay

00:45:52:13 - 00:45:56:16
National Marine Sanctuary was actually created through passage of a law.

00:45:56:16 - 00:46:00:11
It was part of the Hurricane Andrew Relief Act that was rebuilding

00:46:00:11 - 00:46:02:16
Florida after a huge hurricane.

00:46:02:16 - 00:46:06:17
You can't just undo these things with a scribble

00:46:06:17 - 00:46:11:12
on a piece of paper with a pen and call it an executive order.

00:46:11:14 - 00:46:14:17
That's not how the American government works.

00:46:14:17 - 00:46:15:24
What are the

00:46:15:24 - 00:46:20:02
final words that you might have for our listeners and viewers?

00:46:20:06 - 00:46:24:23
Quit listening to me, go to SaveMyCoast.org.

00:46:24:23 - 00:46:30:06
if you can’t remember that it's SaveMyCoast.org, and take 5 minutes

00:46:30:06 - 00:46:33:14
the next 5 minutes and tell them what you think. 

00:46:33:16 - 00:46:36:10
Not hard to do.

00:46:36:10 - 00:46:41:22
And you can ask that your email address not be published and if you want.

00:46:41:22 - 00:46:46:17
And the bottom line is collectively, they're going to,

00:46:46:17 - 00:46:51:09
I think, I predict, get more comments from California than any other state.

00:46:51:09 - 00:46:54:12
I mean, obviously there are projects going on in other states.

00:46:54:12 - 00:46:58:12
You mentioned Surfrider and Defenders of Wildlife.

00:46:58:14 - 00:47:02:09
There's a lot going on around the country, but this movement

00:47:02:10 - 00:47:05:12
to protect our coast didn't just happen by accident.

00:47:05:12 - 00:47:07:09
On the Mendocino, Sonoma Coast.

00:47:07:09 - 00:47:09:07
It began here.

00:47:09:07 - 00:47:12:00
It's still here. I know it's still here.

00:47:12:09 - 00:47:14:17
You know the bottom line is tell them what you think you think.

00:47:14:17 - 00:47:22:20
And then tell them what you think you think. And tell them We're tired of spills, and we're not having any more drilling here.

00:47:23:11 - 00:47:26:18
SurfRider As a matter of fact, I went to their Web site

00:47:26:18 - 00:47:33:03
and they have some suggestions on different writing samples, approaches

00:47:33:03 - 00:47:37:04
that you could take and to show your connection with the coast.

00:47:37:06 - 00:47:40:06
And you brought up a great reason earlier about

00:47:40:09 - 00:47:44:05
if you know the geology or you have any experience with,

00:47:44:05 - 00:47:49:13
you know, any kind of activity along the coast, use that in your writing.

00:47:49:15 - 00:47:50:15
Yes. Yes.

00:47:50:15 - 00:47:53:21
The law itself, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

00:47:53:23 - 00:47:57:13
First of all, you got to respect the withdrawals that were done in January.

00:47:57:13 - 00:47:58:17
You can't just ignore them.

00:47:58:17 - 00:48:00:20
They're they're the law of the land.

00:48:00:20 - 00:48:02:15
You can't just pretend they don't exist.

00:48:02:15 - 00:48:06:14
But beyond that, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act specifically talks

00:48:06:14 - 00:48:11:21
about balancing a critical balancing in the law, the relative environmental

00:48:11:21 - 00:48:17:02
sensitivity of an area where there's potential for producing oil and gas.

00:48:17:04 - 00:48:20:20
If you have high environmental sensitivity and a low potential

00:48:20:20 - 00:48:24:24
for producing oil and gas, that helps you save the coast.

00:48:24:24 - 00:48:26:05
And that's part of the law.

00:48:26:05 - 00:48:28:20
This law didn't just pop up.

00:48:28:20 - 00:48:34:05
It actually came about through a deliberative process that took several

00:48:34:05 - 00:48:37:22
years, actually started in 1953 and was,

00:48:37:22 - 00:48:40:22
you know, remodeled basically in 1978.

00:48:40:22 - 00:48:48:05
But you can't just wipe out, you know, 20 years of legal precedent by

00:48:48:07 - 00:48:51:00
taking a pen and dragging it up

00:48:51:00 - 00:48:54:20
and down a piece of paper like this president seems to think he can do.

00:48:54:22 - 00:49:01:04
Especially for little short term gain for really big long term risks.

00:49:01:06 - 00:49:04:12
I don't talk about climate anymore because climate

00:49:04:12 - 00:49:07:12
makes people mad in Washington, but

00:49:07:15 - 00:49:10:06
we are going to suffer

00:49:10:06 - 00:49:12:24
as a as a society and as a nation

00:49:12:24 - 00:49:17:01
and as a planet, because this particular administration

00:49:17:01 - 00:49:20:20
is essentially outlawing the use of the term climate change.

00:49:20:21 - 00:49:23:19
It doesn’t make it go away.

00:49:23:19 - 00:49:25:13
(”No”, Leigh Anne interjects) It just means it's

00:49:25:13 - 00:49:28:02
what we call the ostrich posture.

00:49:28:02 - 00:49:30:04
An ostrich buries its head in the sand. Stick that head in the sand.

00:49:30:04 - 00:49:32:08
It buries its head in the sand.

00:49:32:08 - 00:49:36:03
Well, sorry, but yes, you could bury your head in the sand.

00:49:36:03 - 00:49:41:06
It will all come back ten years from now, and we’ll wonder why we wasted ten years

00:49:41:08 - 00:49:42:20
not dealing with climate.

00:49:42:20 - 00:49:47:15
But, you know, right now we're going to save our coast and

00:49:47:17 - 00:49:50:12
one way or the other in court,

00:49:50:12 - 00:49:52:21
you know, or in a hearing room

00:49:52:21 - 00:49:57:01
or if I dare them to come to Mendocino and hold another public hearing.

00:49:57:01 - 00:50:00:23
I we didn't even have social media where we had largest public

00:50:00:23 - 00:50:02:17
hearing in history in Fort Bragg.

00:50:02:17 - 00:50:05:06
I dare them to come back to Fort Bragg and hold a hearing.

00:50:05:06 - 00:50:10:11
They'd better allow a week or two of testimony and if Bonnie Raitt’s

00:50:10:11 - 00:50:14:00
still around, and she loves this issue, maybe she’ll come back.

00:50:14:02 - 00:50:17:12
One of my favorite musicians and singers of all time.

00:50:17:14 - 00:50:20:07
She played a very large role in starting

00:50:20:07 - 00:50:23:14
the coastal protection movement off of Mendocino.

00:50:23:14 - 00:50:27:18
A lot of people don't remember, but she was always the person

00:50:27:18 - 00:50:32:11
who raised the money for the coastal fight here back in the day.

00:50:32:13 - 00:50:38:05
And she has history here and she was just like first in line

00:50:38:05 - 00:50:44:06
to perform any, you know, you say offshore drilling to Bonnie Raitt and then you

00:50:44:08 - 00:50:47:21
get some extra microphones.

00:50:47:23 - 00:50:49:03
I love it.

00:50:49:03 - 00:50:52:14
Well, Richard, thank you so much for coming on the show

00:50:52:14 - 00:50:56:11
today and talking about this critical issue.

00:50:56:11 - 00:50:59:24
And giving us some of your vast

00:51:00:01 - 00:51:02:23
knowledge on this topic.

00:51:02:23 - 00:51:03:22
Thank you so much.

00:51:03:22 - 00:51:07:13
And remember, June 16th, it's not that far away.

00:51:07:15 - 00:51:09:13
I don't think you'll do this later.

00:51:09:13 - 00:51:12:06
Do it now, please.

00:51:12:06 - 00:51:13:18
Absolutely. June six.

00:51:13:18 - 00:51:15:13
Thank you. Keep that in mind, everybody.

00:51:15:13 - 00:51:16:22
Thank you, Richard.

00:51:16:22 - 00:51:17:13
Thanks a lot.

00:51:17:13 - 00:51:18:21
Alright.  Take care.

00:51:19:11 - 00:51:20:04
Let's listen

00:51:20:04 - 00:51:23:21
now to California Congressman Jared Huffman,

00:51:23:21 - 00:51:28:03
who has been a member of the Natural Resources Committee

00:51:28:03 - 00:51:33:21
for over a decade and has been serving recently as the ranking member

00:51:33:21 - 00:51:37:02
or lead Democrat of the Subcommittee

00:51:37:04 - 00:51:41:08
on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries.

00:51:41:10 - 00:51:46:16
Here's what he had to say to longtime journalist and co-founder of Blue

00:51:46:16 - 00:51:50:01
Frontier Organization David Helvarg

00:51:50:03 - 00:51:54:08
who asks these two important questions.

00:51:54:10 - 00:51:58:14
In a recent episode of Rising Tide

00:51:58:16 - 00:52:03:02
The Ocean Podcast, which he founded and co-hosts.

00:52:05:23 - 00:52:07:12
So two quick questions.

00:52:07:12 - 00:52:11:01
1) With the Trump administration gutting NOAA, firing the commandant

00:52:11:01 - 00:52:14:07
of the Coast Guard, promoting offshore oil drilling and deep sea mining,

00:52:14:07 - 00:52:19:13
even putting mercury back in the tuna by letting pollution controls

00:52:19:15 - 00:52:20:18
wash away.

00:52:20:18 - 00:52:23:14
What are you able to do to protect our public seas,

00:52:23:14 - 00:52:25:21
given the MAGA majority in the House and Senate?

00:52:25:21 - 00:52:28:22
And what can you do and what can our listeners do?

00:52:28:23 - 00:52:30:22
Yeah, Look, we're going the wrong direction here.

00:52:30:22 - 00:52:33:22
Under the Trump administration, they're trying to roll back

00:52:33:22 - 00:52:37:04
decades of policy progress.

00:52:37:06 - 00:52:41:04
They are gutting agencies across the board that we depend on

00:52:41:04 - 00:52:45:02
for science and for marine ecosystem

00:52:45:04 - 00:52:49:10
sustainability and commercial fishing and so many other things.

00:52:49:12 - 00:52:54:09
they're also at an even higher level trying to tear down our democracy,

00:52:54:11 - 00:52:57:11
which will make it really hard to push good policy in the future.

00:52:57:11 - 00:53:01:24
You know, totalitarian regimes generally aren't all that, all that sustainable.

00:53:02:00 - 00:53:03:24
Yeah, and democracy seems like a prerequisite

00:53:03:24 - 00:53:06:08
for getting any environmental protections going.

00:53:06:08 - 00:53:08:08
I think so. I think so.

00:53:08:08 - 00:53:10:02
So, look, we're fighting on all fronts

00:53:10:02 - 00:53:14:00
you know, we've got to prevent this administration, which hopefully will

00:53:14:00 - 00:53:19:09
will just be a four year anomaly in the arc of progress,

00:53:19:13 - 00:53:23:06
but prevent them from doing things that are irreparable, doing things

00:53:23:06 - 00:53:27:15
that'll make it, you know, even harder for us to be a leader on the global stage.

00:53:27:15 - 00:53:31:06
We're sometimes an outlier on things like Law of the Sea Treaty and any number

00:53:31:06 - 00:53:36:14
of other multilateral instruments where we should be leading.

00:53:36:16 - 00:53:39:18
And yeah, what he's doing with deep sea mining is, is

00:53:39:18 - 00:53:43:13
just making us even more of a lone ranger, if not a pariah.

00:53:43:15 - 00:53:45:07
Yeah, it's like we'd be the new pirates.

00:53:45:07 - 00:53:46:18
I mean, the US hasn't signed on,

00:53:46:18 - 00:53:49:18
but we've always been in compliance with the Law of the Seas.

00:53:49:21 - 00:53:50:14
Right

00:53:50:14 - 00:53:54:06
And and we've actually gotten to a good place in fisheries,

00:53:54:06 - 00:53:55:24
and he's getting rid of those.

00:53:55:24 - 00:53:56:11
Yeah.

00:53:56:11 - 00:53:59:06
So we will have to relearn painful lessons.

00:53:59:06 - 00:54:00:05
Right?

00:54:00:05 - 00:54:04:06
I hope we don't have to, you know, relearn the lessons of the cod

00:54:04:06 - 00:54:05:19
and other fisheries that we've

00:54:05:19 - 00:54:08:19
totally crashed with overfishing, but it seems like we're heading that way.

00:54:08:21 - 00:54:09:02
Right?

00:54:09:02 - 00:54:13:06
So so you're doing what you can here on the Hill in Congress.

00:54:13:08 - 00:54:18:06
What do citizens do to not feel frustrated, to feel

00:54:18:08 - 00:54:19:21
that they're doing something?

00:54:19:21 - 00:54:22:10
You know, there's a there's a number of things you can support.

00:54:22:10 - 00:54:27:03
The groups that are lawyered up and fighting these things in court,

00:54:27:05 - 00:54:32:04
But the other thing is, as consumers, I still think that we have a huge role

00:54:32:04 - 00:54:35:06
to play and American consumers don't want to have

00:54:35:11 - 00:54:38:24
illicitly caught fish in their seafood supply chain.

00:54:38:24 - 00:54:42:15
They don't want to have slave labor on their dinner menu.

00:54:42:17 - 00:54:47:10
that, I think, continues to be a really important aspect of this.

00:54:47:10 - 00:54:49:13
So...Making consumer choices.

00:54:49:13 - 00:54:51:18
Take them to court, take it to the streets.

00:54:51:18 - 00:54:54:13
Take it to the streets.

00:55:38:17 - 00:55:43:06
Thank you Former President Obama and then vice president and later

00:55:43:06 - 00:55:45:01
President Biden

00:55:45:01 - 00:55:49:04
Which brings me back to something, Richard Charter of the Ocean Foundation

00:55:49:04 - 00:55:52:05
said to me in this episode that we recorded this week

00:55:52:05 - 00:55:56:17
that - We're not going to take it anymore...small laugh...

00:55:57:09 - 00:55:58:05
It reminded me

00:55:58:05 - 00:56:02:08
of that 1970s movie NETWORK.

00:56:02:17 - 00:56:04:23
All I know is that first you got to get mad.

00:56:04:23 - 00:56:07:23
You got to say I'm a human being, goddammit.

00:56:08:02 - 00:56:09:22
My life has value.

00:56:09:22 - 00:56:14:09
So I want you to get up now.

00:56:14:11 - 00:56:17:20
I want all of you to get up out of your chairs.

00:56:17:22 - 00:56:21:04
I want you to get up right now and go to the window.

00:56:21:06 - 00:56:24:15
Open it and stick your head out and yell.

00:56:24:17 - 00:56:29:09
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.

00:56:29:11 - 00:56:31:16
I want you to get up right now.

00:56:31:16 - 00:56:32:18
Get up,

00:56:32:18 - 00:56:36:03
go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell,

00:56:36:08 - 00:56:39:10
“I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

00:56:39:10 - 00:56:41:22
Things have got to change. How many stations does this go?

00:56:41:22 - 00:56:43:06
67

00:56:43:06 - 00:56:46:13
I know it goes to Louisville, Atlanta. (overlapped with) “I’m not going to take this anymore.” 

00:56:46:16 - 00:56:48:23
Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression

00:56:48:23 - 00:56:50:24
and the inflation and the oil crisis.

00:56:50:24 - 00:56:55:15
But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out

00:56:55:19 - 00:57:00:16
and yell, and say “I am mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

00:57:00:16 - 00:57:02:06
(Faye Dunaway) Who are you talking to Herb?

00:57:02:06 - 00:57:04:10
(he replies WHSG Altanta) Are they yelling in Atlanta?

00:57:04:10 - 00:57:05:18
Are they yelling in Atlanta, Ted?

00:57:05:18 - 00:57:08:08
(Academy Award winning actor Peter Finch) But first you gotta get mad.

00:57:08:08 - 00:57:12:13
You've got to say “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore!”

00:57:12:13 - 00:57:15:13
(back to the production room) They're yelling in Baton Rouge, Dammit!

00:57:15:19 - 00:57:18:19
voiceover) That was a clip from the 1976 Film Network.

00:57:18:20 - 00:57:21:09
Seems tailor made for us today.

00:57:21:09 - 00:57:25:20
Remember, you have until June 16th to make your voice heard about offshore

00:57:25:20 - 00:57:30:00
drilling along our California coast and other U.S.

00:57:30:00 - 00:57:31:02
coasts.

00:57:31:02 - 00:57:37:05
Go to SaveMyCoast.org, and protest with everything you've got.

00:57:37:15 - 00:57:46:14
Closing music by Eric Allaman begins.

00:57:46:23 - 00:57:56:00
Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth Podcast, where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet.

00:57:56:02 - 00:57:59:23
Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media,

00:58:00:00 - 00:58:05:03
a501 C3 nonprofit and Sea Storm Studios Inc,

00:58:05:05 - 00:58:07:24
located on the rugged North Sonoma

00:58:07:24 - 00:58:11:08
coast of Northern California.

00:58:11:10 - 00:58:16:08
I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers

00:58:16:14 - 00:58:19:14
Scott and Tree Mercer of Mendonoma Whale

00:58:19:16 - 00:58:23:13
and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino

00:58:23:18 - 00:58:28:11
and North Sonoma coast.

00:58:28:13 - 00:58:30:01
The music for this podcast

00:58:30:01 - 00:58:33:17
is by Eric Allaman an international composer,

00:58:33:19 - 00:58:37:23
pianist and writer living in The Sea Ranch.

00:58:38:00 - 00:58:42:01
Discover more of his music, animations, ballet,

00:58:42:03 - 00:58:47:22
stage and film work at EricAllaman.com.

00:58:47:24 - 00:58:52:11
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00:58:52:11 - 00:58:56:21
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00:58:56:23 - 00:58:59:21
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00:58:59:21 - 00:59:07:04
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