Arnold: drill, baby, drill?

12 November 2009 |permalink | email article

The California governor told the Fresno Bee editorial board that the state’s current fiscal year’s budget is $5 billion to $7 billion in the red, on top of a 7.4-billion deficit projected for the fiscal year that begins in July. In January Schwarzenegger promises that no program will be immune from further budget

It makes one nostalgically recall those less catastrophic years when another Republican, Gov. Ronald Reagan, also a Hollywood movie star, issued his famous dictum: “cut, squeeze and trim.” The mantra today is “just kill!”

So while the governor now considers his narrow budget options the offshore drilling debate is again resurfacing as a fiscal option. In January Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, as a member of the State Lands Commission, cast the deciding vote against any new major offshore project. But with Garamendi elected to Congress in a special election this month, Schwarzenegger has an opportunity to appoint a new lieutenant governor who could potentially move the State Lands Commission to vote in a different way.

The long-running regulatory drama until now has kept the Tranquillon Ridge project at bay but Schwarzenegger, traditionally an opponent of offshore drilling, has asked for legislation to create a special panel to reconsider the project off the coast of Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County, thus circumventing a Lands Commission review. 

The governor, because of the budget crisis, now favors the drilling project and a spokesman said he will likely announce his appointment of a successor to Garamendi in the next several days that would hold the office until a new lieutenant governor is elected next fall and takes office in January 2011.

The morning line favors Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, probably the most moderate Republican now in the Legislature. Environmentalists will not cave in without a fight.

Quotable

“I think our experience deserves attention.” Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, reflecting on the failed 10-year occupation of Afghanistan in a CNN interview and urging President Obama to pull troops out of that nation and bring an end the “long suffering of the [Afghan] people, and focus on “dialogue.”

“The worst thing to do is nothing. It’s not important to be perfect here. It’s important to act.” Former President Bill Clinton, who tried in vain to provide universal health care coverage 15 yeas ago, as Democratic leaders hope to begin Senate floor debate on a sweeping health care overhaul next week.

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