..."No one can question Brown’s credibility on climate change. He was a leading force behind California’s first-in-the-nation cap-and-trade law, and his environmental advocacy goes back to the 1970s. But since returning to the governor’s office, Brown has promoted oil exploration in California, seeing its potential to unleash an economic boom. The Monterey Shale formation in the state’s agriculturally rich Central Valley is the largest of its kind in the country. Brown won industry praise by removing Arnold Schwarzenegger–era regulators who were holding up oil-lease approvals. He signed the fracking law and remains a forceful advocate for developing California’s oil resources—even as the state pushes to cut down on the demand side by promoting alternative energy. “There is a lot of concern about fracking, and that’s why we are spending millions of dollars and taking the time to understand as much as we can about the consequences,” he told CNN recently. But fracking, he added, “has been going on in California for more than 50 years. So we are not going to shut down a third of our oil production and force more oil coming from North Dakota, where they are fracking a lot more, to come by train or more boats and ships coming in from all over the world.”
Brown had no comment on recent reports from the federal Energy Information Administration suggesting that, using existing technology, recoverable oil from the Monterey Shale is 96 percent below estimates released last year in a USC study. The formation’s complex geology makes the oil tough to get to, at least for now. Steyer greeted the news by renewing his call for a moratorium on fracking: “Our leaders in Sacramento can no longer afford to pin our hopes on the false promises of a fossil fuel windfall—especially when our state is poised to lead the nation and the world toward a cleaner, more sustainable energy economy. California must have the courage and vision to address the root causes of the climate crisis.”
The Brown administration seems content to let private firms develop the technology necessary to exploit California’s oil resources. Tom Steyer may be taking his clean-energy campaign nationwide; but so far, he has little to show for it, even in green-friendly California. Maybe he should worry less about the Koch brothers and more about Jerry Brown.
Steven Greenhut is the California columnist for U-T San Diego. He is based in Sacramento.
