Santa Barbara County’s proposed 2030 Climate Action Plan calls on the community to cut its emissions in half, but ignores the industry most responsible for climate pollution in the county and around the world – the oil and gas industry. Ventura and Los Angeles counties don’t have this dirty loophole. Santa Barbara County Council should demand a solution when it comes up for approval on August 27.
The target itself is fine. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 (below 2018 levels) is what the global community believes is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The problem lies in how the government calculates pollution and measures success in achieving the target. With twisted logic, they ignore the biggest polluters and creators of the problem – Exxon/Sable, Cat Canyon producers like HVI (formerly Greka) and all other oil and gas facilities.
That makes the study unfair and untrue. It’s unfair because we’re all being asked to reduce our emissions while the oil industry is being absolved of responsibility. And it’s untrue because we need a neutral balance sheet of all greenhouse gas emissions in the community so we can see exactly how we’re doing over time.
And this is no small oversight, either. If Exxon’s facilities, which have been shut down since the 2015 Refugio oil spill but were once one of our biggest polluters, were to be reopened, pollution would skyrocket, even if the county could claim to meet its climate goals.
It won’t be easy to reduce pollution sufficiently, and it will be much harder if we leave out the most polluting industry. A single oil company could undo the work that every other person, household, small business and farm in the country has done to reduce carbon emissions. Even if we switched to electric tractors, cycled to work, installed solar panels on our schools and bought electric cars and heat pumps, that one industry would get a free pass – its pollution wouldn’t even be counted.
In contrast, Ventura and Los Angeles counties have recorded pollution from the oil industry and taken steps to reduce it. Los Angeles is working to phase out oil production, and Ventura County requires oil and gas exploration and production to use “electrically powered equipment derived from 100 percent renewable sources” and prohibits trucking of oil and venting or flaring of gas when possible. Ventura’s regulations survived the settlement with the oil industry.
So why not here? To comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the county must take steps to reduce the pollution sources it tracks. Rather than force this notoriously recalcitrant industry to play by the rules, it has decided not to count pollution from the oil industry. But CEQA requires that we count all pollution from all activities – not just cherry-pick and pretend that the pollution is less than it actually is.
Another reason the county uses is that it lacks regulatory control over oil and gas facilities. However, the county, through its permitting authority, has more control over the oil industry than it does over other sources of pollution, like the tailpipes of our cars. If the plan were limited to what the county directly controls, there would be virtually nothing to count.
The Climate Action Plan includes good policies that will ensure our transportation and buildings can run on renewable energy, that there are public charging stations for electric cars, more bike lanes, and affordable housing to reduce commute times. To the extent that these policies reduce pollution from burning fossil fuels, they will contribute to California’s goals to combat climate change, which is causing record heat, wildfires, and other impacts. They will also save lives lost to air pollution, which contributes to asthma, respiratory disease, heart disease, and cancer.
Scientists say the next few years are critical for climate action. Local climate action plans should be real plans that make a meaningful contribution to California’s goals. But that will only work if we are transparent and honest in how we calculate emissions and don’t give the most polluting industries a free pass.
That’s why a growing coalition of environmental organizations is calling on the county to close this dirty loophole. That coalition includes the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Center, Community Environmental Council, CFROG, Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, CAUSE, Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, SBCAN, Clean Coalition, Los Padres ForestWatch, Citizens Climate Lobby, 350SB, and others.
Ask our Board of Supervisors to amend the Climate Action Plan to include emissions from the fossil fuel industry. Email: [email protected].
