It remains California’s largest oil spill and the third largest in the United States behind 2010’s Deepwater Horizon and 1989’s Exxon Valdez spills.
Occuring directly off the coast of Santa Barbara, the source of the 1969 spill was a blow-out, or the uncontrolled release of crude oil from a well or drill. Within ten days, an estimated 100,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel and stained the beaches, even reaching the Channel Islands.
The public outrage at the event led to major environmental legislation that effectively halted the grants of any new leases for offshore drilling within the jurisdiction of the California State Lands Commission, 3 nautical miles out. In order to address the area beyond this jurisdiction–what is referred to as the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)–Congress in 1981 enacted a moratorium effectively banning new offshore oil leasing with the exception of parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, the site of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
This moratorium ended in 2008 and was not renewed by Congress, prompting the criticism of the California Legislature and a request to extend the 27-year-old moratorium through fiscal year 2009 and beyond. It failed again, reopening water ways for offshore drilling.
The attempt to focus on limiting new offshore drilling has been sparked again by Congresswoman Laura Richardson’s amendment H.R. 6082, or the “Congressional Replacement of President Obama’s Energy-Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan.”
The Richardson Amendment asks the Secretary of the Interior to consult the California Governor and State Legislature before leasing areas off the coast of California. It also extends to California the same consideration that the bill’s drafters accorded the state of South Carolina.
“Residents of California should have the right to participate in the leasing process that affects waters off their coast,” said Richardson in a press release. “The State of California has within its borders more than two-thirds of the nation’s Pacific coastline, a far greater percentage than South Carolina has with respect to the Atlantic coastline,” said Congresswoman Richardson.
The amendment was unanimously passed by the House.