You can be sure that neither Governor Jerry Brown nor Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and former Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create faux “marine protected areas” in Southern California, liked the event that took place at the State Capitol in Sacramento on August 9.
At 11 am, members of the Courage Campaign, Californians Against Fracking and Food & Water Watch delivered 350 THOUSAND petition signatures demanding that state legislators and Governor Jerry Brown protect our food from toxic oil wastewater. The activists convened at the North Steps of the Capitol Building, 10th Street and L Street, in Sacramento.
“Activists from across the state are joining together to voice a simple message: we're tired of being treated like lab rats in an oil and gas experiment,” according to an action alert from the Courage Campaign. “Wastewater should NEVER be used to irrigate our precious fruits and vegetables, unless independent scientists have confirmed that this process is safe. We’re tired of the state’s inaction. “
For more information, go to: www.couragecampaign.org
According to the Sunflower Alliance, “Who says oil and water don’t mix? Now that the oil industry is selling its wastewater to irrigate drought-stricken California farms, another law of nature is being violated by thepetroleros. Our fruits and vegetables—some of them labeled organic—are being produced with oil wastewater.”
A recent article in Mother Jones revealed that Chevron and other oil companies provided half the water that went to 45,000 acres of farmland in Kern County in 2014, up from about 35 percent before the start of the drought in 2011. Last year the state’s largest oil company, California Resources Corp., announced plans to quadruple the amount of wastewater it sells to farmers.
The group noted that no comprehensive independent testing has been conducted to ensure that crops—and the farmworkers who work with them—are protected from the hundreds of chemicals used in oil operations.
“Some of these industrial chemicals have been clearly shown to be carcinogenic and toxic. We’re tired of being lab rats in an oil and gas experiment, so we’re calling on Governor Brown and the State Water Board to stop this practice immediately,” the Alliance stated.
Why irrigating with oil wastewater is possible: Big Oil regulatory capture
Unfortunately, both the mainstream media and many “alternative” media outlets, including Mother Jones, fail to explore the reason WHY it has been possible for the oil industry to sell its wastewater to irrigate California farms — Big Oil’s capture of the regulatory apparatus in the state under the administration of Governor Jerry Brown.
In spite of California’s “green” image, Big Oil is the largest and most powerful corporate lobby in the state. The Western States Petroleum Association, the trade association for the oil companies in the western states, is the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento. No bill opposed by Big Oil and WSPA was able to make it out of the Legislature to the Governor’s Desk last year because of the enormous money and power the oil industry wields.
And in spite of the mostly fawning media coverage of Jerry Brown’s appearances at climate conferences across the globe, Brown is a big supporter of the expansion of fracking in California and environmentally unjust carbon trading and REDD policies. You can read more about the real environmental record of Governor Brown, as opposed to the disinformation that can be found at most media outlets, at: www.dailykos.com…
The oil industry, including WSPA, Chevron, Phillips 66, AERA Energy, Exxon and Shell, have spent more than $25 million so far in the 2015-16 legislative session. WSPA has spent $12.8 million so far in the session, making them, as usual, the top California lobbying spenders of the session. (www.oaklandmagazine.com/...)
In a huge conflict of interest that the mainstream media refuses to discuss, WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd chaired the South Coast Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue) Ribbon Task Force that created the so-called “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012. She also served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces to create alleged “marine protected areas” on the North Coast, North Central Coast and Central Coast. (www.dfg.ca.gov/...)
The “marine protected areas” created under her leadership fail to protect the ocean from fracking, acidizing, other offshore oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.
While Reheis-Boyd served on the task forces to "protect" the ocean, the same oil industry that the "marine guardian" represents was conducting environmentally destructive fracking operations off the Southern California coast. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and media investigations by Associated Press and truthout.org in 2013 reveal that the ocean has been fracked at least 203 times in the past 20 years, including the period from 2004 to 2012 that Reheis-Boyd served as a "marine guardian.”
Besides exerting enormous influence over state regulators, WSPA and Big Oil also wield enormous power over federal regulators. Claiming that fracking poses “no significant impact” to the environment, Obama administration officials on May 27 finalized their plans to allow oil companies to resume offshore fracking and acidizing in California’s Santa Barbara Channel after a moratorium on fracking was temporarily imposed as the result of a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit. (theecoreport.com/...)
WSPA and Big Oil wield their power in five major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) getting appointed to positions on and influencing regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups: and (5) working in collaboration with media. For my in-depth investigation on the five ways WSPA and Big Oil have captured California politics, go to: www.dailykos.com/...
Note: this article was updated at 2:46 pm on August 9.