Conservative media and politicians will have you believe California is a socialist hellscape run by tree huggers out of touch with the rest of the US. Our biggest political personalities and most progressive wins are usually the headline grabs that inform this take on California. But California is the original fossil fuel state and to this day the horror of pipeline politics and fossil fuel corruption still stands in the way of true leadership in the Climate Crisis.
On Monday 3/8 Kern County board of supervisors unanimously voted to approve new oil drilling. This opens up land in and near Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities to 10s of thousands of new wells. Tens of thousands. The blatant disregard for public health in these communities contributes to one of the running threads of fossil fuel politics in California: environmental racism.
On Tuesday 3/9 Novato City Council voted 4–1 to approve a 28 pump mega gas station in a protect wetlands. The gas station will sink 3 huge tanks into a liquefaction zone famous for flooding during storms while the land around it is turned into a brownfield. The gas station process was suspect to begin with: a full CEQA compliant Environmental Impact Review was never conducted, consultants and city staff who signed off on the application were deeply associated with Costco and no environmental or youth organizations were consulted during the application process.
In Kern County public comment lasted for almost 8 hours with overwhelming opposition to new drilling on environmental, health and racial justice grounds. Similarly in Novato, comment after comment implored the City Council to take the climate crisis seriously- many commenters referencing Novato’s Climate Emergency Resolution as clear grounds for rejecting the project.
Both in Kern County and in Novato climate denialism and fossil fuel corruption guaranteed that these projects were going to receive approval, and, in fact, that approval was always going to be the case.
Let’s start with fossil fuel corruption. Primary arguments in both areas focused on tax revenue and the petitioners’ status as legacy businesses that provide good jobs. This always sounds good from a local politics standpoint, but it really doesn’t capture the economic reality of the region or of the state in general. In Novato gas demand has been flat for almost a decade and the Costco gas station will be members only and risks putting out of business locally owned family run gas stations. In Kern County the wells will only further tie the entire region to a dying industry. Tens of thousands of wells are likely to create jobs, but not long lasting sustainable employment. California has set aggressive goals for eliminating internal combustion engines. California is also in a position that we don’t need to keep drilling oil. It’s cheaper in many instances to import crude. The economic motive for approving these projects is old hat corruption that will no benefit anyone in these communities.
Fossil fuel corruption forces small towns and cities to make short sighted decisions for some spectre of jobs and filling city coffers. This leads into climate denialism at the local level.
The big lie that we need to maintain our fossil fuel use until some tipping point when everything is sustainable is just plain climate denialism. Period. This is a fossil fuel industry talking point and doesn’t deserve to be coming out of any politician’s mouth that claims to be taking the climate crisis seriously.
Enter the Novato City Council. Every single “Yes” vote for the project was hedged with some ridiculous argument that “well, actually” fossil fuels are needed and this project is actually in line with our city’s Climate Emergency Resolution. Mayor Pat Eklund put on a great show of caring about the environment seemingly forcing Costco to add 10 (wow) EV stations. This was apparently enough to negate a 28 pump massive gas station sinking containers into a wetland. Ok, Pat. Mayor Pro Tem Eric Lucan on the other hand went the 80s route spouting old climate denialism tactics about personal responsibility. Lucan drives an EV, ergo he is a climate warrior the likes we’ve never seen. Lucan’s biggest double speak and hand wringing focused on “well this was approved by our planning commission, my hands are tied.” The other two votes were about as self unaware as a politician can get. Councilmember Denise Athas just plain and simple embraced climate denialism- she was always a Yes on the grounds that “let’s keep using gas who cares.” Councilmember Susan Wernick is just an amateur with no clear political savvy- at one point she was called out by a commenter for rolling her eyes at the overwhelming majority of public comment against the project on environmental grounds. In short these 4 politicians won’t have much of a political career.
Kern County on the other hand leaned heavily into climate denialism going even further than their hack counterparts in Novato and embraced environmental racism. Kern County Board of Supervisor Leticia Perez at one point made the mind boggling argument that if Latinx communities actually cared about the health impacts of drilling they’d say so. Clearly Perez had a zoom issue during the nearly 8 HOURS of public comment making this point known before the Board of Supervisors.
Climate Denialism is wide spread and endemic in local politics. One of the biggest issues with our local political system is the age and racial make up of many local governments. Take the Novato City Council for example. These people probably do consider themselves environmentalists. Unfortunately, from their testimonies last week we know that their take on environmentalism is deeply flawed with an outdated focus on recycling and EVs with no fundamental understanding of the systemic oppression inherent in fossil fuel use.
These politicians display a total lack of vision, embrace a complete abandonment of creative problem solving and assume a posture of utter disdain for future generations.
These politicians are relics of our time. They won’t last much longer.
