Promoted as a win for environmentalists across the nation, President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will protect more than 625 million acres of federal waters from oil and gas drilling sounds like hypocrisy to some Central Coast residents.
On Jan. 6, Biden enacted the protection through an executive order, which U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) said he first introduced as a bill in 2017 to end offshore oil and gas exploration in California.
But REACT Alliance President Mandy Davis told New Times that this ban on offshore oil drilling is “incredibly hypocritical and very ironic.”
“It’s hypocritical because he is taking a strong stance on offshore drilling and the industrialization of the oceans and what that entails, yet on the other hand, he is taking a very strong stance on another form of industrialization of the oceans like offshore wind and the kind of incredible damage it does to the oceans, local economies, and the coastal environment,” she said.
New Times contacted the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club for comment but didn’t receive a response before deadline.
Carbajal said the executive order was necessary, pointing to the catastrophic effects that oil spills can have and have had on the Central Coast.
“We have the ’69 oil spill [in Santa Barbara], which was one of the most significant spills in the country that led to the modern environmental movement and the establishment of Earth Day. We’ve had a number of other offshore and onshore, but especially offshore, drilling accidents that really hurt our ecosystem, our environment, and damaged our local economies,” Carbajal said. “Those oil spills had a major economic and environmental impact that is embedded and imprinted on the minds of the Central Coast residents.”
He’s introduced the offshore drilling bill in every term since he took office, but Carbajal said he amended the bill to include an offshore drilling ban across the entire West Coast.
Carbajal and 12 other members of Congress wrote to Biden requesting he take action on it before his term ended. It got his attention.
“This now includes the entire West Coast, parts of Alaska, the eastern part of the Gulf Coast, as well as the Atlantic Coast,” Carbajal said. “It’s permanent. It’s not embedded with a specific short-term time frame.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said that thanks to President Biden, hundreds of miles of California’s iconic coastline are now fully protected from expanding offshore drilling, according to a statement provided to New Times by Daniel Villasenor.
“New offshore drilling has no place in California, and the president’s action strengthens our work to protect the coast,” Newsom said.
Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization President Tom Hafer told New Times that this is a red herring that President-elect Donald Trump already said he will reverse.
“It will never happen whether there is a ban or not. There are too many protections/laws preventing it already,” he said via email about offshore oil and gas drilling in California. “Besides, the oil companies have said they are not interested in the oil off our coast.”
The bigger problem facing the Central Coast and the fishing community is offshore wind, Hafer said.
“I think drilling for oil is less of a threat to commercial fishing than thousands of acres of 1,000-foot tall offshore wind turbines tethered to the bottom with miles of steel chains, high voltage cables midwater between turbines and buried to shore, multiple oil rig-sized substations with once-through cooling, and multiple 300-foot service and operation vessels in our ocean and tourist two harbors,” he said.
Currently, three companies have leases about 20 miles from Morro Bay in federal waters: Invenergy California Offshore LLC; Atlas Offshore Wind LLC, previously known as Equinor Wind US LLC; and Golden State Wind LLC. No development has taken place yet.
Carbajal said he’s not worried about Trump undoing Biden’s action to protect federal waters.
Carbajal said Trump attempted to undo one of former President Barack Obama’s executive actions during his first term and the courts denied it.
“There is a precedent in the court. There has been no 12(a) executive action that has been overturned in any way, even though Trump tried to do it last time,” he said. “So, I think historically and legally, we are on good footing to ensure that he can’t do this as he has pledged.” Δ
This article appears in Volunteers 2025.