Special Notice / Hearing: None__
Vote Required: Majority
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Supervisors Don Horsley and David J. Canepa
Subject: Resolution to protect the Pacific Ocean and coast from offshore drilling, exploration and fracking
RECOMMENDATION:
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Adopt a resolution supporting a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling, fracking and other well stimulation in federal and state waters off the California coast and to ban new federal oil and gas leasing in all U.S. waters, including off the coast of California.
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BACKGROUND:
The federal government is considering allowing new offshore oil and gas leasing in nearly all United States coastal waters, including leasing in new areas along the Pacific Coast which have largely been off-limits to new federal leasing. New federal offshore oil and gas leases have not been granted off the coast of California since 1984.
DISCUSSION:
California Gov. Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General’s Office, the State Senate, the State Lands Commission, along with several cities have taken a stand against new federal offshore oil and gas leases in the Pacific Ocean and several municipalities have called for a ban of offshore fracking.
California currently prohibits new oil and gas leasing in state waters due to unacceptably high risk damage and disruption to the marine environment. San Mateo County residents value the 40-mile stretch of coast from the north in Pacifica to the south at the border with Santa Cruz County. Our residents value the state’s ocean and coastal waters which provide habitat to a vast array of wildlife that depend on a healthy and clean environment. New offshore oil and gas drilling, fracking and other well stimulation will jeopardize the health of the state’s ocean environment and put San Mateo County’s coastal resources, and the communities and industries that depend on them, at risk.
Expanding offshore drilling, fracking and other well stimulation off the California coast will also undermine California’s efforts to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moving toward renewable energy.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact to this resolution.