Reaction of Politicians to Oil Spill Along Coast
In the sidebar “California Oil,” on Page T6 of The Times’ Special Report on the Huntington Beach oil spill, the first words of the text are “California is a net exporter of oil . . . “ That simply isn’t true, as is clearly shown by the pie chart at the left of the same piece.
The facts are: 1) California, onshore and offshore, produces about a million barrels of crude oil per day. 2) California consumes about 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. 3) Virtually all of the million-barrel-per-day difference enters California by tanker, either from Alaska or Indonesia. 4) More oil spills, by number and by volume, come from tankers than from offshore drilling and production.
Despite the facts, a parade of political demagogues has used the occasion of the Huntington Beach spill to come out against offshore drilling. If we had more offshore oil production, we would be less likely to have large oil spills.
MICHAEL E. UTT
Placentia
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