California’s First Love

Nobody ever forgets their first love, even if they turn out to be a dirty, rotten scoundrel.

For all of California’s big talk about going green, the truth is they just can’t forget their first love – Big Oil. This photo is of Signal Hill in Southern California back in 1923. The hill became part of the Long Beach Oil Field, one of the most productive oil fields in the world. Signal Hill was covered with over 100 oil derricks, and because of its prickly appearance at a distance became known as “Porcupine Hill”.

You would think that after EPA reconsidered ethanol’s environmental benefits when issuing the RFS2 rule that California would take a second look at the homegrown fuel and make it part of their Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But last week’s action by the Southern California Association of Governments turning down federal funding to put in dozens of E85 fueling stations showed just how much the state is still in love with oil. Paul Wuebben, a clean fuels officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, urged the council to accept the dollars. Ethanol is not perfect, he said, but its wider use would reduce dependence on gasoline and remove pollutants from the air. He also called the panel’s decision a “major lost opportunity for the region.”

Wuebben attempted to sway the panel to reconsider along with Mike Lewis with Pearson Fuels, “It would have created 221 jobs. Dependence on foreign oil is the result of 1,000 little decisions and a few big decisions. This was a big decision.”

California lawmakers and bureaucrats believe that corn-based ethanol causes more harm than good for the environment after being transported from the Midwest. One recent article penned by Roland Hwang, Transportation Program Director for Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, calls it “old, dirty ethanol.” Seriously? If ethanol is old and dirty, what does that make oil?

I guess it’s true that love is blind.