Oil Industry Spending Big To Win Unfettered Fracking Rights In The Golden State

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Thereโ€™s a lot of money at stake for oil companies that want to frack Californiaโ€™s Monterey Shale, so itโ€™s no wonder Big Oil is spending big to forestall any new environmental regulations from biting into profits.

Hereโ€™s a particularly striking case in point: Just a week before the California State Senate voted on a bill that would impose new regulations on fracking activities, the Western States Petroleum Association (which represents the likes of Exxon, Chevron, BP, Occidental, Valero, Phillips 66, etc.) treated a dozen lawmakers to a lavish $13,000, 5-course meal at The Kitchen, one of Sacramentoโ€™s fanciest restaurants.

Two weeks later, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, but by then lobbyists had managed to weaken the bill to the point that many environmentalists had withdrawn theirย support.

โ€œBefore they passed [the bill], lawmakers accepted new amendments from the oil and gas industry โ€“ amendments that undermine the original intentโ€ฆ changing it into a bill we simply canโ€™t support,โ€ said the California League of Conservation Voters.

That $13,000 dinner is a drop in the bucket, ofย course.

So far in 2013, the oil and gas industry has already spent over $11.5 million on lobbying efforts in California, and itโ€™s not just fracking regulations that are in Big Oilโ€™sย crosshairs.

Californiaโ€™s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is also particularly vexing to fossil fuel profiteers, especially companies like Valero and Phillips 66 that are hoping to receive more tar sands crude from Canada at their refineries in the Golden State.

According to NRDCโ€™s Brant Olson, โ€œFor their investment, the [oil and gas] industry has succeeded in placing a range of bills onto the floor of the State Legislature to either weaken or repeal the LCFS.โ€

Image credit: money falling from the sky via Shutterstock.

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Mike Gaworecki is a San Francisco-based journalist who writes about energy, climate, and forest issues for DeSmogBlog and Mongabay.com. His writing has appeared on BillMoyers.com, Alternet, Treehugger, Change.org, Huffington Post, and more. He is also a novelist whose debut โ€œThe Mysticistโ€ came out via FreemadeSF inย 2014.

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