California has been fighting offshore oil drilling for 50 years, and we are not going to relent now.
In the face of the Trump administration’s proposal to open all offshore waters in the country to oil rigs, California must remember our history if we’re to make good on our vision for a safer future.
California knows all too well the dangers of offshore oil drilling. In 1969, an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, blanketing beaches with a thick layer of oil and killing thousands of marine mammals and birds. It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history until the Exxon Valdez spill 20 years later.