Edhat Staff
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday to phase out all remaining oil and gas production projects and ban future applications for onshore fossil fuel operations. The move signals a significant pivot away from fossil fuels in favor of cleaner energy solutions and environmental conservation.
The board’s resolution aims to methodically phase out active oil and gas operations, emphasizing the economic and environmental benefits of this transition.
According to a report from the UCSB Political Science Department, the county could save as much as $100 million by 2045 through avoided mortality costs, minimized oil spill emergencies, and reduced impacts from climate change. The report estimates savings between $54 million and $81 million in mortality-related costs due to mitigated exposure to airborne particulates from the industry.
Currently, Santa Barbara County has 2,348 active and idle oil wells, of which 1,030 are actively producing. There are also nearly 2,500 wells classified as plugged and abandoned.
While the county’s oil and gas production operations generate approximately $512 million in annual direct benefits to oil companies and contribute $7.1 million in property taxes, these revenues represent only 0.2% of the County’s 2024-25 budget and are believed to be insufficient to outweigh the associated environmental and public health costs, according County’s staff report.
As the resolution moved forward with a majority vote, the discussion underscored divisions within the board. Supervisor Bob Nelson was the sole dissenting voice, expressing frustration and describing the resolution as “political theater.”
“Actions that have been advocated by those in the environmental nonprofits in our county. You know, they’ve tried to drag the county into lawsuits which have cost us time and money where we had really no say in whether the pipeline starts again. This is the same thing here,” Nelson remarked during the meeting.
However, Board Chair Laura Capps defended the resolution as forward-thinking and questioned whether we want to be investing in jobs related to clean economy or ones in a dwindling oil and gas economy where there’s only about 100 jobs in the area.
Supervisor Steve Lavagnino was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.
Santa Barbara County’s average oil production over the last five years amounted to 2.7 million barrels annually, highlighting the scale of the sector’s operations. Despite these figures, environmental advocates argue that transitioning away from fossil fuels will yield long-term benefits, including avoided cleanup costs, reduced spill risks, and broader climate adaptation strategies.
As oil production continues to decline, the county faces the challenge of balancing fiscal impacts with the opportunity to position itself as a leader in renewable energy and sustainability in California.
Thank you, Supes! Saving money and lives while helping to clean up our planet is a pretty good thing.
It takes years to wind down production and fully remove wells, so we’ll still be getting that 7 million in property taxes for a while. Getting some new wind or solar leases out there would quickly make up for that in a few years, without the toxic crap polluting our air, water and land. We definitely don’t need new drilling operations.
Don’t worry usual suspects, we’ll still have plenty of oil for you. Now is the time to start cleaning up and moving away from oil as much as possible.
Move towards nuclear. To say wind and solar is not poluting is a joke. They rape the earth.
Nuclear fission is incredibly expensive, slow to come on line, and produces waste that is dangerous for millennia. Not a good plan. All of the “new design” small reactors are vaporware, and still have the waste problem.
RUBY – they in no way “rape the earth.”
Please educate yourself. It’s absolutely stunning how any fully functioning adult could honestly believe that wind and solar energy production is worse for our planet that drilling for toxic oil and burning it into the atmosphere.
Please stop relying on memes and social media for your “facts.” Jeezus.
What about all the pollution & ecological damage caused by mining for the lithium for manufacturing car batteries and the disposal?
I toured a wind farm outside of Palm Springs not so long ago, the number of dead birds on the ground below the wind mills was shocking, why aren’t the environmentalists upset about this?
Newsome and virtually all of his party was against nuclear power and then he extended Diablo Canyon.
No source of energy is perfect but there are studies proving electric cars are more damaging to the environment overall that gasoline cars.
OOPS – 1) The mining of lithium is decreasing with the increased use of safer, cleaner sodium ion batteries. Also, the cost/damage of lithium mining is still far outpaced by the damage caused by oil production.
2) That wind farm near Palm Springs is ancient. The newer grid scale farms have far more advanced technology to deter birds and insects. Technology is still rapidly advancing. Again, oil production kills FAR more wildlife than wind farms, even the older ones.
3) Nuclear is not a safe, cheap or immediate alternative.
4) Cite the study “proving” that EVs are worse than gas cars. That is absolute hogwash.
If you’re really concerned about the environment, I suggest reading the facts about all this and not relying solely on memes and far right “news.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13155147/ev-pollution-worse-exhaust-emissions-study.html
Do you have a reliable source and a different study? The Daily Mail is kinda like Parler as far as factual reporting.
I see there is a study though, but it does not conclude that “electric cars are more damaging to the environment overall that gasoline cars.” Not in any way.
Rather, the study, from 2020, finds that particulate pollution (eg, bits of rubber, dust, etc) from tires is greater than from tailpipes. The Daily Mail, based on an OPINION article in the WSJ, is trying to say that because EV’s tend to be heavier than gas cars (except SUVs, trucks, etc), they release more particulate matter into the air than tires on gas cars. This, of course, completely ignores the engine emissions and the entire process of refining the oil into gasoline which make gas cars so objectively worse for the environment.
Again, this in no way proves EVs are worse “overall.”
Just say you don’t know anything about battery technology or the impacts of EVs.
You can learn though…you’d rather not.
Not that any of the oilies will read it, but the facts are here, addressing both emissions and environmental damage from materials extraction:
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/electric-vehicles-contribute-fewer-emissions-than-gasoline-powered-cars-over-their-lifetimes/
The loss of $512 million in annual benefit to the county will save the county $100 million over 20 years? Thats a $10.14 billion loss to the county.
“$512 million in annual direct benefits to oil companies”….
Wind and solar are not renewable. The farms of such are causing a new silent spring. There is a reason why those closely involved in the industries call them zappers and swatters. Good bye birds and bats and insects. Have any of you seen an eagle with only one wing; its a terrible death.
By the way you cannot make roads and most of what we use, including our clothing, without petroleum.
GETTHE – the first sentence is so absolutely completely false, the rest of your comment need not be read.
Again….. Please stop relying on memes and “Landman” for “facts.”
Get: wind and solar are indeed renewable; that’s why we need to move toward those sources of energy. Am glad to see you appear interested in bird deaths, though. Are you aware an oil spill right here killed at least 3,700 of them?
This is just BS, as in Blatant Sophistry. The sun comes up every day exactly the same, spreading its energy across our planet for better and worse, and will for another billion years or so. It’s absolutely renewable. The sun and our planet’s motions make the wind move and will continue effectively forever. It’s absolutely a renewable energy. “Silent Spring”, sheezus. My dog, don’t be so stupid.
And spare us your crocodile tears for bird deaths. Current annual estimates put wind turbines responsible for under 700,000, while house cats kill between 2 and 4 billion a year, and buildings- just by standing there- kill over a billion birds per year.