There are three reasons why California is always ranked as the worst state in the union for doing business. The first is the politicians and activists who abuse and demonize business. Second is the businesses who enable the abusers by buying favors, and alternatively, those who refuse to fight back. The third reason is the disregard and indifference of the general populace who fail to recognize their own standard and cost of living suffers as a result of this situation!
There are several aspects as to how and why the politicians and activists routinely fleece business owners and get away with it. They view businesses in our state as cash cows for their wealth redistribution schemes and convenient targets for stirring up angst and envy. Meanwhile, the citizenry doesn’t realize that the resulting costs get passed down to them in the form of lower wages and higher consumer costs.
For example, even though the general population creates consumer demand for products, which generate pollution either in the making or the using of the product, it is the producers who get tied to whipping posts for being “big” polluters! All the while, the consumers live in denial that they need and use these products every day.
Here in California, there is a continual assault on the ability of business owners to make a living through the use of the land, equipment, and the business operation they own, including land-use restrictions, environmental regulations, the nation’s highest taxes and most complex wage and hour laws, along with extreme exposure to frivolous and abusive litigation.
It is in this context that I want to inform you about a meeting I attended sponsored by three organizations: Food and Water Watch (FWW), and two flunkies, The Santa Barbara County Action Network, and Safe Energy Now North County. The purpose of the meeting was to garner support for yet another smear campaign against so-called big oil and big ag who they pose as colluding together to risk the safety of our water, food, and air for filthy profits. Moreover, these organizations would have us believe that Gov. Jerry Brown, who could scarcely be more anti-business, has been bought off by ag and oil interests.
The short-term goal of this effort, in their exact words, is to see three North County oil companies be denied permits to operate outright by the county Board of Supervisors. These groups have of course prejudged the merits and impacts of these projects before they have even had the chance to make their pitch before the decision makers! This has to do with their ultimate goal of wanting all oil to stay in the ground even though this would rob our community of significant tax proceeds, while dispossessing mineral owners of the value of their holdings, and depriving consumers of the thousands of oil byproducts they use each and every day.
A parallel long-term goal of these organizations is to obliterate the rights of farmers and ranchers to access the water they own by way of declaring that all water belongs to the people in general. They went so far as to say that growing crops for export is a waste of water! These radicals slyly gloss over the fact that most of the rest of the state, country, and world would starve to death if they had to try and grow their own food in the middle of a metropolis, the desert, or in the midst of locales subject to harsh winters.
FWW considers the environmentalists who have been operating here as wimps! Rather than consider project conditions and regulations placed on projects to mitigate impacts as good enough to protect the environment, FWW instead wants these projects declared dead on arrival once they come before decision makers. They plan on building power here by engaging students, religious groups, and organized labor. They also boasted about how they got Supervisor Joan Hartmann elected as the third vote they need to ensure their success!
The big lie they plan to use to scare the populace? They deceitfully imply that the aquifer, from where drinking and irrigation water comes, is being polluted by the oil industry and that our farmers don’t care! The truth is that a mile or so of impermeable rock separates and protects our potable water from the oil-bearing formations deep below the earth’s surface. After 110 years of drilling for oil in our county, our water supply remains safe to this day despite the fear mongering.
Know this for a fact: The oil-bearing formations deep beneath the earth’s surfaces are ancient sea beds filled with saltwater and oil. When oil companies drill here, up to 90 percent of what comes up is this brackish water mixed with a little oil. The oil companies separate the oil from the water and send the brackish water right back to the zone from whence it came! This brackish water never comes in contact with our drinking water aquifer, nor is it used to irrigate the crops grown here.
Finally, our local farms are family owned. These legacy farming operations will do everything possible to protect their water, land, and the safety of their produce or else they would be out of business.
Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB and the host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show on AM1440 KUHL. Send your thoughts to [email protected].
