ne by one, liberal politicians are slinking out of the anti-oil-drilling camp, becoming advocates, to one degree or another, of expanded offshore fossil fuel exploration and development.
Because they can read polls, even Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have now sheepishly acknowledged that offshore development might be a good idea.

But the most interesting defectors so far have been members of the ultra-Green Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors, who voted 3-2 late last month to support increased oil drilling off the same beaches where three million gallons of crude spilled from an offshore drilling blowout in 1969.

The defection of the three supervisors is significant because the area is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement. The Santa Barbara City Council is even considering a plan to make the city government carbon-free by 2020.

The supervisors changed their minds, not because they are any less protective of the area’s beautiful beaches, which are a magnet for tourist dollars. Rather, they were convinced that oil production technology has advanced so much in the last 40 years that desperately needed crude can be extracted with little risk of another spill.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service reports that, offshore, from the northern tip of San Luis Obispo County to the Mexican border, there are technically recoverable reserves of 5.74 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And, as Board of Supervisors swing-vote Brooks Firestone told the Los Angeles Times, “We do need the jobs. We do need the money. We do need the oil.”

What is more, it may be more environmentally responsible to drill for the oil and gas off Santa Barbara than to maintain the federal moratorium against development there. A recent study conducted by three University of California at Santa Barbara professors concludes that drilling may relieve the pressure on underground, offshore fissures that naturally leech an estimated 10,000 gallons of oil and 3.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The hydrocarbon-hating camp is becoming lonelier by the day. Our bet is that its last remaining denizen will be global warming enthusiast Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Though Schwarzenegger has a record of changing his position on a myriad of issues, he has offered little hope that he will reconsider his perverse stance on offshore drilling. His secretary of resources, a holdover from the anti-drilling Wilson Administration, told the New York Times, “Our position hasn’t changed. The governor has been very clear in his opposition to increased drilling off the coast of California.”

The governor’s intransigence is embarrassing and harmful to California’s energy future. He needs to understand that he is accountable first to Californians, not to the global warming crowd.