The Unspoken Promise

Steve Westly is a Democratic nominee for Governor in California where he is currently serving as the State Controller. He has been all over the TV leading up to the June primary. There are no ads running on the Republican side of this race, while on the Democratic side it appears to boil down to Westly and Phil Angelides.

The ad airing here on the Central Coast right now focuses on Westly's position as defender of the Environment. It includes a promise to "...stand up to George Bush and the oil companies to stop any new offshore drilling."

Hardly surprising rhetoric when you consider the nature of a Democratic primary race. What of course goes unsaid is the unintended consequence of Westly's environmental puritanism. Should such policies be implemented, he consigns his citizenry to high gas prices into the forseeable future. No attempt at easing supply crunches in oil and natural gas while moving towards a future of alternative fuels.

Meanwhile, late today it was announced that the House Appropriations Committee in D.C. had voted 37-25 to exempt the US Outer Continental Shelf from natural gas drilling. There has been a moratorium on such drilling since 1981.

The move is forward-looking, it has no immediate consequences but begins the process--maybe--of opening up potential supplies to drilling in the near future. In a report that I could not find to link, I read that Governor Schwarzenegger was committed to seeing that no such drilling occurs off the California coast.

Conventional wisdom says that elections are won in the center. Such--and this is just my observation, take it for what it's worth (may not be much)--I think in California is not necessarily so. The state leans far to the left now and has moved ever more so since the late 1980's.

Steve Westly's environmental stand borders on extreme, though he is a very middle-of-the-road looking guy. To get elected here, he doesn't really need to worry about tacking too far to the center.

Meanwhile the erstwhile Republican Governor shares his opponent's stance on the issue of offshore drilling, to the point that there's hardly a discernable difference. Why vote for Westly when you can get the same thing without making any changes?