From Noozhawk
NOOZHAWK: What experiences from your professional or personal life make you uniquely qualified to be an Assembly member?
SUSAN JORDAN: My decision to run for public office for the first time is the culmination of more than 40 years in the workforce in different capacities.
My dedication to community activism began in college and my early [...]

SACRAMENTO — Delivering what could be the knockout punch to a Texas-based oil company’s plans to drill for oil in state waters off Santa Barbara County, the State Lands Commission on Tuesday said the proposal remains fatally flawed.
The Plains Exploration and Production Co. and its environmental supporters in Santa Barbara had hoped that a revised [...]

By Paul Mason
May 9, 2010
Since the Earth Day oil rig explosion that killed 11 people and unleashed an unimaginable disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the unacceptable risks of offshore oil drilling have been in the news daily.
Politicians, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are backpedaling from their prior support, based on the horrifying images on the [...]

Ventura County Reporter

05/06/2010

There’s an old adage that if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them. When it comes to offshore oil drilling or oil usage in general, one can’t help but wonder how many more oil spills it will take before we decide oil drilling is bad and that our co-dependence on oil simply isn’t sustainable. With the burgeoning oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, we must look back in time and remember that this isn’t our first time at bat.

In 1969, Union Oil Platform A, stationed six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, suffered a blowout and released between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil into the ocean, killing dolphins, seals and more than 10,000 birds.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker grounded, spilling 250,000 barrels of crude oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, killing an estimated 100,000 to as many as 250,000 birds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles and 22 orcas, as well as causing the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs. The Exxon spill severely damaged the coastline, and researchers estimate it could take another 10 years to approach restoring it to its previous condition.

As of today, the Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill is estimated to have leaked 75,000 barrels of oil to date, and with no sure way to cap the leak, is adding 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Even without hitting the coastline, experts are saying it would rank among the worst ecological disasters in U.S. history.

At this point, the idea of proposing any new drilling anywhere seems ludicrous. Even the Obama administration is backtracking on the president’s proposal for new offshore drilling.

For more, go to
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/more_drilling_is_not_the_answer/7877/

Organic Soup Kitchen of Santa Barbara, California held its first annual Easter Feast at the Veterans Memorial Building on Sunday from 8am to 4pm.
During the event, Founder and Executive Director, Anthony Carroccio, announced “Starting June 1, we’ll be expanding our community outreach program to provide daily meals to individuals and [...]

Listen to Susan on The Nick and Paul Show on AM 1490
http://www.nickandpaulshow.com/show/03-23-10.mp3

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 4, 2010; 6:23 PM

LOS ANGELES — Nearly two years ago, a broad coalition of environmental groups celebrated a deal with a Texas oil company that promised to eventually end its drilling operations off California’s scenic Santa Barbara County coast.

Now, a growing number of those former eco allies are lining up against the plan, in part because no one outside a small circle of supporters was allowed to read the final agreement.

Many also wonder if the 2022 end date for drilling is enforceable and worry the deal with Plains Exploration & Production, known as PXP, could inadvertently end a 40-year moratorium on new offshore drilling along the entire California coast.

About 110 groups have joined the “Oppose PXP Coalition.” Among its members is the Sierra Club, which initially endorsed the deal and was still listed as a supporter on the PXP Web site long after the group changed its position. The company has used the roster of environmental backers to win public support for the proposal.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Michael Endicott of the Sierra Club. “I asked them to do it last year. Stop saying Sierra Club is in support of the project – we’re not.” For more…

By Jerry Roberts/Santa Barbara Independent

Back when pols still wore fedoras, oil companies wanting in on state lands off the coast of California had no need to bother with the mess of legal, political, and regulatory barriers confronting them today.

All they had to do was head for Sacramento to “go see Rosie.”

More formally known to California historians as Joe Rosenthal, Rosie was the chief political consultant and fixer for the late governor Frank Merriam, whose administration was consumed by a scandal involving state oil drilling leases in 1938. As recounted in Crude Politics, a history of California oil policy (tinyurl.com/lmc2gp), the governor’s “go see Rosie” policy led to a scandal that transformed much of the structure of state government. One big change was that the governor lost power over the awarding of lucrative energy leases, in favor of a newly created State Lands Commission.

Episode 041… Susan Jordan for State Assembly from David Pritchett on Vimeo.
Former State Sen. Sheila Kuehl and former Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin were the featured speakers at a fundraiser for Susan Jordan hosted by Democratic activist Betty Stephens on Nov. 14. Video includes extended speech by Susan.
Many thanks to David Pritchett and Cathy [...]

NY Times: For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.

With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor [...]