Spinning Heads

Getting spun like a top can make you dizzy and/or nauseous, depending on your stomach, your ears, and your temperament [Capitol Letters, “Oil vs. Parks,” 1/14/10].

The Environmental Defense Center, representing the local energy coalition, recommended a complex, specific, negotiated settlement of its opposition to PXP’s North County project, at a particular point in time, under a particular set of circumstances.

When that proposed secret settlement did not take place, EDC and the various area stakeholder groups it represented withdrew its support for the PXP development proposal. Period.

Neither EDC, nor any of the major area enviro groups, have supported any of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts to ram a PXP project through, either by executive action, or by dummy placeholder bills in the Legislature, since then. EDC’s support for a State Lands Commission full review is predicated on the fact that State Lands has already rejected a much more beneficial PXP proposal, and is unlikely to approve the new, less attractive proposal.

The “X” factor in this is that when John Garamendi pulled a Palin and quit as lieutenant governor to try to find another public sinecure (i.e., Congress), he left the “swing” vote on State Lands open. In the past, Abel Maldonado has opposed new offshore drilling in his district. Will that carry over if he replaces Garamendi as lieutenant governor? Who knows? Who even knows if the Legislature will confirm him?

All of this is background to Pedro Nava’s efforts to become attorney general based on his anti-oil, pro-environmental credentials and his efforts to “pull a Strickland” and hand his elective seat over to his wife, Susan Jordan—who is opposed by the equally enviro and ambitious Das Williams. Please, please, please don’t get involved in the Machiavellian world of Sacramento political elective spin, unless you’re going to take it right down the middle. Do not try to insert EDC or its clients into the middle of the dustup among Nava, Jordan, Williams, Sara Wan, various labor groups, Arnold’s efforts to strong-arm PXP through, etc. It sounds like a neat story. But the ends of the threads just do not connect, and have not for well over a year now. — Lee Moldaver