California Steps Up Its Oil Drilling

People don”t associate California with the oil business nowadays, but anyone who has ever driven through Huntington Beach, Brea, Bakersfield, or a host of other places should know better.  There was a time in the early 20th century when California”s oil industry rivaled that of Texas or Oklahoma, and it was not so much environmentalism that lowered us from our high position as an oil state, as that we eventually consumed more than we produced.  It was the oil spill of January 1969, about 44 years ago, that really got people upset against further undersea drilling, but where there was drilling in 1969, it has continued.  At least one California aristocratic family, the Dohenys, got its fortune from oil; the name Doheny is all around us.

In response to: “Green California to Vie With Texas as U.S. Oil Heartland: Energy” by at Bloomberg.com

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