Who's Cashing in on California Oil Drilling?

Santa Barbara is dripping with oil. Walk along the beaches of this Southern California city and chances are, tar will stick to your feet from the natural seeps. In 1896, due west of the waterfront, the world’s first experiment in offshore drilling unfolded in the Summerland oil field. A half-century later, Congress passed the Submerged Land Act, which established that states regulate everything within 3 nautical miles of the shoreline. Beyond that, it’s federal territory. The first federal lease, about 8 miles off Carpinteria, was sold to Phillips Petroleum, Continental and Cities Service Oil Co. in 1966; two years later, 2,000 gallons of crude leaked from the platform that Phillips Oil built on the lot. Phillips and then-Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall assured angry residents that a spill of that magnitude would never happen again.

It turned out to be an empty promise. In 1969, about 3 million gallons of oil oozed from the nearby field of another consortium, spreading across 35 miles of the beach and 800 square miles of the Pacific Ocean. At a time when there was very little federal environmental regulation for offshore drilling, it took months to cap the blowout. The drilling explosion was so powerful that it cracked