MLPA Official Greenwashes Oil Industry's Record on 'Renewable' Energy

MLPA Official Greenwashes Oil Industry's Record on 'Renewable' Energy

by Dan Bacher

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, claimed the oil industry is "doing their share to promote renewable energy" in an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee on Sunday January 9. (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/09/3308270/opinion-petroleum-companies-doing.html)

"Villainizing the petroleum industry does nothing to promote sound energy policy," she contended. "Oil companies in the United States are the single biggest private sector investors in the development of alternative and renewable energy supplies."

However, Reheis-Boyd, as chair of the Marine Life Protection Task Force (MLPA) for the South Coast and a member of the task forces for the North Central Coast and North Coast, approved fake "marine protected areas" that "villainized" sustainable fishermen and gatherers while doing nothing to stop the real causes of fishery declines - water diversions from the Delta, water pollution and coastal development.

She and other task force members did everything they could to take oil spills and drilling, water pollution, development, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in their bizarre concept of marine "protection."

Reheis-Boyd, who has called repeatedly for new oil drilling off the California coast, is a strange type of "marine guardian," indeed. While grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and Indian Tribes repeatedly pointed out the hypocrisy of an oil lobbyist overseeing the implementation of "marine protected areas" under the Schwarzenegger regime, corporate environmental NGOs repeatedly praised the corrupt MLPA process for being "open, transparent and inclusive."

Governor Jerry Brown and his new Resources Secretary, John Laird, have made no public statements or any indications of whether or not they will continue Schwarzenegger's controversial MLPA process. However, it would be insane to continue the MLPA fiasco when Brown is calling for the slashing of state programs and California has the lowest ratio of game wardens to residents of any state in the nation to enforce these fake "marine protected areas."

Over 300 members of 50 Indian Nations, immigrant seafood industry workers, fishermen and environmentalists peacefully took over a MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg on July 21, 2010 to protest the violation of tribal fishing and gathering rights under the MLPA process. The Fish and Game Commission at its meeting in Sacramento on February 2-3 is set to vote on a single proposal for a network of marine protected areas on the North Coast that includes provisions respecting tribal fishing and gathering rights.

For more information about the MLPA, go to: http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/01/04/will-jerry-brown-continue-arnolds-mlpa-initiative/