A Tale Of Two Oil States

&#62; California has the natural resources and technical expertise to be the next Texas if it wants to be. What it needs is the political will. California Governor Jerry Brown at least says he wants to drill, but his dominant Democratic Party is so beholden to the already-rich greens that the state is paralyzed.<p>Those poor oil companies, being outspent by the Green Party spending juggernaut!

That $80 billion number is fictional. The proper measure of the net income from extractive services must subtract the value of the decrease in oil in the ground (you don't count selling off your family jewelry as net positive wealth generated!). Valuing oil in the ground is difficult, but the net value generated by that extraction is a fraction of the 80 billion number.

"if California were more like Texas" I'm glad I was lying down when I read this line. Even if I was sitting in a chair I would have fallen out of it laughing as hard as I did. This reads more like PAC Campaign Ad than a news Article...

Treating capital as profit is just one small part of the problem. The larger issue being that fossil fuels are not sustainable. Other countries are rocketing forward (solar in germany, wind in denmark, etc) while the US is holding on to a past which is killing us.

So someone who wants to drill in CA paid Rupert Murdoch to print this article. This is propoganda, not journalism.

I think the author is trying to convince people that California should drill more. But all this did was convince me that CA made the right decision.

The article does seem biased. It says, "California has huge reservoirs offshore" but doesn't mention the enormous BP oil spill in 2010.

CA has off shore reserves - probably true Requiring fracking to get to those reserves has challenges and has multiple concerns outlined including -- <a href="http://www.everettassociates.net/article/3509-new-study-highlights-environmental-risks-from-fracking" rel="nofollow">http://www.everettassociates.net/article/3509-new-study-high...</a><p>I will say this, CA is a bit more cautious than TX in general, and given the recent fertilizer explosion in TX, I'm ok with more regulation than less.

That article link doesn't work for me. Here's one that does:<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578416871045535226.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732469510457841...</a><p>Also, wow, the comments at the bottom of that story are shockingly dimwitted.

Well, at least we know where the WSJ stands on drilling and the environment :).