I was 10 when when Santa Barbara Oil Spill happened. For me, and in California anyone older than I was, this seared into our collective brains that oil exploration was really dangerous. Actually worse, we decided off-shore drilling was wrong. It was a selfish decision, but one pretty much everyone in California, Oregon and Washington came to after the slick.
.
There are huge differences between Santa Barbara and the Venice Louisiana (not shortened as LA since it is confusing) blowouts that explain why people in the gulf haven't decided this yet.
.
The Santa Barbara rig was only 6 miles out (vs 42 in Lous.) so the oil came ashore quickly.
.
The Santa Barbara rig was in shallow water (vs. 5 miles deep in Lous.) - so more cruddy - sticky crude washed up onto our beaches and rocks.
.
The massive oil slick immediately hit the popular beaches of Southern California due to a very fast Alaska Current (vs. a meandering current in the Gulf) - you couldn't escape it. For years you had to wash "the tar" off your feet after you went to the beach.
.
The cold waters of Southern California support a huge, diverse and "screen friendly" set of animals; seals, otters, seal lions, thousands of birds (vs a few shore birds, and deep sea porpoises, sea turtles and blue fin tuna of the gulf) - so nightly pictures of dying animals swamped the TV.
.
Tens of thousands of Californians came out to help clean and try to save dying animals (those animals won't "wash up" in the Gulf) - it made militant environmentalists out of those people, and they preached about the evils of drilling throughout the state.
.
Finally - there were only 3 news stations then and the oil slick made such better news than Vietnam it was on all the time. Here was something that we could do something about. So it was on TV A LOT.
.
My point here is that the Santa Barbara spill was immediate - and it changed Californians' outlooks. It is the key reason we have the toughest environmental standards in the nation.
.
The gulf spill could still turn up worse economical - and if "those in charge" don't fix it - worse politically for oil exploration. The self righteous dithering right now (particularly BP, Haliburton and Transocean) might make fiscal sense for the companies in the short term - but if oil washes ashore in Florida the public outrage will be massive.
.
A friend said that as long as we are dependent on oil, it makes sense to drill in the United States because we have the technology to do it safely. And we do. But the technology doesn't mean shit as long as BP and Haliburton cut corners to make a little more money - and the government regulators look the other way. And the regulators (for this spill under George W Bush - but my guess is it was the same before W and after him) are in bed with the oil companies. Once again the American People come after big business.