Oil in Santa Barbara and Power in America
Sociological
Inquiry
40 (Winter):
131-144
1',
L
• •
)
Oil in Santa Barbara
and Power in America*
HARVEY
MOLOTCH
University
of California, Santa Barbara
The eruption of
oil in Santa Barbara Channel has led to important revelations
regarding
the nature of
power in America: who has it—and more importantiy,
how it is exercised such
that existing
societal institutions function to undermine dissent and
minimize the opportunities
for authentic
change. The response of local aggrieved citizens to the
system thus operating
provides
additional evidence that the development of radical left
perspectives is induced by
objective
conditions of the American social system. The implications of
"accidents" and
different forms
of "events" for the sttidy of power are
discussed.
More than
oil leaked from Union Oil's
Plat-
form A in
the Santa Barbara Channel—a bit
of
truth about
piower in America spilled out
along
with it. It
is the thesis of this paper that
this
technological
"accident," like all accidents,
pro-
vides clues
to the realities of social structure
(in
this
instance, power arrangements) not
otherwise
available to
the outside observer. Further, it
is
argued, the
response of the aggrieved
population
(the
citizenry of Santa Barbara) provides
insight
into the
more general process which shapes
dis-
illusionment
and frustration among those who
come to
closely examine and be injured by
exist-
ing power
arrangements.
A few
historical details concerning the
case
under
examination are in order. For over
fifteen
years, Santa
Barbara's political leaders had
at-
tempted to
prevent despoilation of their
coastline
by oil
drilling on adjacent federal waters.
Al-
though they
were unsuccessful in blocking
even-
tual oil
leasing (in February, 1968) of
federal
waters
beyond the three-mile limit, they
were
able to
establish a sanctuary within state
waters
(thus
foregoing the extraordinary revenues
which
leases in
such areas bring to adjacent
localities
—e.g., the
riches of Long Beach). It was
there-
fore a great
irony that the one city which
volun-
tarily
exchanged revenue for a pure
environment
should find
itself faced, on January 28,
1969,
with a
massive eruption of crude oil—an
eruption
which was,
in the end, to cover the entire
city
coastline
(as well as much of Ventura and
Santa
Barbara
County coastline as well) with a
thick
coat of
crude oil. The air was soured for
many
hundreds of
feet inland and the traditional
eco-
nomic base
of the region (tourism) was
under
•This paper
was written as Working Paper No.
8,
Community
and Organization Research
Institute,
University
of California, Santa Barbara. It
was
delivered at
the 1%9 Annual Meeting of the
Amer-
ican
Sociological Association, San Francisco.
A
shorter
version has been published in
Ramparts,
November
1969. The author wishes to thank
his
wife, Linda
Molotch, for her active
collaboration
and Robert
Sollen, reporter for the Santa
Barbara
News-Press,
for his cooperation and critical
com-
ments on an
early draft
threat.
After ten days of unsuccessful
attempts,
the runaway
well was brought under control,
only
to be
followed by a second eruption on
Feb-
ruary 12.
This fissure was closed on March
3,
but was
followed by a sustained "seepage" of
oil
—a leakage
which continues, at this writing,
to
pollute the
sea, the air, and the famed
local
beaches. The
oil companies had paid
$603,000,000
for their
lease rights and neither they nor
the
federal
government bear any significant legal
re-
sponsibility
toward the localities which these
lease
rights might
endanger.
If the big
spill had occurred almost
anywhete
else (e.g.,
Lima, Ohio; Lompoc, California),
it
is likely
that the current research
opportunity
would not
have developed. But Santa
Barbara
is
different. Of its 70,000 residents, a
dispro-
portionate
number are upper class and
upper
middle
class. They are persons who, having
a
wide choice
of where in the world they mi^t
live, have
chosen Santa Barbara for its
ideal
climate,
gentle beauty and sophisticated
"culture."
Thus a large
number of worldly, rich,
well-edu-
cated
persons—individuals with resources,
spare
time, and
contacts with national and
international
elites—found
themselves with a commonly
shared
disagreeable
situation: the pollution of
their
otherwise
near-perfect environment. Santa
Bar-
barans thus
possessed none of the
"problems"
which
otherwise are said to inhibit eflfective
com-
munity
response to external threat: they are
not
urban
villagers (cf. Gans, 1962); they are
not
internally
divided and parochial like the
Spring-
dalers (cf.
Vidich and Bensman, 1960); nor
ema-
ciated with
self-doubt and organizational
naivete
as is
supposed of the ghetto dwellers. With
moral
indignation
and high self-confidence, they set
out
to right the
wrong so obviously done to
them.
Their
response was immediate. The
stodgy
Santa Barbara
News-Press inaugurated a
series
of
editorials, unique in uncompromising
stridency.
Under the
leadership of a former State
Senator
and a local
corporate executive, a
community
organization
was established called "GOO"
(Get
Oil Out!)
which took a militant stand
against
any and all
oil activity in the Channel.
In a
petition to President Nixon
(eventually
132
to gain
110,000 signatures), GOO's position
was
clearly
stated:
. . . With
the seabed filled with fissures in
this
area,
similar disastrous oil operation
accidents
may be
expected. And with one of the
largest
faults
centered in the channel waters, one
sizeable
earthquake
could mean possible disaster for
the
entire
channel area . . .
Therefore,
we the undersigned do call upon
the
state of
California and the Federal Government
to
promote
conservation by:
1. Taking
immediate action to have present
ott-
shore oil
operations cease and desist at
once.
2. Issuing
no further leases in the Santa
Bar-
bara
Channel.
3. Having
all oil platforms and rigs
removed
from this
area at the earliest possible
date.
The same theme
emerged in the hundreds of
letters published by
the News-Press in the weeks
to follow and in the
positions taken by virtually
every local civic
and government body. Both in
terms of its volume
(372 letters published in Feb-
ruary alone) and the
intensity of the revealed
opinions, the flow
of letters was hailed by the
News-PreM
as "unprecedented." Rallies were
held at the beach,
GOO petitions were circulated
at local shopping
centers and sent to friends
around the country;
a fund-raising dramatic
spoof of the oil
industry was produced at a local
high school. Local
artists, playwrights, advertis-
ing men, retired
executives and academic special-
ists from the local
campus of the University of
California (UCSB)
executed special projects ap-
propriate to their
areas of expertise.
A GOO strategy
emerged for a two-front
attack. Local
indignation, producing the petition
to the President and
thousands of letters to key
members of Congress
and the executive would
lead to appropriate
legislation. Legal action in
the courts against
the oil companies and the
federal government
would have the double effect
of recouping some of
the financial losses certain
to be endured by the
local tourist and fishing
industries while at
the same time serving notice
that drilling would
be a much less profitable
operation than it
was supposed to be. Legislation
to ban drilling was
introduced by Cranston in the
U.S. Senate and
Teague in the House of Repre-
sentatives. Joint
suits by the city and County
of Santa Barbara
(later joined by the State) for
$1 biUioq in damages
was filed against the oil
companies and the
federal government.
All of these
activities—petitions, rallies, court
action and
legislative lobbying—were significant
for their similarity
in reve&ling faith in "the
system." The
tendency waA to blame the oil
companies. There was
a muckraking tone to the
Santa Barbara
response: oil and the profit-crazy
executives of Union
Oil were ruining Santa Bar-
bara—but once our
national and state leaders
became aware of what
was going on, and were
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
provided
with the "facts" of the case,
justice
would be
done.
Indeed,
there was good reason for hope.
The
quick and
enthusiastic responses of Teague
and
Cranston
represented a consensus of men
other-
wise polar
opposites in their political
behavior:
Democrat
Cranston was a charter member of
the
liberal
California Democratic Council;
Repub-
lican Teague
was a staunch fiscal and moral
con-
servative
(e.g., a strong Vietnam hawk and
un-
relenting
harrasser of the local Center for
the
Study of
Democratic Institutions). Their
bills,
for which
there was great optimism, would
have
had the
consequence of effecting a
"permanent"
ban on
drilling in the Channel.
But from
other quarters there was
.silence.
Santa
Barbara's representatives in the state
legis-
lature
either said nothing or (in later
stages)
offered
minimal support. It took several
months
for Senator
Murphy to introduce
Congressional
legislation
(for which he admitted to having
little
hope) which
would have had the consequence
of
exchanging
the oil companies' leases in the
Chan-
nel for
comparable leases in the
under-exploited
Elk Hills
oil reserve in California's Kern
County.
Most
disappointing of all to Santa
Barbarans,
Governor
Reagan withheld support for
proposals
which would
end the drilling.
As
subsequent events unfolded, this
seemingly
inexplicable
silence of the democratically
elected
representatives
began to fall into place as
part
of a more
general problem. American
democracy
came to be
seen as a much more complicated
affair than
a system in which governmental
offi-
cials
actuate the desires of the "people who
elected
them" once
those desires come to be known.
Instead,
increasing recognition came to be
given
to the
"all-powerful oil lobby"; to legislators
"in
the pockets
of Oil"; to academicians "bought"
by
Oil and to
regulatory agencies which lobby
for
those they
are supposed to regulate. In
other
words, Santa
Barbarans became increasingly
ideo-
logical,
increasingly sociological, and in the
words
of some
observers, increasingly "radical."^
Writ-
ing from his
lodgings in the area's most
exclusive
hotel (the
Santa Barbara Biltmore), an irate
citizen
penned these
words in his published letter to
the
News-Press:
We the
people can protest and protest and
it
means
nothing because the industrial and
military
junta are
the country. They tell us, the
People,
what is good
for the oil companies is good for
the
People. To
that I say. Like Hell! . . .
Profit is
their language and the proof of alt this
is
their
history (SBNP*, Feb. 26, 1969, p.
A-6).
'See the
report of Morton Minte in the June
29,
1969
Washington Post. The conjunction of
these
three
attributes i» not, in my opinion,
coincidental.
*SBNP
will be used to denote Santa
Barbara
News Press
throughout this paper.
OIL IN SANTA BARBARA
AND POWER IN AMERICA
133
As time wore on, the
editorials and letters
continued io their
bitterness.
THE
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
AND THE
REGULATORY AGENCIES:
DISILLUSIONMENT
From the start.
Secretary Hickel's actions were
regarded with
suspicion. His publicized associa-
tions with Alaskan
Oil interests did his reputation
no good in Santa
Barbara. When, after a halt to
drilling (for
"review" of procedures) immediately
after the initial
eruption, Hickel one day later
ordered a resumption
of drilling and production
(even as the oil
continued to gush into the chan-
nel), the
government's response was seen as un-
believingly
consistent with conservationists' worst
fears. That he
backed down within 48 hours and
ordered a halt to
drilling and production was
taken as a response
to the massive nationwide
media play then
being given to the Santa Barbara
plight and to the
citizens' mass outcry just then
beginning to reach
Washington.
Disenchantment with
Hickel and the executive
branch also came
through less spectacular, less
specific, but
nevertheless genuine activity. First
of all, Hickel's
failure to support any of the legis-
lation introduced to
halt drilling was seen as an
action
favoring Oil. His remarks on the
subject,
while often
expressing sympathy with Santa Bar-
barans' (and for a
while placating local sentiment)
were revealed as
hypocritical in light of the action
not taken. Of
further note was the constant
attempt by the
Interior Department to minimize
the extent of damage
in Santa Barbara or to hint
at possible
"compromises" which were seen local-
ly as near-total
capitulation to the oil companies.
Volume of Oil
Spillage. Many specific ex-
amples might be
cited. An early (and continuing)
issue in the oil
spill was the volume of oil
spilling
into the Channel.
The U.S. Geological Survey
(administered by
Interior), when queried by
reporters, broke its
silence on the subject with
estimates which
struck as incredible in Santa
Barbara. One of the
extraordinary attributes
of the Santa Barbara
locale is the presence of a
technology
establishment among the most sophis-
ticated in the
country. Several officials of the
General Research
Corporation (a local R & D
firm with experience
in marine technology) initiat-
ed studies of the
oil outflow and announced find-
ings of pollution
volume at a "minimum" of ten
fold the Interior
estimate. Further, General
Research provided
(and the News-Press published)
a detailed account
of the methods used in making
the estimate (cf.
Allan, 1969). Despite repeated
'Hickel publicly
stated and wrote (personal com-
munication) that the
original leasing was a mistake
and that he was
doing all within discretionary power
to solve the
problem.
challenges from the
press. Interior both refused
to alter its
estimate or to reveal its meUiod for
making estimates.
Throughout the crisis, the
divergence of the
estimates remained at about
ten
fold.
The "seepage" was
estimated by the Geological
Survey to have been
reduced from 1,260 gallons
per day to about 630
gallons. General Research,
however, estimated
the leakage at the rate of
8,400 gallons per
day at the same point in time
as Interior's 630
gallon estimate. The lowest
estimate of all was
provided by an oflBcial of the
Western Oil and Gas
Association, in a letter to
the Wall Street
Journal. His estimate: "Probably
less than 100
gallons a day" (SBNP, August 5,
1969:A-1).
Damage to
Beaches. Still another point of
contention was the
state of the beaches at varying
points in time. The
oil companies, through
various public
relations officials, constantly mini-
mized the actual
amount of damage and maximiz-
ed the effect of
Union Oil's cleanup activity.
What surprised (and
most irritated) the locals was
the fact that
Interior statements implied the
same goal. Thus
Hickel referred at a press con-
ference to the
"recent" oil spill, providing the
impression that the
oil spill was over, at a time
when freshly
erupting oil was continuing to stain
local beaches.
President Nixon appeared locally
to "inspect" the
damage to beaches, and Interior
arranged for him to
land his helicopter on a city
beach which had been
cleaned thoroughly in the
days just before,
but spared hitn a close-up of
much of the rest of
the County shoreline which
continued to be
covered with a thick coat of
crude oil. (The
beach visited by Nixon has been
oil stained on many
occasions subsequent to the
President's
departure.) Secret servicemen kept
the placards and
shouts of several hundred
demonstrators safely
out of Presidential viewing
or hearing
distance.
Continuously, the
Oil and Interior combine
implied the beaches
to be restored when Santa
Barbarans knew that
even a beach which looked
clean was by no
means restored. The News-Press
through a
comprehensive series of interviews with
local and national
experts on wildlife and geology
made the following
points clear:
(1) As long as oil
remained on the water and
oil continued to
leak from beneath the sands, all
Santa Barbara
beaches were sul)ject to continuous
doses of oil—subject
only to the vagaries of wind
change. Indeed, all
through the spill and up to
the present point in
time, a beach walk is likely
to result in tar on
the feet. On "bad days" the
beaches are
unapproachable.
(2) The damage to
the "ecological chain" (a
concept which has
become a household phrase in
Santa Barbara) is of
unknown proportions. Much
study will be
necessary to leam the extent of
damage.
(3) The continuous
adtemating natural erosion
134
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
and building
up of beach sands means that
"clean"
beaches contain layers of oil at
various
sublevels
under the mounting sands; layers
which
will once
again be exposed when the cycle
reverses
itself and
erosion begins anew. Thus, it will
take
many years
for the beaches of Santa Barbara
to
be
completely restored, even if the present
seepage
is halted
and no additional pollution
occurs.
Damage
to Wildlife. Oil on feathers is
ingested
by birds,
continuous preening thus leads to
death.
In what
local and national authorities called
a
hopeless
task, two bird-cleaning centers
were
established
to cleanse feathers and
otherwise
administer
to damaged wild-fowl. (Oil
money
helped to
establish and supply these
centers.)
Both
spokesmen from Oil and the federal
govern-
ment then
adopted these centers as sources
of
"data" on
the extent of damage to
wild-fowl.
Thus, the
number of dead birds due to
pollution
was computed
on the basis of number of
fatalities
at the
wild-fowl centers.* This of course is
pre-
posterous
given the fact that dying birds are
pro-
vided with
very inefficient means of
propelling
themselves
to such designated places. The
ob-
viousness of
this dramatic understatement of
fatalities
was never acknowledged by either
Oil
or
Interior—although noted in Santa
Barbara.
At least
those birds in the hands of local
orni-
thologists
could be confirmed as dead—and
this
fact could
not be disputed by either Oil
or
Interior.
Not so, however, with species
whose
corpses are
more difficult to produce on
com-
mand.
Several observers at the Channel
Islands
(a national
wildlife preserve containing one of
the
country's
largest colonies of sea animals)
reported
sighting
unusually large numbers of dead
sea-
lion pups—on
the oil stained shores of one
of
the islands.
Statement and counter-statement
followed
with Oil's defenders arguing that
the
animals were
not dead at all—but only
appeared
inert
because they were sleeping. Despite
the
testimony of
staff experts of the local
Museum
of Natural
History and the Museum Scientist
of
UCSB's
Biological Sciences Department that
the
number of
"inert" sea-lion pups was far
larger
than normal
and that field trips had
confirmed
the deaths,
the position of Oil, as also
expressed
by the
Department of the Navy (which
admin-
isters the
stricken island) remained adamant
that
the sea
animals were only sleeping (cf.
Life,
June 13,
1969; July 4, 1969). The
dramatic
beaching _
of an unusually large number of
dead
*In a
February 7 letter to Union Oil
share-
holders,
Fred Hartley informed them than the
bird
refuge
centers had been "very successful in
their
efforts." In
fact, by April 30, 1969, only 150
birds
(of
thousands treated) had been returned to
the
natural
habitat as "fully recovered" and the
survival
rate of
birds treated was estimated as a
miraculous-
ly high (in
light of previous experience) 20 per
cent
(cf.
SBNP, April 30, 1969,
F-3).
whales on
the beaches of Northern
California—
whales which
had just completed their
migration
through the
Santa Barbara Channel—was ac-
knowledged,
but held not to be caused by
oil
pollution.
No direct linkage (or
non-linkage)
with oil
could be demonstrated by
investigating
scientists
(cf. San Francisco Chronicle, March
12,
1969:1-3).
In the end,
it was not simply Interior, its
U.S.
Geological
Survey and the President which
either
supported or
tacitly accepted Oil's public
relations
tactics. The
regulatory agencies at both
national
and state
level, by action, inaction and
implica-
tion had the
consequence of defending Oil at
virtually
every turn. Thus at the outset of
the
first big
blow, as the ocean churned with
bubbling
oil and gas,
the U.S. Coast Guard (which
patrols
Channel
waters regularly) failed to notify
local
officials of
the pollution threat because, in
the
words of the
local commander, "the
seriousness
of the
situation was not apparent until late in
the
day Tuesday
and it was difficult to reach
officials
after
business hours" (SBNP, January 30,
1969:
A-1, 4).
Officials ended up hearing of the
spill
from the
News-Press.
The Army
Corps of Engineers must approve
all
structures placed on the ocean floor and
thus
had the
discretion to hold public hearings on
each
application
for a p>ermit to build a drilling
plat-
form. With
the exception of a single pro
forma
ceremony
held on a platform erected in
1967,
requests for
such hearings were never
granted.
In its most
recent handling of these matters (at
a
p>oint
long after the initial eruption and as
oil
still leaks
into the ocean) the Corps changed
its
criteria for
public hearings by restricting
written
objections
to new drilling to "the effects of
the
proposed
exploratory drilling on navigation
or
national
defense" (SBNP, August 17,
1969:A-1,
4). Prior to
the spill, effects on fish and
wildlife
were
specified by the Army as possible
grounds
for
objection, but at that time such
objections,
when raised,
were more easily dismissed as
un-
founded.
TTie Federal
Water Pollution Control
Adminis-
tration
consistently attempted to understate
the
amount of
damage done to waterfowl by
quoting
the
"hospital dead" as though a reasonable
assess-
ment of the
net damage. State agencies
followed
the same
pattern. The charge of "Industry
domi-
nation" of
state conservation boards was
levelled
by the State
Deputy Attorney General,
Charles
O'Brien
{SBNP, February 9, 1969:A-6).
Thomas
Gaines, a
Union Oil executive, actually sits as
a
member on
the State Agency Board most
directly
connected
with the control of pollution in
Chan-
nel waters.
In correspondence with
complaining
citizens, N.
B. Livermore, Jr., of the
Resources
Agency of
California refers to the continuing
oil
spill as
"minor seepage" with "no major
long-
term effect
on the marine ecology." The
letter
adopts the
perspective of Interior and Oil,
even
OIL IN SANTA
BARBARA AND POWER IN AMERICA
135
though the
state was in no way being held
culpable for
the spill (letter, undated to
Joseph
Keefe,
citizen. University of California,
Santa
Barbara
Library, on file).
With these
details under their belts,
Santa
Barbarans
were in a position to understand
the
sweeping
condemnation of the regulatory
system
as contained
in a News-Press front page,
banner-
headlined
interview with Rep. Richard D.
Otten-
ger (D-NY),
quoted as follows: "And so on
down
the line.
Each agency has a tendency to
become
the captive
of the industry that it is to
regulate"
(SBNP,
March 1, 1969:A-1).
THE
CONGRESS: DISILLUSIONMENT
Irritations
with Interior were paralleled
by
frustrations
encountered in dealing with the
Con-
gressional
establishment which had the
respon-
sibility of
holding hearings on ameliorative
legisla-
tion. A
delegation of Santa Barbarans
was
scheduled to
testify in Washington on the
Crans-
ton bill.
From the questions which
Congressmen
asked of
them, and the manner in which
they
were
"handled," the delegation could only
con-
clude that
the Committee was "in the pockets
of
Oil." As one
of the returning delegates put it,
the
presentation
bespoke of "total futility."
At this
writing, six months after their
intro-
duction,
both the Cranston and Teague bills
lie
buried in
committee with little prospect of
sur-
facing.
Cranston has softened his bill
significantly
—requiring
only that new drilling be
suspended
until
Congress is convinced that sufficient
techno-
logical
safeguards exist. But to no
avail.
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY:
DISILLUSIONMENT
From the
start, part of the shock of the oil
spill
was that
such a thing could happen in a
country
with such
sophisticated technology. The
much
overworked
jArase, "If we can send a man to
the
moon . . ."
was even more overworked in
Santa
Barbara.
When, in years previous, Santa
Bar-
bara's
elected officials had attempted to
halt
the original
sale of leases, "assurances"
were
given from
Interior that such an "accident"
could
not occur,
given the highly developed state
of
the art Not
only did it occur, but the
original
gusher of
oil si^itwed forth completely out
of
control for
ten daysv^nd the continuing
"seepage"
which
followed it remains uncontrolled to
the
present
moment, seven months later. That
the
government
would embark upon so massive a
drilling
program with such unsophisticated
tech-
nologies,
was striking indeed.
Further, not
only were the technologies in-
adequate and
the plans for stopping a leak,
should it
occur, nonexistent, but the area in
which
the drilling
took place was known to be
ultra-
hazardous
from the outset. That is, drilling
was
occurring on
an ocean bottom known for its
extraordinary
geological circumstances—porous
sands
lacking a bedrock "ceiling" capable of
con-
taining
runaway oil and gas. Thus the
continuing
leakage
through the sands at various points
above
the oil
reservoir is unstoppable, and could
have
been
anticipated with the data known to all
par-
ties
involved.
Another
peculiarity of the Channel is the
fact
that it is
located in the heart of earthquake
activ-
ity in that
region of the country which, among
all
regions, is
among the very most earthquake
prone."
Santa Barbarans are now asking
what
might occur
in an earthquake: if pipes on
the
ocean floor
and casings through the ocean
bottom
should be
sheared, the damage done by the
Channel's
thousands of potential producing
wells
would be
devastating to the entire coast of
South-
ern
California.'
Recurrent
attempts have been made to
amel-
iorate the
continuing seep by placing
floating
booms around
an area of leakage and then
having
workboats skim off the leakage
from
within the
demarcated area.' Chemical
disper-
sants, of
various varieties, have also been
tried.
But the oil
bounces over the sea booms in
the
choppy
waters; the work boats suck up only
a
drop in the
bucket and the dispersants are
effec-
tive only
when used in quantities which
consti-
tute a
graver pollution threat than the oil
they
are designed
to eliminate. Cement is poured
into
suspected
fissures in an attempt to seal them
up.
Oil on
beaches is periodically cleaned by
dumping
straw over
the sands and then raking up the
straw
along with
the oil it absorbs.
This
striking contrast between the
sophistica-
uon of the
means used to locate and extract
oil
compared to
the primitiveness of the means
to
control and
clean it up was widely noted in
Santa
Barbara. It is the result of a system
which
promotes
research and development which
leads
to strategic
profitability rather than to
social
utility. The
common sight of men throwing
straw
»Cf.
"Damaging Earthquakes of the United
States
through
1966," Fig. 2, National Earthquake
Informa-
tion Center,
Environmental Science Services
Admin-
istration,
Coast and Geodetic Survey.
'See
Interview with Donald Weaver, Professor
of
Geology,
UCSB, SBNP. Feb. 21, 1969, p. A-1,
6.
(Also,
remarks by Professor Donald
Runnells,
UCSB
geologist, SBNP, Feb. 23, 1969, p. B-X)
Both
stress the
dangers of faults in the Channel,
and
potential
earthquakes.
'More
recently, plastic tents have been
placed
on the ocean
floor to trap seeping oil; it is
being
claimed that
half the runaway oil is now
being
trapped in
these tents.
136
SOCIOLOGICAL
INOUIRY
on miles of
beaches within sight of complex
drilling
rigs capable of exploiting resources
thou-
sands of
feet below the ocean's surface, made
the
point
clear.
The futility
of the clean-up and control
efforts
was widely
noted in Santa Barbara.
Secretary
Hickel's
announcement that the Interior
Depart-
ment was
generating new "tough" regulations
to
control
off-shore drilling was thus met with
great
skepticism.
The Santa Barbara County Board
of
Supervisors was invited to "review" these
new
regulations—and
refused to do so in the belief
that such
participation would be used to
provide
the
fraudulent impression of democratic
respon-
siveness—when,
in fact, the relevant decisions
had been
already made. In previous years
when
they were
fighting against the leasing of
the
Channel, the
Supervisors had been assured of
technological
safeguards; now, as the
emergency
continued,
they could witness for themselves
the
dearth of
any means for ending the leakage
in
the Channel.
They had also heard the
testimony
of a
high-ranking Interior engineer who,
when
asked if
such safeguards could positively
prevent
future
spills, explained that "no prudent
engineer
would ever
make such a claim" {SBNP,
Feb-
ruary 19,
1969:A-1). They also had the
testimony
of Donald
Solanas, a regional supervisor of
Inte-
rior's U.S.
Geological Survey, who had said
about
the Union
Platform eruption:
I could have
had an engineer on that
platform
24 hours a
day, 7 days a week and he
couldn't
have
prevented the accidenL
His
"explanation" of the cause of the
"acci-
dent":
"Mother earth broke down on us"
(SBNP,
February 28,
1969: C-12).
Given these
facts, as contained in the
remarks
of
Interior's own spokesmen, combined
with
testimony
and information received from
non-
Interior
personnel. Interior's new regulations
and
the
invitation to the County to participate
in
making them,
could only be a ruse to preface
a
resumption
of drilling. In initiating the
County's
policy of
not responding to Interior's
"invitation,"
a County
Supervisor explained: "I think we
may
be falling
into a trap" {SBNP, April 1,
1969).
The very
next day, the Supervisors'
suspicions
were
confbmed. Interior announced a
selective
restimption
of drilling "to relieve
pressures."
(News-Press
letter writers asked if the
"pressure"
was
geoldgical or political.") The new
tough
regtilations
were themselves seriously flawed
by
the fact
that most of their provisions
specified
those
measures, such as buoyant booms
around
platforms,
availability of chemical dispersants,
etc.,
which had
proven almost totally useless in
the
current
emergency. They fell far short of
mini-
mum safety
requirements as enumerated by
UC
Santa
Barbara geologist Robert Curry who
criti-
cized a
previous version of the same
regulations
as "relatively
trivial" and "toothless"'
{SBNP,
March 5,
1969:C-9).
On the other hand,
the new regulations did
sjjecify that oil
companies would henceforth be
financially
responsible for damages resulting from
pollution mishaps.
(This had been the de facto
reality in the Union
case; the company had
assumed
responsibility for the clean-up, and
advised stockholders
that such costs were cover-
ed by "more than
adequate" insurance.*) The
liability
requirement has been vociferously con-
demned by the oil
companies—particularly by
those firms which
have failed to make significant
strikes on their
Channel leases {SBNP, March 14,
1969). Several of
these companies have now
entered suit
(supported by the ACLU) against the
federal government
charging that the arbitrary
changing of lease
conditions renders Channel
exploitation
"economically and practically impos-
sible," thus
depriving them of rights of due pro-
cess {SBNP,
April 10, 1969:A-1).
The weaknesses of
the new regulations came
not as a surprise to
people who had already
adapted to thinking
of Oil and the Interior
Department as the
same source. There was much
"Curry's
criticism is as follows:
"These new
regulations make no mention at
all
about
in-pipe safety valves to prevent
blowouts,
or to shut
off the flow of oil deep in the
well
should the
oil and gas escape from the drill
hole
region into
a natural fissure at some depth
below
the wellhead
blowout preventers. There is
also
no
requirement for a backup valve in case
the
required
preventer fails to work. Remember,
the
runaway well
on Union Platform A was
equipped
with a
wellhead blowout preventer. The
blowout
occurred
some 200 below that device.
Only one of
the new guidelines seems to
recognize
the possible
calamitous results of
earthquakes
which are
inevitable on the western
offshore
leases. None
of the regulations require the
minimization
of pollution hazards during
drilling
that may
result from a moderate-magnitude,
near-
by
shallow-focus earthquake, seismic sea
wave
(tsunami) or
submarine landslide which could
shear off
wells below the surface.
None of the
regulations state anything at
all
about
onshore oil and gas storage facilities
liable
to release
their contents into the oceans
upon
rupture due
to an earthquake or seismic
sea-
wave.
None of the
new regulations stipulate that
wells
must b«
cased to below a level of geologic
hazard,
or below a
depth of possible open fissures
or
porous
sands, and, as such, none of these
changes
would have
helped the present situation in
the
Santa
Barbara Channel or the almost
continuous
blowout that
has been going on since last
year
in the Bass
Straits off Tasmania, where one
also
finds porous
sands extending all the way up
to
the sea
floor in a tectonically active
region—exact-
ly the
situation we have here."
•Letter from
Fred Hartley, President of
Union
Oil, to "all
shareholders," dated February 7,
1969.
OIL IN SANTA
BARBARA AND POWER IN AMERICA
137
less
preparation for the results of the
Presidential
Committee of
"distinguished" scientists and
engi-
neers (the
DuBridge Panel) which was to
recom-
mend means
of eliminating the seepage
under
Platform A.
Given the half-hearted,
inexpensive
and
primitive attempts by Union Oil to deal
with
the seepage,
feeling ran high that at last
the
technological
sophistication of the nation
would
be harnessed
to solve this particular vexing
prob-
lem.
Instead, the panel—after a two-day
ses-
sion and
after hearing testimony from no
one
not
connected with either Oil or
Interior—recom-
mended the
"solution" of drilling an
additional
50 wells
under Platform A in order to
pump
the area dry
as quickly as possible. The
process
would
require ten to twenty years, one
member
of the panel
estimated.'"
The
recommendation was severely terse,
re-
quiring no
more than one and a half pages
of
type.
Despite an immediate local clamor.
Interior
refused to
make public the data or the
reasoning
behind the
recommendations. The
information
on Channel
geological conditions was provided
by
the oil
companies; the Geological Survey
rou-
tinely
depends upon the oil industry for the
data
upon which
it makes its "regulatory"
decisions.
The data,
being proprietary, could thus not
be
released.
Totally inexplicable, in light of
this
"explanation,"
is Interior's continuing refusal
to
immediately
provide the information given a
recent
clearance by Union Oil for public
release
of all the
data. Santa Barbara's local
experts
have thus
been thwarted by the
counter-arguments
of
Oil-Interior that "if you had the
information
we have, you
would agree with us."
Science was
also having its non-neutral
con-
sequences on
the other battlefront being
waged
by Santa
Barbarans. The chief Deputy
Attorney
General of
California, in his April 7 speech
to
the
blue-ribbon Channel City Club of
Santa
Barbara,
complained that the oil
industry
is
preventing oil drilling experts from aiding
the
Attorney
General's office in its lawsuits over
the
Santa
Barbara oil spill {SBNP, Aug. 8,
1969).
Complaining
that his office has been unable
to
get
assistance from petroleum experts at
Califor-
nia
universities, the Deputy Attorney
General
further
stated:
The
university experts all seem to be working
on
"Robert
Curry of the geography department
of
the
University of California, Santa Barbara,
warned
that such a
tactic might in fact accelerate
leakage.
If, as he
thought, the oil reservoirs under
the
Channel are
linked, accelerated development of
one
such
reservoir would, through erosion of
sub-
terranean
linkage channels, accelerate the flow of
oil
into the
reservoir under Platform A, thus adding
to
the
uncontrolled flow of oil through the sands
and
into the
ocean. Curry was not asked to
testify
by the
DuBridge Panel.
grants from
the oil industry. There is an
atmosphere
of fear. The experts are afraid
that
if they
assist us in our case on behalf of
the
people of
California, they will lose their
oil
industry
grants.
At the Santa
Barbara Campus of the Uni-
versity,
there is little Oil money in evidence
and
few, if any,
faculty members have entered
into
proprietary
research arrangements with Oil.
Petroleum
geology and engineering is simply
not
a local
specialty. Yet it is a fact that Oil
inter-
ests did
contact several Santa Barbara
faculty
members with
offers of funds for studies of
the
ecological
effects of the oil spill, with
publication
rights
stipulated by Oil." It is also the case
that
the Federal
Water Pollution Control
Administra-
tion
explicitly requested a UC Santa
Barbara
botanist to
withhold the findings of his
study,
funded by
that Agency, on the ecological
con-
sequences of
the spill {SBNP, July 29,
1969:A-3).
Except for
the Deputy Attorney General's
com-
plaint, none
of these revelations received
any
publicity
outside of Santa Barbara. But
the
Attorney's
allegation became something of a
state-
wide issue.
A professor at the Berkeley
campus,
in his
attempt to refute the allegation,
actually
confirmed
it. Wilbur H. Somerton, Professor
of
petroleum
engineering, indicated he could
not
testify
against Oil
because my
work depends on good relations
with
the
petroleum industry. My interest is
serving
the
petroleum industry. I view my obligation
to
the
community as supplying it with
well-trained
petroleum
engineers. We train the
industry's
engineers
and they help us. (SBNP, April
12,
1969, as
quoted from a San Francisco
Chronicle
interview.)
Santa
Barbara's leaders were incredulous
about
the whole
affair. The question—one which
is
more often
asked by the downtrodden sectors
of
the
society—was asked: "Whose University
is
this,
anyway?" A local executive and
GOO
leader
asked, "If the truth isn't in the
universities,
where is
it?" A conservative member of
the
State
Legislature, in a move reminiscent of
SDS
demands,
went so far as to ask an end to
all
faculty
"moonlighting" for industry. In
Santa
"Verbal
communication from one of the
faculty
members
involved. The kind of "studies" which
oil
enjoys is
typifled by a research conclusion by
Pro-
fessor
Wheeler J. North of Cal Tech, who
after
performing a
one week study of the Channel
ecology
under Western Oil and Gas
Association
sponsorship,
determined that it was the
California
winter
floods which caused most of the evident
dis-
turbance and
that (as quoted from the
Association
Journal)
"Santa Barbara beaches and marine
life
should be
back to normal by summer with
no
adverse
impact on tourism." Summer came
with
oil on the
beaches, birds unretumed, and
beadi
motels with
unprecedented vacancies.
138
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
Barbara, the only
place where all of this publicity
was occurring, there
was thus an opportunity for
insight into the
linkages between knowledge, the
University,
government and Oil and the resultant
non-neutrality of
science. The backgrounds of
many members of the
DuBridge Panel were
linked publicly to
the oil industry. In a line of
reasoning usually
the handiwork of groups like
SDS, a
News-Press letter writer labeled Dr.
Du-
Bridge as a servant
of Oil interests because, as a
past President of
Cal Tech, 'he would have had
to defer to Oil in
generating the massive funding
which that
institution requires. In fact, the
relationship was
quite direct. Not only has Union
Oil been a
contributor to Cal Tech, but Fred
Hartley (Union's
President) is a Cal Tech trustee.
The impropriety of
such a man as DuBridge
serving as the key
"scientist" in determining the
Santa Barbara
outcome seemed more and more
obvious.
TAXATION AND
PATRIOTISM:
DISILLUSIONMENT
From Engler's
detailed study of the i>olitics
of Oil, we learn
that the oil companies combat
local resistance
with arguments that hurt: taxa-
tion and patriotism
(cf. Engler, 1961). They
threaten to take
their operations elsewhere, thus
depriving the
locality of taxes and jobs. The
more grandiose
argument is made that oil is
necessary for the
national defense; hence, any
weakening of
"incentives" to discover and pro-
duce oil plays into
the hands of the enemy.
Santa Barbara,
needing money less than most
locales and valuing
environment more, learned
enough to know
better. Santa Barbara wanted
oil to leave, but
oil would not. Because the oil
is produced in
federal waters, only a tiny propor-
tion of Santa
Barbara County's budget indirectly
comes from oil, and
virtually none of the city
of Santa Barbara's
budget comes from oil.
News-Press
letters and articles disposed of the
defense argument
with these points: (1) oil com-
panies deliberately
limit oil production under
geographical quota
restrictions designed to main-
tain the high price
of oil by regulating supply;
(2) the federal oil
import quota (also sponsored
by
the oil industry) which restricts imports
from
abroad, weakens the
country's defense posture
by forcing the
nation to exhaust its own finite
supply while the
Soviets rely on the Middle East;
(3) most oil
imported into the U.S. comes from
relatively
dependable sources in South America
which foreign wars
would not endanger; (4)
the
next
major war will be a nuclear holocaust
with
possible oil
shortages a very low level problem.
Just as an attempt
to answer the national
defense argument Iod
to conclusions the very
opposite
of Oil's position, so did a closer
examina-
tion of the tax
argument. For not only did Oil
not pay very much in
local taxes. Oil also paid
very little in
federal taxes. In another of
its
fronf-page
editorials the News-Press made
the
facts clear. The
combination of the output re-
strictions,
extraordinary tax write-off privileges
for drilling
expenses, the import quota, and the
27.5 per cent
depletion allowance, all created
an artificially high
price of U.S. oil—a price
almost double the
world market price for the
comparable product
delivered to comparable U.S.
destinations." The
combination of incentives
available creates a
situation where some oil com-
panies pay no taxes
whatever during extra-
ordinarily
profitable years. In the years 1962-
1966, Standard of
New Jersey paid less than
4 pwr cent of
profits in taxes. Standard of Cali-
fornia, less than 3
per cent, and 22 of the largest
oil companies paid
slightly more than 6 per cent
{SBNP,
February 16, 1969:A-1). It was pointed
out, again and again
to Santa Barbarans, that it
was this system of
subsidy which made the rela-
tively high cost
deep-sea exploration and driUing
in the Channel
profitable in the first place. Thus,
the citizens of
Santa Barbara, as federal taxpayers
and fleeced
consumers were subsidizing their own
demise. The
consequence of such a revelation
can only be
infuriating.
THE
MOBILIZATION OF BIAS
The actions of Oil
and Interior and the contexts
in which such
actions took place can be re-
examined in terms of
their function in diffusing
local opposition,
disorienting dissenters, and
otherwise limiting
the scope of issues which
are potentially part
of public controversies.
E. E.
Schattschneider (1960:71) has noted:
All forms of
political organization have a bias
in favor of the
exploitation of some kinds of
conflict and the
suppression of others because
organization is
the mobilization of bias. Some
issues are organized
into politics while others are
organized
out
"Cf. Walter J. Mead,
"The Economics of Deple-
tion Allowance,"
testimony presented to Assembly
Revenue and Taxation
Committee, California Legis-
lature, June 10,
1969, mimeo; "The System of
Government Subsidies
to the Oil Industry," testimony
presented to the
U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Anti-
trust and Monopoly,
March 11, 1969. The osten-
sible purpose of the
depletion allowance is to en-
courage oil
companies to explore for new oil
reserves. A report
to the Treasury Department by
Consad Research
Corp. concluded that
elimination
of the depletion
allowance would decrease oil
reserves by only 3
per cent. The report advised that
more efficient means
could be found than a system
which causes the
government to pay $10 for every
$1 in oil added to
reserves. (Cf. Leo Rennert. "Oil
Industry's Favors,"
SBNP, April 27, 1969, pp. A-14,
15 as reprinted from
the Sacramento Bee.)
OIL IN SANTA
BARBARA AND POWER IN AMERICA
139
Expanding
the notion slightly, certain
techniques
shaping the
"mobilization of bias" can be
said
to have been
revealed by the present case
study.
1. The
pseudo-event.
Boorstin
(1962) has
described
the use of the pseudo-event in a
large
variety of
task accomplishment situations.
A
pseudo-event
occurs when men arrange condi-
tions to
simulate a certain kind of event, such
that
certain
prearranged consequences follow
as
though the
actual event had taken place.
Several
pseudo-events
may be cited. Local
participation
in
decision making.
From the
outset, it was
obvious that
national actions vis-k-vis Oil
in
Santa
Barbara had as their strategy the
freezing
out of any
local participation in decisions
affect-
ing the
Channel. Thus, when in 1968 the
federal
government
first called for bids on a
Channel
lease, local
officials were not even
informed.
When
subsequently queried about the
matter,
federal
officials indicated that the lease which
was
advertised
for bid was just a corrective
measure
to prevent
drainage of a "little old oil pool"
on
federal
property adjacent to a state lease
prod-
ucing for
Standard and Humble. This "little
old
pool" was to
draw a high bonus bid of
$21,189,000
from a
syndicate headed by Phillips (SBNP,
Feb-
ruary 9,
1969:A-17). Further, local officials
were
not notified
by any government agency in the
case of the
original oil spill, nor (except
after
the spill
was already widely known) in tfie
case
of any of
the previous or subsequent more
"minor"
spills. Perhaps the thrust of the
federal
government's
colonialist attitude toward the
local
community
was contained in an Interior
Depart-
ment
engineer's memo written to J.
Cordell
Moore,
Assistant Secretary of Interior,
explaining
the policy
of refusing public hearings prefatory
to
drilling:
"We preferred not to stir up the
natives
any more
than possible."" (The memo was
released by
Senator Cranston and excerpted
on
page 1 of
the News-Press.)
Given this
known history, the Santa
Barbara
County Board
of Supervisors refused the call
for
"participation" in drawing up new
"tougher"
drilling
regulations, precisely because they
knew
the
government had no intention of
creating
"safe"
drilling regulations. They refused to
take
part in the
pseudo-event and thus refused to
let
the
consequences (in this case the appiearance
of
democratic
decision-making and local assent)
of
a
pseudo-event occur.
Other
attempts at the staging of
pseudo-events
may be
cited. Nixon's "inspection" of the
Santa
Barbara
beachfront was an obvious one.
An-
other series
of pseudo-events were the
Congres-
sional
hearings staged by legislators who were,
in
the words of
a local well-to-do lady leader
of
"Cranston
publicly confronted the staff
engineer,
Eugene
Standley, who stated that he could
neither
confirm or
deny writing the memo. (Cf.
SBNP,
March 11,
1969, p. A-1.)
GOO, "kept
men." The locals blew off steam
—but the
hearing of arguments and the
proposing
of
appropriate legislation based on those
argu-
ments (the
presumed essence of the
Congressional
hearing as a
formal event) certainly did not
come
off. Many
Santa Barbarans had a similar
impres-
sion of the
court hearings regarding the
various
legal
maneuvers against oil drilling; legal
pro-
ceedings
came to be similarly seen as
ceremonious
arrangements
for the accomplishing of tasks
not
revealed by
their formally-stated
properties.
2. The
creeping event. A creeping event is,
in
a sense, the
opposite of a pseudo-event. It
occurs
when
something is actually taking place,
but
when the
manifest signs of the event are
arranged
to occur at
an inconspicuously gradual and
piece-
meal pace,
thus eliminating some of the
con-
sequences
which would otherwise follow
from
the event if
it were to be perceived all-at-once
to
be
occurring. Two major creeping events
were
arranged for
the Santa Barbara Channel. Al-
though the
great bulk of the bidding for leases
in
the Channel
occurred simultaneously, the
first
lease was,
as was made clear earlier,
advertised
for bid
prior to the others and prior to any
public
announcement
of the leasing of the Channel.
The federal
waters' virginity was thus ended
with
only a
whimper. A more salient example of
the
creeping
event is the resumption of
production
and drilling
after Hickel's second
moratorium.
Authorization
to resume production on
different
specific
groups of wells occurred on these
dates
in 1969:
February 17; February 21; February
22;
and March 3.
Authorization to resume
drilling
of various
groups of new wells was
announced
by Interior
on these dates in 1969: April
1,
June 12,
July 2, August 2, and August 16.
(This
is being
written on August 20.) Each time,
the
resumption
was announced as a safety
precaution
to relieve
pressures, until finally on the
most
recent
resumption date, the word "deplete"
was
used for the
first time as the reason for
granting
permission
to drill. There is thus no
particular
point in
time in which production and
drilling
was
re-authorized for the Channel—and
full
resumption
has still not been officially
authorized.
A creeping
event has the consequences of
dif-
fusing
resistance to the event by holding
back
what
journalists call a "time peg" on which
to
hang "the
story." Even if the aggrieved
party
should get
wind that "something is going
on,"
strenuous
reaction is inhibited. Non-routine
ac-
tivity has
as its prerequisite the crossing of
a
certain
threshold [>oint of input; the dribbling
out
of an event
has the consequence of making
each
of the
revealed inputs fall below the
threshold
level
necessary for non-routine activity. By
the
time it
becomes quite clear that "something
is
going on"
both the aggrieved and the
sponsors
of the
creeping event can ask why there
should
be a
response "now" when there was none
IH«-
viously to
the very same kind of stimulus.
In
140
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
such manner, the
aggrieved has resort only to
frustration and a
gnawing feeling that "events"
are sweeping him
by.
3. The
"neutrality" of science and the
''knowl-
edge"
producers. I have already dealt at
some
length with the
disillusionment of Santa Barbarans
with the "experts"
and the University. After
learning for
themselves of the collusion between
govemment and Oil
and the use of secret science
as a prop to that
collusion, Santa Barbarans found
themselves in the
unenviable position of having
to demonstrate that
science and knowledge were,
in fact, not neutral
arbiters. They had to demon-
strate, by
themselves, that continued drilling was
not safe, that the
"experts" who said it was safe
were the hirelings
directly or indirectly of Oil
interests and that
the report of the DuBridge
Panel recommending
massive drilling was a
fraudulent document.
They had to document
that the University
petroleum geologists were
themselves in league
with their adversaries and
that knowledge
unfavorable to the Oil interests
was systematically
withheld by virtue of the very
structure of the
knowledge industry. As the
SDS has learned in
other contexts, this is no small
task. It is a long
story to tell, a complicated
story to tell, and
one which pits lay persons (and
a few academic
renagades) against a profession
and patrons of a
profession. An illustration of
the difficulties
involved may be drawn from very
recent history.
Seventeen Santa Barbara plain-
tiffs, represented
by the ACLU, sought a tempo-
rary injunction
against additional Channel dril-
ling at least until
the information utilized by the
DuBridge Panel was
made public and a hearing
could be held. The
injunction was not granted
and, in the end, the
presiding federal judge ruled
in favor of what he
termed the "expert" opinions
available to the
Secretary of the Interior. It was
a function of
limited time for rebuttal, the dis-
orienting confusions
of courtroom procedures,
and also perhaps the
desire to not offend the
Court, that the ACLU
lawyer could not make
his subtle, complex
and highly controversial case
that the "experts"
were partisans and that their
scientific
"findings" follow from that partisan-
ship.
4. Constraints
of communication media. Just
as the courtroom
setting was not amenable to a
full reproduction of
the details surrounding the
basis for the ACLU
case, so the media in general
—through
restrictions of time and style—prevent
a full airing of the
details of the case. A more
cynical analysis of
the media's inability to make
known the Santa
Barbara "problem" in its full
fidelity might hinge
on an allegation that the
media are
constrained by fear of "presstires" from
Oil and its allies;
Metromedia, for example, sent
a team to Santa
Barbara which spent several days
documenting,
interviewing and filming for an
hour-long
program—only to suddenly drop the
i l matter due to
what is reported by locals in
touch with the
network to have been "pressures"
from Oil. Such
blatant interventions aside, how-
ever, the problem of
full reproduction of the
Santa Barbara "news"
would remain problematic
nonetheless.
News media are
notorious for the anecdotal
nature of their
reporting; even so-called "think
pieces" rarely go
beyond a stringing together of
proximate "events."
There are no analyses of
the "mobilization of
bias" or linkages of men's
actions and their
pecuniary interests. Science
and learning are
assumed to be neutral; regula-
tory agencies are
assumed to function as "watch-
dogs" for the
public. Information to the contrary
of these assumptions
is treated as exotic excep-
tion; in the manner
of Drew Pearson columns,
exception piles upon
exception without intellectual
combination,
analysis or ideological synthesis.
The complexity of
the situation to be reported,
the wealth of
details needed to support such
analyses require
more time and effort than jour-
nalists have at
their command. Their recitation
would produce long
stories not consistent with
space requirements
and make-up preferences of
newspap^ers and
analogous constraints of the other
media. A full
telling of the whole story would
tax the
reader/viewer and would risk boring him.
For these reasons,
the rather extensive media
coverage of the oil
spill centered on a few
dramatic moments in
its history (e.g., the initial
gusher of oil) and a
few simple-to-tell "human
interest" aspects
such as the pathetic deaths of the
sea birds struggling
along the oil-covered sands.
With increasing
temporal and geographical dis-
tance from the
initial spill, national coverage
became increasingly
rare and increasingly sloppy.
Interior statements
on the state of the "crisis"
were reported
without local rejoinders as the
newsmen who would
have gathered them began
leaving the scene.
It is to be kept in mind that,
relative to other
local events, the Santa Barbara
spill received
extraordinarily extensive national
coverage.'* The
point is that this coverage is
nevertheless
inadequate in both its quality and
quantity to
adequately inform the American
public.
5. The
routinization of evil. An oft
quoted
American cliche is
that the news media cover only
the "bad" things;
the everyday world of people
going about their
business in conformity with
American ideals
loses out to the coverage of
student and ghetto
"riots," wars and crime, cor-
ruption and sin. The
grain of truth in this clichd
should not obfuscate
the fact that there are
certain kinds of
evil which, partially for reasons
"Major magazine
coverage occuned in these
(and other) national
publications: Time (Feb. 14,
1%9);
Newsweek(March 3, 1969); Life (June
13,
1969); Saturday
Review (May 10, 1969);
Sierra
Club Bulletin;
Sports Illustrated (April 10,
1969).
The last three
articles cited were written by Santa
Barbarans.
OIL IN SANTA
BARBARA AND POWER IN AMERICA
141
cited in the
preceding paragraphs, also lose
their
place in the
public media and the public
mind.
Pollution of
the Santa Barbara Channel is
now
routine; the
issue is not whether or not the
Channel is
polluted, but how much it is
polluted.
A recent oil
slick discovered off a Phillips
Plat-
form in the
Channel was dismissed by an oil
company
official as a "routine" drilling
by-product
which was
not viewed as "obnoxious." That
"about half
of the current oil seeping into
the
Channel is
allegedly being recovered is taken
as
an
improvement sufficient to preclude the
"out-
rage" that a
big national story would
require.
Similarly,
the pollution of the "moral
environ-
ment"
becomes routine; [xiliticians are, of
course,
on the take,
in the pockets of Oil, etc. The
depletion
allowance issue becomes not
whether
or not such
special benefits should exist at
all,
but rather
whether it should be at the level
of
20 or 27.5
per cent. "Compromises" emerge
such
as the 24
per cent depletion allowance and
the
new "tough"
drilling regulations, which are
al-
ready being
hailed as "victories" for the
reformers
(cf. Los
Angeles Times, July 14, 1969:17).
Like
the oil
spill itself, the depletion allowance
debate
becomes
buried in its own disorienting detail,
its
ceremonious
pseudo-events and in the
triviality
of the
"solutions" which ultimately come to
be
considered
as the "real" options. Evil is
both
banal and
complicated; both of these
attributes
contribute
to its durability."
THE STRUGGLE
FOR THE MEANS
TO
POWER
It should
(although it does not) go without
say-
ing that the
parties competing to shape
decision-
making on
oil in Santa Barbara do not have
equal
access to
the means of "mobilizing bias"
which
this paper
has discussed. The same social
struc-
tural
characteristics which Michels has
asserted
make for an
"iron law of oligarchy" make for,
in
this case, a
series of extraordinary
advantages
for the
Oil-government combine. The
ability
to create
pseudo-events such as Nixon's
Santa
Barbara
inspection or controls necessary to
bring
off
well-timed creeping events are not
evenly
distributed
throughout the social structure.
Lack-
ing such
ready access to media, lacking the
ability
to stage
events at will, lacking a
well-integrated
system of
arrangements for goal attainment
(at
least in
comparison to their adversaries)
Santa
Barbara's
leaders have met with repeated
frus-
trations.
Their
response to their relative
powerlessness
has been
analogous to other groups and
indi-
viduab who,
from a similar vantage point,
come
to see the
system up close. They become
willing
"The notion
of the banality of evil is
adapted
from the
usage of Arendt, 1963.
to expand
their repertoire of means of
influence
as their
cynicism and bitterness increase
con-
comitantly.
Letter writing gives way to
demon-
strations,
demonstrations to civil
disobedience.
People
refuse to participate in "democratic
pro-
cedures"
which are a part of the
opposition's
event-management
strategy. Confrontation poli-
tics arise
as a means of countering with
"events"
of one's
own, thus providing the media
with
"stories"
which can be simply and
energetically
told. The
lesson is learned that "the power
to
make a
reportable event is . . . the pwwer to
make
experience"
(Boorstin, 1962:10).
Rallies were
held at local beaches;
Congress-
men and
state and national officials were
greeted
by
demonstrations. (Fred Hartley, of Union
Oil,
inadvertently
landed his plane in the midst of
one
such
demonstration, causing a rather ugly
name-
calling
scene to ensue.) A "sail-in" was held
one
Sunday with
a flotilla of local pleasure
boats
forming a
circle around Platform A, each
craft
bearing
large anti-oil banners. (Months
earlier
boats
coniing near the platforms were
sprayed
by oil
jjersonnel with fire hoses.) City-hall
meet-
ings were
packed with citizens reciting
"demands"
for
immediate and forceful local
action.
A City
Council election in the midst of the
crisis
resulted in
the landslide election of the
Council's
bitterest
critic and the defeat of a veteran
Council-
man
suspected of having "oil interests." In
a
rare action,
the News-Press condemned the
local
Chamber of
Commerce for accepting oil
money
for a
fraudulent tourist advertising
campaign
which touted
Santa Barbara (including its
beaches)
as restored
to its former beauty. (In the
end,
references
to the beaches were removed
from
subsequent
advertisements, but the
oil-financed
campaign
continued briefly.)
In the
meantime, as a Wall Street
Journal
reporter was
to observe, "a current of gloom
and
despair" ran
through the ranks of Santa
Barbara's
militants.
The president of Sloan
Instruments
Corporation,
an international R & D firm
with
headquarters
in Santa Barbara, came to
comment:
We are so
God-damned frustrated. The
whole
democratic
process seems to be falling
apart
Nobody
responds to us, and we end up
doing
things
progressively less reasonable. This
town
is going to
blow up if there isn't some
reasonable
attitude
expressed by the Federal
Government—
nothing
seems to happen except that we
lose.
Similarly, a
well-to-do widow, during a legal
pro-
ceeding in
Federal District Court in which
Santa
Barbara was
once again "losing," whispered
in
the author's
ear:
Now I
understand why those young people at
the
University
go around throwing things. . . .
The
individual
has no rights at all.
One possible
grand strategy for Santa
Barbara
142
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
was outlined
by a local public relations man
and
GOO
worker:
We've got to
run the oil men out. The city
owns
the wharf
and the harbor that the company
has
to use. The
city has got to deny its facilities
to
oil traffic,
service boats, cranes and the like.
If
the city
contravenes some federal navigation
laws
(which such
actions would unquestionably
in-
volve), to
hell with it.
The only
hope to save Santa Barbara is to
awaken
the nation
to the ravishment. That will
take
public
officials who are willing to block oil
traffic
with their
bodies and with police hoses, if
neces-
sary. Then
federal marshals or federal
troops
would have
to come in. This would pull in
the
national
news media {SBNP, July 6, 1969, p.
7).
This scenario has
thus far not occurred in
Santa Barbara,
although the use of the wharf by
the oil industries
has led to certain militant
actions. A picket
was maintained at the wharf
for two weeks,
protesting the conversion of the
pier from a
recreation and tourist facility to a
heavy industrial
plant for the use of ^e oil
companies." A
boycott of other wharf businesses
(e.g., two
restaurants) was urged. The picket line
was led by white,
middle-class adults—one of
whom had almost won
the mayorality of Santa
Barbara in a
previous election. Hardly a "radi-
cal" or a
"militant," this same man was several
months later
representing his neighborhood pro-
tective association
in its opposition to the pre-
sence of a "Free
School" described by this man
(somewhat
ambivalently) as a "hippie hotel."
Prior to the
picketing, a dramatic Easter Sunday
confrontation
(involving approximatively 500 per-
sons) took place
between demonstrators and city
police.
Unexpectedly, as a wharf rally was
break-
ing up, an oil
service truck began driving up the
pier to make
delivery of casing supplies for oil
drilling. There was
a spontaneous sit-down in
front of the truck.
For the first time since the
Ku Klux Klan folded
in the 1930's, a group of
Santa Barbarans
(some young, some "hippie,"
but many
hard-working middle-class adults), was
publicly taking the
law into its own hands. After
much lengthy
discussion between police, the truck
driver and the
demonstrators, the truck was
ordered away and the
demonstrators remained to
rejoice their
victory. The following day's
News-
Press
editorial, while not supportive of such
tactics, found much
to excuse—noteworthy given
the
paper''s long standing bitter opposition
to
similar tactics when
exercised by dissident North-
ern blacks or
student radicals.
A companion
demonstration on the water failed
to materialize; a
group of Santa Barbarans was
to sail to
the Union platform and "take
it";
choppy seas,
however, precluded a landing,
caus-
ing-the
would-be conquerors to return to port
in
failure.
It would be
difficult to speculate at this
writing
what forms
Santa Barbara's resistance might
take
in the
future. The veteran News-Press
rejjorter
who has
covered the important oil stories
has
publicly
stated that if the govemment fails
to
eliminate
both the pollution and its causes
"there
wilt, at
best be civil disobedience in Santa
Barbara
and at
worst, violence." In fact, talk of
"blowing
up" the ugly
platforms has been recurrent—and
is
heard in all
social circles.
But just as
this kind of talk is not
completely
serious, it
is difficult to know the degree to
which
the other
kinds of militant statements are
serious.
Despite
frequent observations of the
"radicaliza-
tion"" of
Santa Barbara, it is difficult to
deter-
mine the
extent to which the authentic
grievances
against Oil
have generalized to a radical
analysis
of American
society. Certainly an SDS
member-
ship
campaign among Santa Barbara adults
would
be a dismal
failure. But that is too severe a
test.
People,
especially basically contented
people,
change their
world-view only very slowly, if
at
all. Most
Santa Barbarans go about their
com-
fortable
lives in the ways they always did;
they
may even
help Ronald Reagan to another
term
in the
statehouse. But I do conclude that
large
numbers of
persons have been moved, and
that
they have
been moved in the directions of
the
radical
left. They have gained insights into
the
structure of
power in America not possessed
by
similarly
situated persons in other parts of
the
country. The
claim is thus that some Santa
Barbarans,
especially those with most interest
and
most
information about the oil spill and its
sur-
rounding
circumstances, have come to view
power
in America
more intellectually, more
analytically,
more
sociologically—more radically—than
they
did
before.
I hold this
to be a general sociological
response
to a series
of concomitant circumstances,
which
can be
simply enumerated (again\) as
follows:
1.
Injustice.
The powerful are operating
in
a manner
inconsistent with the normatively
sanc-
tioned
expectations of an aggrieved
population.
The
aggrieved population is deprived of
certain
felt needs
as a result.
2.
Information. Those who are unjustly
treat-
ed are
provided with rather complete
information
regarding
this disparity between expectations
and
actual
performances of the powerful. In
the
present
case, that information has been
provided
to Santa
Barbarans (and only to Santa
Barbarans)
by virtue of
their own observations of local
physical
conditions and by virtue of the
un-
"As a result
of local opposition. Union Oil
was
to
subsequently move iu operations from the
SanU
Barbara
wharf to a more distant port in
Ventura
County.
"Cf. Morton
Mintz, "Oil Spill 'Radicalizes'
a
Conservative
West Coast City," Washington
Post,
June 29,
1969, pp. C-1, 5.
OIL IN SANTA BARBARA
AND POWER IN AMERICA
143
relenting coverage
of the city's newspaper. Hard-
ly a day has gone by
since the initial spill that
the front page has
not carried an oil story;
everything the paper
can get its hands on is
printed. It carries
analyses; it makes the con-
nections. As an
appropriate result. Oil officials
have condemned the
paper as a "lousy" and "dis-
torted" publication
of "lies.""
3. Literacy and
Leisure. In order for the
information relevant
to the injustice to be assimi-
lated in all its
infuriating complexity, the aggriev-
ed parties must be,
in the larger sense of the
terms, literature
and leisured. They must have the
ability and the time
to read, to ponder and to
get
upset.
My perspective thus
differs from those who
would regard the
radical response as appropriate
to some form or
another of social or psycho-
logical freak.
Radicalism is not a subtle form
of mental illness
(cf. recent statements of such
as Bettelheim)
caused by "rapid technological
change," or
increasing "impersonality" in the
modern world;
radicals are neither "immature,"
"underdisciplined,"
nor "anti-intellectual." Quite
the reverse. They
are persons who most clearly
live under the
conditions specified above and who
make the most
rational (and moral) response,
given those
circumstances. Thus radical move-
ments draw their
membership disproportionately
from the most
leisured, intelligent and informed
of the white youth
(cf. Flacks, 1967), and from
the young blacks
whose situations are most anal-
ogous to these white
counterparts.
THE ACCIDENT
AS A RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
If the present
research effort has had as its
strategy anything
pretentious enough to be term-
\ ed a
"methodology," it is the methodology of
' what could be
called "accident research." I define
an "accident" as an
occasion in which miscalcula-
tion leads to the
breakdown of customary order.
It has as its
central characteristic the fact that an
event occurs which
is, to some large degree, un-
anticipated by those
whose actions caused it to
, occur. As an
event, an accident is thus crucially
j
dissimilar both from the pseudo-event and
the
creeping event. It
differs from the pseudo-event
in that it bespeaks
of an authentic and an un-
planned happening;
it differs from the creeping
event in its
suddenness, its sensation, in the fact
that it brings to
hght a series of preconditions,
actions and
consequences all at once. It is
"Union Oil's public
relations director stat^l: "In
all my long career,
I have never seen such distorted
coverage of a news
event as the Santa Barbara
News-Press
has foisted on its readers. It's a lousy
newspaper."
(SBNP, May 28, 1969, p. A-1.)
"news"—often
sensational news. Thresholds are
reached; attentions
are held.
The accident thus
tends to have consequences
which are the very
opposite of events which are
pseudo or creeping.
Instead of being a deliber-
ately planned
contribution to a purposely devel-
oped "social
structure" (or, in the jargon of the
relevant
sociological literature, "decisional
out-
come"), it has as
its consequence the revelation of
features of a social
system, or of individuals'
actions and
personalities, which are otherwise
deliberately
obfuscated by those with the resources
to create pseudo-
and creeping events. A result-
ant convenience is
that the media, at the point of
accident, may come
to function as able and
persistent research
assistants.
At the level of
everyday individual behavior,
the accident is an
important lay methodological
resource of
gossipers—especially for learning
about those
possessing the personality and physi-
cal resources to
shield their private lives from
public view. It is
thus that the recent Ted Ken-
nedy accident
functioned so well for the purpose
(perhaps useless) of
gaining access to that indi-
vidual's private
routines and private disfxisitions.
An accident such as
the recent unprovoked police
shooting of a deaf
mute on the streets of Les
Angeles provides
analogous insights into routine
police behavior
which official records could never
reveal. The massive
and unprecedented Santa
Barbara oil spill
has similarly led to important
revelations about
the structure of power. An
accident is thus an
important instrument for
learning about the
lives of the powerful and the
features of the
social system which they deliber-
ately and
quasi-deliberately create. It is
available
as a research focus
for those seeking a com-
prehensive
understanding of the structure of
power in
America.
FINALE
Bachrach and Baratz
(1962) have pointed to
the plight of the
pluralist students of community
power who lack any
criteria for the inevitable
selecting
of the "key piolitical decisions" which
serve as the basis
for their research conclusions.
I offer accident as
a criterion. An accident is not
a decision, but it
does provide a basis for insight
into whole series of
decisions and non-decisions,
events and
pseudo-events which, taken together,
might provide an
explanation of the structure
of power. Even
though the local community is
notorious for the
increasing triviality of the deci-
sions which occur
within it (cf. Schuize, 1961;
Vidich and Bensman,
1958; Mills, 1956), accident
research at the
local level might serve as "micro"-
analyses capable of
revealing the "second face
of power" (Bachrach
and Baratz), ordinarily
left
faceless by
traditional community studies which
fail to concern
themselves with the processes by
144
SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
which bias
is mobilized and thus how
"issues"
rise and
fall.
The present
effort has been the relatively
more
difficult
one of learning not about
community
power, but
about national jjower—and the
rela-
tionship
between national and local power.
The
"findings"
highlight the extraordinary
intransi-
gence of
national institutions in the face of
local
dissent, but
more impMjrtantly, point to the
pro-
cesses and
tactics which undermine that
dissent
and
frustrate and radicalize the
dissenters.
The
relationship described between Oil,
govern-
ment, and
the knowledge industry does not
con-
stitute a
unique pattern of jx)wer in
America.
All major
sectors of the industrial economy
lend
themselves
to the same kind of analysis as Oil
in
Santa
Barbara. Where such analyses have
been
carried out,
the results are analogous in
their
content and
analogous in the outrage which
they
cause. The
nation's defeat in Vietnam, in a
sense
an accident,
has led to analogous
revelations
about the
arms industry and the manner in
which
American
foreign policy is waged."
Comparable
scrutinies
of the agriculture industry, the
banking
industry,
etc., would, in my opinion, lead to
the
same
infuriating findings as the Vietnam
defeat
and the oil
spill.
The national
media dwell upon only a few
accidents at
a time. But across the country,
in
various
localities, accidents routinely
occur—
accidents
which can tell much not only
about
local power,
but about national power as
well.
Community
power studies typically have
resulted
in
revelations of the "pluralistic" squabbles
among
local
sub-elites which are stimulated by
exogen-
ous
interventions (cf. Walton, 1968).
Accident
research at
the local level might bring to
light
the larger
societal arrangements which
structure
the
parameters of such local debate.
Research
at the local
level could thus serve as an
avenue
"I have in
mind the exhaustively
documented
series of
articles by 1. F. Stone in the New
York
Review
of Books over the course of 1968 and
1969,
a series
made possible, in part, by the outrage
of
Senator
Fulbright and others at the mistake
of
Vietnam.
to knowledge
about national power.
Sociologists
should be
ready when an accident hits in
their
neighborhood,
and then go to work.
REFERENCES
Allen, Allan
A.
1969 "Santa
Barbara oil spill." Statement
presented
to the U.S.
Senate Interior Committee, Sub-
committee on
Minerals, Materials and Fuels,
May 20,
1969.
Arendt,
Hannah
1963
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on
the
Banality of
Evil. New York: The Viking
Press.
Bachrach,
Peter and Morton Baratz
1962 "TTie
two faces of power." American
Political
Science
Review 57 (December): 947-952.
Boorstin,
Daniel J.
1961 The
Image. New York: Atheneum
Press.
Engler,
Robert
1961 The
Politics of Oil. New York:
Macmillan.
Flacks,
Richard
1967 "The
liberated generation." Journal of
Social
Issues 22
(December): 521-543.
Gans,
Herbert
1962 The
Urban Villagers. New York: The
Free
Press of
Glencoe.
Mills, C.
Wright
1956 The
Power Elite. New York: Oxford
Uni-
versity
Press.
Schattschneider,
E. E.
1960 The
Semisovereign People. New York:
Holt,
Rinehart
& Winston.
Schuize,
Robert O.
1961 "The
bifurcation of power in a satellite
city."
Pp. 19-81 in
Morris Janowitz (ed.).
Community
Political
Systems. New York: The Free
Press
of
Glencoe.
Vidich,
Arthur and Joseph Bensman
1958 Sniall
Town in Mass Society.
Princeton:
Princeton
University Press.
Walton,
John
1968 "The
vertical axis of community
organization
and the
structure of power." Pp. 353-367
in
WilUs D.
Hawley and Frederick M. Wirt
(eds.).
The Search
.^or Community Power. Englewood
Cliflfs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
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