A Sneer for California

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel’s tirade against California has reached a new level of silliness during his campaign in behalf of his latest five-year offshore oil leasing program.

Appearing before a congressional committee, Hodel said that the major unresolved complaint by Californians about offshore oil operations is based not on environmental concerns but on concern that the giant platforms will spoil their view. “I’d have to say the one issue we can’t resolve is the visual issue,” he said.

The secretary seems to have a limited definition of the word environment . Would an office tower in Yosemite Valley not be an environmental problem because all it did was block the view of Half Dome or Yosemite Falls? How about a geothermal steam plant alongside Old Faithful in Yellowstone? Or giant golden arches in the Grand Canyon?

The fact is that Californians still have many legitimate concerns about Hodel’s new five-year plan for leasing the California coast, including the issue of visual pollution. The secretary’s tactic is to ridicule and isolate Californians as selfish people who live in million-dollar homes on the coast and burn up other peoples’ gasoline with abandon in their BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedeses.

Hodel’s condescending approach to California is the bad news. The good news is that no leasing can occur before 1989, when there will be a new President and a new secretary of the Interior.