Will Malibu tribe of Hollywood elite blunt LNG?


A new California "tribe" has arisen, one that may save millions of this state's consumers from the depredations of large corporations seeking to take billions of their dollars via imported liquefied natural gas.
The last time big companies made a similar LNG attempt, Californians were saved by an Indian tribe. That happened in the early 1980s, when a partnership of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the parent company of the Southern California Gas Co. tried to build a huge terminal at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County.


This effort boasted huge amounts of political muscle: ex-Gov. Pat Brown was the partnership's lead spokesman at a time when his son, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, would have final say over approval of the project. The state Air Resources Board, chaired by the younger Brown's former campaign manager, gave the project quick approval. LNG's chief Sacramento lobbyist was lawyer Mickey Kantor, Jerry Brown's 1978 campaign chairman and later a federal secretary of commerce.
But the Chumash Indian tribe sued to stop the project, claiming Point Conception is sacred ground for them, terrain their souls must traverse en route to heaven. Their lawsuit delayed the project long enough for a worldwide glut of natural gas to occur, making the entire plan moot.
Now comes a new type of tribe, call it the Malibu rancheria of the Hollywood band. If consumers are lucky, this gaggle of Hollywood celebrities will have even more juice with current Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, their old acting buddy, than the big companies seeking to bring in LNG.
LNG is natural gas converted to subfreezing liquid near the wells where it is found in places like Australia, Russia, Indonesia and the Persian Gulf. In its inert liquid form, it is carried by megatankers to places where it would be used, then warmed back to a gaseous state and pumped into pipeline systems.
A total of five regasification plants are now proposed along the Pacific coast, with one planned for construction 14 miles offshore of the Ventura and Los Angeles counties' border the furthest along in the permitting process. That facility is proposed by the Australian energy giant, BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company and one of the largest energy producers.
Another plant wanting to send regasified LNG to California is already under construction near Ensenada in Baja California. That one is owned by Sempra Energy (formerly Pacific Lighting Corp.), the renamed parent company of both the San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas.
In 2004, Billiton took about a dozen top Schwarzenegger administration officials on an all-expense-paid junket to its gas fields off the north coast of Australia.
After that, Schwarznegger indicated he's favorably inclined toward the Billiton plan, which — like the Sempra plant — would assure that Californians pay high prices for natural gas in perpetuity. The high cost of building both the sending and receiving facilities for LNG, plus the price of the required supertanker fleet, guarantees this.
But now arises the new "tribe," all Malibu residents and property owners. Members include the likes of Barbra Streisand, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, Ed Harris, Woody Harrelson, Olivia Newton John, Jane Seymour, Craig T. Nelson, Charlize Theron and Dick Van Dyke, to name only a few.
Malibu may be as sacred to them as Point Conception is to the Chumash, and Billiton's plant might mar the views they've paid millions of dollars to enjoy. So they've signed letters of protest, and even turned out for anti-LNG rallies.
Schwarzenegger must sign off on the project next year for it to go forward. But he could change his mind, and if he does, it would actually be similar to a move made by the freeway-loving Ronald Reagan soon after he became governor in 1966.
Back then, a "Beverly Hills Freeway" was prominent in the state's transportation master plan. But Reagan was lobbied by old Hollywood pals whose homes in ritzy Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Bel-Air and Beverly Hills would have been razed as that freeway coursed near the path of Sunset Boulevard from the Hollywood district of Los Angeles to the sea. Reagan never said much about it; he didn't have to. The freeway quietly disappeared from the master plan, leaving motorists en route from the west to Hollywood to straggle along surface streets to this day.
There was no doubt such a freeway was needed to ease traffic. It still is. There is plenty of doubt about the need for LNG, as natural-gas supplies are at or near record highs while prices are near four-year lows.
This is a case where Schwarzenegger could do a huge favor for every gas customer in California at the same time as he pleases bunches of big Hollywood names.
Only the big corporations trying to foist LNG on California would suffer. Most are large contributors to Schwarzenegger's various political funds and the ball will soon be squarely in his court.
— Thomas D. Elias, of Santa Monica, is a columnist and author. His e-mail address is tdelias@aol.com.