How Political Activists See Offshore Oil Development: An In-depth Investigation of Attitudes on Energy Development

The report’s authors prepared this summary. 

BACKGROUND: Although oil companies first introduced offshore oil drilling in California, many Californians have never been fond of it. Especially since the environmental movement began in the 1960s, opponents of offshore oil development have made their voices heard through protests, letter writing campaigns, and public hearings. In recent years, pressure from anti-oil development activists clearly influenced state and federal decisions to limit offshore oil development with moratoriums on new leases.

OBJECTIVES: This research is designed to explain the beliefs and opinions of a range of local political leaders and activists in Santa Barbara County, California regarding offshore oil development. It is also intended to explore the role of political leaders in a case of what some might label a NIMBY ("Not in My Backyard") response to a proposed local development.

DESCRIPTION: This study describes and analyzes a series of focus group interviews with local leaders in Santa Barbara County, California. The interviews were conducted with four different types of groups: (1) Democratic political activists; (2) Republican political activists; (3) pro-environmental political activists; and (4) pro-development political activists. They were recruited from the local Democratic and Republican party central committees, from local campaigns, and from environmental, business, and oil-industry groups in the area. These interviews were designed to provide an in-depth examination of elite opinion that opinion survey methods could not offer. The results of these interviews provide a guide to the politics of offshore oil development along the California coast as well as NIMBY behavior in general.

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: NIMBY responses to proposed development projects are generally described as extreme opposition to local projects characterized by: (1) limited information about project siting, risks, and benefits; (2) parochial and localized attitudes toward the problem, which exclude broader implications; (3) high concern about project risks; (4) distrust of project sponsors; and (5) highly emotional responses to the conflict. Our findings offered only mixed support for this description.

First, we found no evidence that NIMBY responses were characterized by low information or emotional responses. Second, we found that project opponents focused on local impacts of the proposed developments, but so did project supporters. Opponents took more localized views than supporters, but the differences were small. Third, we found that project opponents distrusted project supporters, but the opposite was also true. Neither side trusts the other. The conventional NIMBY focus on distrust among project opponents misses half the story. Fourth, we found that project opponents perceive huge risks in offshore oil development, while supporters perceive little risk. This last point—risk perceptions—seems to be the real key to NIMBY responses.

STUDY RESULTS: The study did not find that the activists had limited information. We must qualify this finding about knowledge because we used no formal test of knowledge about offshore oil development; nevertheless, the transcripts clearly show a fairly high level of general knowledge about the subject among the anti-oil activists. We find nothing that suggests the existence of any special relationship between NIMBY responses to local projects and knowledge.

We found that the opponents of oil development emphasized local aspects of the problem and that they did so more than the supporters of offshore oil development, although the difference was not large. Moreover, the opponents of oil development did not focus exclusively on local issues; they also brought up broader implications. On this point, the conventional description of NIMBY responses seems exaggerated, but not wrong. However, any characterization of the supporters as being people who take the broad view, while critics focus narrowly on local issues would be false.

The third point in the conventional description, that project opponents are characterized by high concerns over risks, is strongly supported by our investigation. On this point, the supporters and opponents of offshore oil development differed sharply. The supporters saw low risks and believed that the risks could be mitigated by technology; the opponents saw substantial risks and did not rely technology to save them.

Our evidence also strongly supports the fourth point, that project opponents distrust project sponsors. But here the conventional description tells only half the story. The supporters of offshore oil development strongly distrust anyone who they believe does not agree with them on the issue. In short, neither side trusts the other.

Finally, we found no evidence to suggest that the critics of offshore oil development were especially emotional in their thinking. They may have been driven to activism because of emotional reasons, but their arguments were not stated in emotional terms. In addition, the supporters and opponents of offshore oil development seemed similar to one another.

In sum, the conventional description of the NIMBY syndrome has not fared well in our study. It has two sorts of weaknesses. First, our evidence does not support it on all points. Second, by looking only at opponents of local projects and ignoring supporters, the conventional description tells only half the story. Once the supporters are brought into the picture, we see that supporters and opponents are similar. This similarity suggests that in order to understand some aspects of what has been described as the NIMBY syndrome, one ought to look at the dynamics of local political disputes.

The only part of the conventional description of the NIMBY syndrome that our evidence confirms as distinguishing supporters from opponents is perceptions of risk. Supporters and opponents of offshore oil development held widely differing views on how much risk offshore oil development entailed and whether the risks could be technologically managed. In fact, the label NIMBY may tell us little other than that a local political dispute exists and that the key element of the dispute is about the risks associated with the proposal.

STUDY PRODUCTS:

Smith, E.R.A.N., and M. Marquez, "The Other Side of the NIMBY Syndrome." (Paper under review).

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