As most of you know by now, a key component of the current budget deal worked out by the Governor and legislative leaders is a proposal to give a Texas oil company permission to sink new wells off the Santa Barbara coast. This comes almost exactly 40 years after a spill that devastated the area, blackening coastal habitat and killing thousands of birds. As expected environmentalists and others are blasting the plan. Audubon California has long opposed any effort to renew offshore drilling in California, and is among the many that feel that oil drilling is a risk that is not worth taking. Our coastlines are simply too valuable to put on the line for a political deal.