Cowboys on horseback, century-old cars and floats adorned with oil bombs: every five years, the city of Taft, epicenter of the black gold rush in California, parades to return to its glory days, during the “Oildorado” festival. But for this edition, nine months after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the party savors revenge in this city in decline.
The American president promises to drill in the United States at all costs. Enough to promise its 7,000 inhabitants a renaissance of the oil industry, contrary to the climate objectives of California, which plans to abandon drilling in 2045. “I am 100% satisfied with President Trump,” Buddy Binkley told AFP.
At 64 years old, this former Chevron employee wears a red cap that says “Make Oil Great Again” – “return oil to greatness” – playing on the Republican billionaire’s rhetoric. A motto reproduced on many parade floats. “California’s oil industry is suffering for political reasons,” said Buddy Binkley. With Donald Trump in power, the retiree “thinks it could go back to the way it was before.”
Decrease in production in favor of Texas
Located about 125 miles north of Los Angeles, Taft was founded in 1910 on one of the largest oil fields in the United States. Even today, this black gold capital is still surrounded by thousands of oil pumps in Kern County, a rural region that supplies 70% of the oil produced in California. Flyn over by a wooden derrick that inspired the one in the movie. there will be bloodThe city funds schools, firefighters and police thanks to hydrocarbon tax revenues.
Its party, reminiscent of the Wild West, attracts thousands of people: the “miss oil” is chosen, while the best welders, crane and backhoe drivers compete. But behind this proud facade, the city is depressed. Oil production has been declining since the 1980s in California and the Democratic-led energy transition is accelerating anxiety. In recent years, many residents have seen their neighbors move to Texas, where drilling is more open.
That’s why Donald Trump revels here, pulling the United States out of the Paris accord, removing obstacles to drilling on federal lands, and offering billions of dollars in tax breaks to the oil industry. “I have high hopes,” smiles Taft Mayor Dave Noerr.
Funding for wind, solar and climate science is being cut, and the Trump administration is seeking to strip the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. “We need to challenge the dominant narrative and update these things with existing science,” says Dave Noerr, denying “climate change,” a phrase he uses only in quotes.
“We are a bit stuck in the past”
California, where 31 people died in Los Angeles at the beginning of the year, during fires spread by gusts of 160 km/h worthy of a hurricane, risks being among the first victims of this climate revisionism. “If everyone behaved like the United States, the world would be on track for 4°C warming by 2100,” says Paasha Mahdavi, a political scientist specializing in environmental policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Perspectives that concern Taylor Pritchett. At 31 years old, this dog groomer is alarmed by the significant air pollution in the region. “If I had a child, I wouldn’t want to raise him in Kern County (…) I would like to move to a cleaner place,” he explains. “We need to move away from fossil fuels,” he believes. But at Taft, “we’re a little stuck in the past, very resistant to change.”
Source: BFM TV
