Many of the 27 oil platforms drilling into the underwater shelf off the coast from Santa Barbara to Huntington Beach are decades old and, in the eyes of the oil industry and others, ready to be shut down.
Some cost big money to operate at a time of sagging oil prices. Others need expensive technical upgrades. And all are political targets, widely viewed in a liberal state as bigger environmental risks than the potential reward of pulling yet more carbon-generating oil from the Earth.