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Crude Politics explores California as a petroleum landscape, one whose
contours were determined by the great struggles over access to oil
resources in the Los Angeles Basin and statewide battles over taxes and
highway construction. Paul Sabin argues that political fights in
Sacramento and Washington, DC, as much as the inherent cheapness of oil
or convenience of cars, controlled California's oil economy — and in
proving that point, Sabin provides a powerful corrective to the perennial
claim that market economics determine the nation's transportation and
energy mix.
Crude Politics also shows the extent to which political conflicts that took place
before World War II set the rules for today's oil market — and so are
crucial to understanding current national debates over public investment in clean energy and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The book also provides a framework for understanding knotty contemporary problems, like electricity blackouts and car taxes, that have dominated California politics in recent years and helped bring about the recall of Governor Gray Davis and election of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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