Final Talks, Hearing Due on Offshore Drilling Plan

The future of a controversial compromise plan to open 1,350 square miles off Orange, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Humboldt counties to oil exploration will be decided in final negotiations between Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and California congressmen in September, according to Hodel’s staff and congressional aides.

Meanwhile, officials of Orange County coastal cities have formed a coalition to fight the opening of 54 square miles off their shores to drilling. They plan to ask Hodel to visit Orange County beach areas Aug. 31, when he is to be in Newport Beach to hear residents’ comments on the federal plan.

“We feel he has to see our coast so that he doesn’t think this (Orange County) is just an enclave of millionaires that want to preserve their special environment,” Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry said.

Plan Expected to Stand

Protests from coastal residents notwithstanding, it appeared unlikely that six tracts proposed for leasing off Orange County would be stricken from the tentative compromise unveiled in Washington two weeks ago.

Several congressmen said last week there is little chance that the agreement with Hodel will be changed substantially during September’s negotiating sessions, because there is little support in Congress for extending the current moratorium on oil drilling off California.

Hodel himself last week warned coastal congressmen opposed to offshore drilling that they would be lucky to keep whatever concessions they already have won. Hodel said he may push for more drilling in the final agreement, not less.

Moreover, Orange County’s all-Republican congressional delegation remained fractured on the issue and appeared to lack the necessary political clout to ensure less oil exploration and drilling off the county’s shores, according to participants in the negotiations conducted thus far.

The disputed federal plan was announced July 16 by Hodel and a handful of members of California’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) and Bill Lowery (R-San Diego).

Praised by its authors as “the epitome of statesmanship,” the tentative compromise would shift most coastal oil and gas exploration northward. The plan would spare 97.7% of the California coastal waters now protected by a 4-year-old moratorium that expires Oct. 1.

September Talks Set

Panetta, a chief architect of the agreement, said members of the California congressional delegation will negotiate a final agreement with Hodel to be included in the fiscal 1986 catch-all spending bill due to be passed by Oct. 1.

If final agreement on offshore drilling is not reached in Washington by late September, Hodel told congressional leaders in a letter last week, California congressmen opposed to offshore drilling “will be free” to pursue a one-year extension of the moratorium on federal leases for offshore oil exploration.

Defeat of a such a move to extend the moratorium, would, in effect, allow the Interior Department to offer offshore oil leases virtually anywhere, but not without the strong likelihood of legal challenges from environmental groups, and perhaps even from the California Legislature.

Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach), who has strongly opposed drilling off Orange County, has charged that his coastal district was sacrificed for political reasons in order to protect districts from Santa Barbara northward, represented mostly by Democrats whose votes Hodel needs to resolve the long-simmering offshore drilling controversy.

Congressmen involved in the negotiations acknowledged, in interviews last week, that Badham’s analysis of what happened was substantially correct, but they said other factors also were involved--including Badham’s own lack of participation and influence, and the split within the Orange County delegation.

(Badham and Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), whose district extends north to Dana Point, both oppose offshore drilling. But Reps. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) favor more drilling than the 2-week-old compromise would allow.)

What’s more, participants in the negotiations with Hodel said that a majority of the state’s GOP congressmen favor more drilling, not less, and they protested strongly to Hodel that he had made a secret deal behind their backs with liberal Northern California Democrats.

Choice of Tracts Criticized

They also contended that many of the tracts that Hodel included in the proposal were not those most likely to produce oil or gas, and were not even on the oil industry’s priorities list, despite Panetta’s previous claim that all tracts were in areas of “heavy industry interest.”

There was also some question of whether opposition would emerge at the state government level in a review of the proposed lease tracts.

In San Francisco on Saturday, the executive board of the California Democratic Party unanimously passed a resolution opposing the plan to expand offshore oil drilling, according to Chris Townsend, a member of the state and Orange County Democratic central committees and a member of the coalition of coastal residents against offshore drilling.

Townsend said the resolution, which was particularly critical of the Orange County tracts and cited a lack of local input in the planning, will be sent to members of the state congressional delegation.

Gov. George Deukmejian’s staff complained that they knew nothing about the compromise until they read newspaper accounts. So far the governor has declined to support or oppose the plan.

In the past, Deukmejian has favored a tract-by-tract analysis of benefits and risks, rather than wholesale exclusions or inclusions of various coastal areas.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) said last week that she would attempt to meet with Deukmejian Administration officials to see what could be done to minimize the threat of oil drilling off Orange County. But neither would she oppose all drilling off the county’s coastline.

Badham’s Reason for Absence

Meanwhile, Badham said last week that he had been too busy working on defense matters before the House Armed Services Committee to keep city officials in his district informed of the offshore drilling developments in Washington, angering officials from cities in his district.

There was intense speculation in political circles that the incident had cost Badham some reelection support, but few Republicans were willing to talk publicly about it. On the Democratic side, Superior Court Judge David O. Carter said he was considering running against either Badham or Dornan. But Carter said that he is far from making up his mind, and it is unclear what the long-term political fallout from the oil-leasing controversy will be, if any.

Despite the apparent obstacles, local officials were preparing to do battle against the tentative agreement, citing environmental and aesthetic concerns.

In a closed-door meeting Wednesday night, representatives of four coastal cities put together a five-point campaign to retain the moratorium on offshore oil exploration through the year 2000.

The yet-unnamed coalition of Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and San Clemente was planning to take Hodel on a helicopter tour of the beaches when he arrives for an Aug. 31 public meeting, arranged by Badham, on the compromise.

Although Hodel was expected to be on a tight schedule for his whirlwind tour of California on the issue, Gentry said they hoped to clear arrangements in advance with the secretary’s office.

Cities’ Battle Plan

Over the next two weeks, Gentry said, each of the cities will seek from neighboring inland cities support for a moratorium on any new drilling off Orange County. They will argue that residents of inland area also use the beaches.

(A separate effort was being made to enlist the support of local leaders of coastal cities and counties previously opposed to offshore drilling, including Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Santa Cruz County Supervisor Gary Patton, among others, Gentry said.)

The city managers of San Clemente, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach were assigned to develop a budget for the coalition and a colorful brochure about Orange County’s coastline, giving reasons why the moratorium should be extended. Also, the group planned to assemble a fact sheet on the potential environmental effects of offshore drilling, for use by community leaders and constituents.

“We want people to be able to articulate what happens when you drill for oil,” Gentry said.

Last but not least, the coalition members planned to lobby Orange County congressmen, particularly such coastal district representatives as Lungren, Badham and Packard.

“We want to make sure they know of our coalition and our plans to fight this,” Gentry said.

Attending the coalition’s first meeting were Supervisor Harriett Wieder, who last week won board approval of a resolution opposing further oil and gas exploration off Orange County, and representatives of the Irvine Co. and the Stein-Brief Group, real estate development companies with substantial coastal properties.

“This is more than just a Laguna Beach or a Newport Beach issue--it’s an Orange County issue,” Gentry said. “I’m convinced this is going to be a strong, broad-based coalition that will have a real impact on preserving the coast of Orange County.”