Panel OKs Sweeping Offshore Drilling Delay : Unprecedented Step in House Covers 84 Million Acres of Coastline, Including All of California’s

WASHINGTON —  A key House committee Thursday approved the most sweeping moratorium on offshore oil exploration ever enacted, putting 84 million acres of U.S. coastline--including the entire California coast--off limits from new drilling until October, 1990.

The action, which lifted the ban past its most formidable hurdle, marks a major victory for those who have urged new caution toward oil exploration in the aftermath of a series of major oil spills across the United States.

It would effectively give Congress new control over a number of controversial offshore drilling plans, short-circuiting an aggressive effort by the Bush Administration to forge a consensus on the issue and unshackle itself from congressional limits.

Bitter Response

In a bitter response, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. assailed Congress for “shooting at the wrong target” in failing to focus on the oil tankers held responsible for recent spills. To demonstrate the Administration’s outrage, he announced plans to allow oil companies to begin drilling in a new 28 million-acre, oil-rich swath of the Gulf of Mexico.

The new congressional moratorium, approved on a voice vote by the House Appropriations Committee as part of a larger package, would go far beyond an existing drilling ban for Northern and Southern California, which has been imposed each year since 1981.

The expanded ban would, for the first time, cover a proposed lease sale off Central California and include vast regions in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and off several mid-Atlantic states. Also included in the ban are areas off southern Florida and George’s Bank, off Massachusetts.

In an unprecedented step, the moratorium would also afford California the added protection of a ban even on pre-lease drilling activities, such as environmental studies--a step certain to cause delays in the Interior Department’s drilling timetable.

“This is a critical victory at a critical time,” said California Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), sponsor of the drilling moratorium.

Another Californian, Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), added, “We have effectively brought the entire sale process to a screeching halt.”

Others warned, however, that to put vast areas of the U.S. coastline off limits to offshore drilling represented a decision to cede control over U.S. energy to foreign oil producers.

“This says that the energy policy of the United States is to do nothing,” warned Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), the principal opponent of the measure.

Before becoming law, the moratorium must first be adopted by both the full House and Senate. But officials on both sides of the drilling debate said they expect the measure to be approved in light of the current climate of concern over oil exploration and its hazards.

Opposes Measure

While the Administration strongly opposes the measure, it is regarded as virtually veto-proof because it is included as an amendment to a vital supplemental spending measure that President Bush would be unlikely to block.

If enacted, the moratorium would severely limit the influence of a White House task force appointed by Bush to advise him on whether drilling should proceed in controversial areas off Northern and Southern California and Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The task force, which has been seeking to strike a balance between the concerns of environmentalists and the nation’s energy needs, has been instructed to make recommendations to Bush by the end of the year. Under the moratorium, however, the department would be unable to act until October, 1990, leaving Congress time to challenge any drilling plans that it still might find unacceptable.

“The task force has, for the most part, become irrelevant,” said Robert Hattoy, the Sierra Club’s Southern California regional director.

Interior Department spokesman Steve Goldstein said the panel will continue its work.

“It’s quite clear that Congress is trying to usurp the actions of the task force, and we just don’t believe that’s correct or proper,” he said.

Little Controversy

The new area put up for lease Thursday by the Interior Department lies off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. The proposed drilling there has generated little controversy.

The heated debate over the drilling moratorium was made more ferocious by sharp differences among legislators over the lessons that should be drawn from the series of recent oil spills, including the damage caused in Alaska’s Prince William Sound by 10 million gallons of crude oil that leaked from the tanker Exxon Valdez.

Environmentalists and anti-drilling forces have contended that the experience should make lawmakers more cautious about all forms of oil exploration. While drilling has resulted in few spills, they noted that much of the oil gathered offshore must be transported to land by tankers.

But the Administration, the oil industry and their supporters countered that new regulations ought to aim specifically at oil tankers.

“We understand that emotions are running high. . . ,” the American Petroleum Institute said in a statement. “(But) the rash of tanker accidents does not reflect on offshore drilling safety and does not change the fact that domestic production of oil continues to fall while imports continue to grow.”

The dispute was focused most directly on the effort to include Alaska’s Bristol Bay in the new moratorium. The oil industry already has paid $95 million for drilling rights in the region, but Alaskan officials demanded the protection in the amendment out of concern that another spill could devastate the state’s economy.

Noting that years of environmental studies had deemed Bristol Bay safe for drilling, Regula warned, “If we can’t drill here, we can’t do it anywhere.”

But the committee, on a 29-22 vote, rebuffed his proposal to strip the region from the package.

The special protection for the California coastline came under a provision preventing the Interior Department from conducting pre-leasing activity along the entire coast until October, 1990.

The provision survived an attack by Rep. Lindy Boggs (D-La.), who noted that the Interior Department needs up to 26 months to complete all of the steps necessary to lease an offshore oil tract. The pre-lease ban thus could extend the moratorium on drilling for up to two years, Boggs argued.

But a powerful coalition of Californians and others who voiced concern about the recent oil spills defeated the Boggs amendment by a decisive 28-22 margin.

“This is the most far-reaching vote (on oil drilling) that we’ve ever had,” Levine said. “The margin of victory is much better than we’ve previously had.”

Because Lease Sale 95 off Southern California and Lease Sale 91 off Northern California have already been subjected to most pre-lease steps, the additional postponement would most likely affect Lease Sale 119, a massive portion of the Outer Continental Shelf off Central California.

The Interior Department currently plans to begin oil exploration there in 1991. If the pre-lease moratorium is imposed through 1990, however, the auction of drilling rights for the Central California tract would almost certainly be stalled until 1992.

That delay “is very welcome news to Southern Californians,” Levine said.

“It says to the oil industries . . . that they would be much better off dropping this fight,” he said.

Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), a fervent anti-drilling advocate whose district includes sensitive shoreline along Point Reyes and San Francisco, said she is “extremely pleased” with the committee vote on the new moratorium.

Recent oil spills have evoked “a real sentiment that we have to be extraordinarily careful in the whole offshore oil drilling process,” Boxer said. Now, she said, Congress “may well be ready” for legislation that would put areas permanently off limits to offshore drilling.