Renewed Ban on Offshore Drilling Appears Uncertain

Weeks before a critical House vote, the prospects for renewing a ban on oil drilling off much of California’s coast have been lessened by an oil industry lobbying campaign and bleak new estimates of U.S. petroleum reserves, several key supporters of the ban said Wednesday.

These supporters, including California Coastal Commission Director Michael Fischer, said it is increasingly uncertain whether a House appropriations subcommittee will renew some or all of the ban in a vote set for early next month. The subcommittee, headed by Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), has voted since 1981 to bar oil drilling off much of Massachusetts and 37.2 million acres of California coastline.

Five-Year Plan

Failure to renew the moratorium would open much of California’s waters to exploration under a five-year plan offered by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel this spring. The existing moratorium, which expires Oct. 1, covers most of Northern and Central California and parts of Southern California. Experts say that the 1.9 million acres barred from exploration in Southern California are most eagerly sought by the industry, with areas near Santa Monica Bay and San Diego topping the list.

Aides to two architects of the drilling ban, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), said they are optimistic that the subcommittee will narrowly side with them. Panetta and two other California House members, Reps. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) and Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), are scheduled to meet next week with Hodel to discuss the offshore ban.

“They (the subcommittee) are going to pass the moratorium unless there’s some drastic change,” a Panetta spokesman predicted Wednesday. “We’re optimistic right now.”

Intense Lobbying

But other observers said that an intense lobbying effort by the Western Oil and Gas Assn., including the retaining of a Los Angeles public relations firm for a reported $400,000, may have eroded some political backing for the moratorium in Washington.

Support was further dampened when the Interior Department this month released new figures on U.S. offshore oil reserves, predicting that the once-promising Alaskan and Atlantic coasts would yield only a fraction of the oil and gas once predicted by experts.

“The energy industry is coming to get the California coast,” Fischer said. “Interior sharply decreased their estimates for the Atlantic and Alaska and they’ve leased most of the Gulf of Mexico. That leaves California.”

“The industry has really been working at it this year,” Ben Haddad, an aide to Lowery, conceded Wednesday. “It’s going to be close.”

Bob Getts, a spokesman for the oil and gas association, said in Los Angeles that the group has no clear idea of how the appropriations subcommittee will vote but that “a number of groups around the country” have been writing House members and urging a repeal of the California ban.

Minority Support Sought

The oil and gas association hired the public relations firm of Mixner/Scott to “open up a dialogue” with potential supporters, Getts said. Observers say the firm worked primarily to develop support for drilling among the state’s minority businessmen.

The association paid expenses for several Latino and black witnesses who testified in support of drilling this spring before the appropriations subcommittee. And one black California House member, Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Los Angeles), last month urged Yates to oppose extension of the offshore ban.

The full Appropriations Committee last year upheld the California ban by one vote. This year, a key committee supporter, Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), is wavering.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen on California. Right now, Norm just wants to be undecided,” an aide to Dicks said. “I don’t know how the committee is going to go.”