Oil Drilling Compromise Reached : Plan Calls for Shifting New Offshore Exploration North

California legislators and Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel on Tuesday unveiled an artful plan for oil production off California, shifting new exploration north--where public opposition is most muted--and sparing exploited southern waters the brunt of future activity.

But while the accord’s political handicraft left Hodel and the legislators beaming, neither the oil industry nor some Southern California environmentalists were as pleased with the south’s share of oil exploration.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles-based Western Oil and Gas Assn. expressed dismay that identified oil reserves in the Santa Monica Bay area would remain largely exempt from drilling, as they have since 1975.

But a regional official of the Sierra Club, Bob Hattoy, contended that the proposal gives the industry “a foot in the door” for future exploration in the bay and along other close-to-shore California waters.

The proposal, on which public comment will be sought for a month, would open for leasing more than 1,000 square miles of ocean floor off Northern and Central California, but only about 300 square miles off Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

Protected Until Year 2000

Another 57,000 square miles of sea floor, now barred from oil company exploration by a congressional moratorium, would remain protected until the year 2000, should the proposal survive statewide review and be enacted, as Hodel and the legislators hope.

Both sides in the monthlong negotiations that led to the accord praised it effusively Tuesday. California Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento) called the agreement “the epitome of statesmanship,” and Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), whose district would be shielded from offshore drilling, termed it “a dream come true.”

The accord denies the oil industry the right to exploit known and potentially large oil fields along parts of the southern coastline in exchange for the right to explore larger, less certain fields in the north.

Near Los Angeles, roughly 140 square miles would be freed for exploration south of Santa Monica Bay and another 100 square miles along the coast of Long Beach, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. Farther south, about 40 square miles would be opened offshore from Oceanside.

All of those tracts are areas of “heavy industry interest,” Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), a chief architect of the compromise, said Tuesday. The acreage had been put up for bids last year in an Interior Department lease sale, but the congressional moratorium on exploration blocked the sale of the tracts.

Minimal Impact Expected

Panetta said that most of the new southern tracts are either far offshore or near existing oil production areas and that the impact on coastal residents therefore should be small.

Hattoy agreed, but said: “We’re not happy with any of those near-shore tracts being leased. Their proximity to heavily used beaches and recreational boating--and the fact that the oil companies now have their foot in the door in these areas--is alarming.”

Panetta said the willingness of some northern towns to accept offshore oil drilling “attracted our attention” during negotiations. The City Council in one such town, Eureka, voted earlier to support offshore drilling in the area, and two-thirds of the lands released for exploration are near the town, in the Eel River Basin off extreme Northern California.

Rep. Douglas H. Bosco (D-Occidental), whose congressional district abuts the basin, said he hopes the activity will boost the region’s economy, now dominated by a stagnant logging industry.

While he expects unfavorable political fallout from the decision, “I can sleep at night,” Bosco said.

Tuesday’s compromise averted a crucial vote on continuing the drilling moratorium that had been scheduled by a House Appropriations subcommittee considering the Department of the Interior’s budget. The subcommittee voted instead to put off any vote on the drilling ban and to adopt the language of the compromise as part of the Interior budget legislation.