Dannemeyer: Offshore Oil Compromise Is ‘Abomination’

Arguing that energy dependence is the second most critical issue behind the budget deficit, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) on Monday denounced an offshore oil-lease compromise as “an abomination.”

Dannemeyer, at a packed meeting of the Laguna Niguel Community Council, said a tentative compromise to open about 2% of California’s outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration should be scrapped in favor of opening the entire coastline.

“We think the secretary of the Interior should offer all of the leases for sale,” the four-term representative said, prompting a wave of loud moans of disapproval from the crowd of more than 170 residents.

Though generally polite, the audience was more receptive to Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry, who said Orange County cannot afford any new industry that could harm its vast tourist economy.

‘Opposed to Near-Shore Drilling’

“We are not opposed to offshore drilling,” Gentry said. “We are opposed to near-shore drilling.” He later defined that as anything between the coast and Santa Catalina Island, clearly ruling out 54 square miles of ocean floor six to 12 miles from the Orange County coast now proposed for leasing.

Monday’s council meeting was intended to hear testimony on all sides of the controversy. The 15-member group, while not an official governmental body, is an advisory group on land-use and planning in Laguna Niguel.

The council said it would take a position on the offshore oil drilling controversy in two weeks.

Dannemeyer is one of a group of GOP congressmen who last week called on President Reagan to drop the tentative agreement reached by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and members of the state’s congressional delegation because too few tracts were removed from a moratorium on coastal drilling.

Although Dannemeyer has long supported more drilling, the appearance Monday night was his first foray to carry this message in coastal territory in recent times.

He told the audience that the nation’s need to import one-third of its daily oil supply costs the country a million jobs annually.

Willing to Risk Accidental Spills

While he conceded that oil platforms wouldn’t “win any beauty contests,” he said they did promote increased fish populations.

Dannemeyer added that he would rather risk accidental spills than explain to parents why their son must fight a war someday in the Middle East to safeguard world oil supplies.

One heckler asked Dannemeyer about personal investments in the oil industry. He denied ever having such investments, but he has received $10,600 in political contributions from the oil industry between July, 1984, and last June.

Other speakers included an aide to Rep. Robert Badham (R-Newport Beach), who opposed the compromise agreement to allow drilling off his own district and refused to participate in discussions with Hodel and the California delegation.

In an interview the day the compromise was announced, Badham said he thought the only recourse local groups would have to stop oil leasing would be in court.

California communities, including the beach communities of San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, have formed a coalition to fight new exploration and drilling off their coast.

The department’s proposal would lift a 4-year-old moratorium on oil and gas exploration for 1,350 square miles of ocean floor, two-thirds of it in the Eel River Basin off Humboldt Bay in extreme Northern California.

The remaining areas proposed for lease include 126 square miles off Santa Maria; 198 square miles of the outer Santa Monica Bay; 36 square miles off Long Beach; 54 square miles off Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach; and 45 square miles off Oceanside.

Tentative Agreement

The tentative agreement, unveiled July 16 by Hodel, Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), and Reps. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) and Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), protects Big Sur, the San Francisco coast and peninsula, the Farallon Islands, the Mendocino coast, Point Reyes, the Bodega Basin and military areas, including those off southern San Diego County.

As written into the Interior Department’s 1986 appropriations bill, the plan also would allow an exploratory well to be drilled no closer than 18 miles offshore in each of three areas--Point Arena, Bodega Bay and Santa Cruz--to study geological formations.

Hodel has said that lifting the moratorium on the 150 tracts does not mean all will be leased. But if they are, environmental studies and other reviews will delay development until at least 1990.

Hodel and the California congressional delegation will negotiate a final agreement to be included in Congress’s fiscal 1986 catch-all spending bill due for passage by Oct. 1, the day the moratorium expires.

The agreement does not affect Massachusetts, the only other state covered by such a moratorium. The House appropriations panel extended the ban protecting four areas off Cape Cod, the Georges Bank and Great South Channel, to protect rich fishing grounds and lobster beds within 50 miles of the coast.

In other action Monday, the City of Newport Beach announced it would hold a public forum on offshore oil drilling at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the City Council chambers. The council also was expected to appropriate $5,000 to help pay for a special consultant to organize the beach cities’ campaign against the proposed offshore lease compromise.

Each of the four cities and Orange County have been asked to contribute $5,000 toward the campaign.

Organizers in Laguna Beach who have formed a group called Save Our Shores (SOS) estimated Monday that they have collected more than 15,000 signatures on petitions opposing oil exploration off Orange County’s coast.