Bill to Limit Drilling off Coast to Be Offered Today

Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) announced Wednesday that Orange County’s coastline would be spared further offshore oil exploration under terms of legislation to be introduced in the House of Representatives today.

Rep. Mel Levine (D-Los Angeles) confirmed Wednesday that sites off Newport Beach would be replaced by unspecified sites out of Orange County waters and that sites off Oceanside would be replaced with sites further north in the bill by Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley).

“This is the first official recognition of Orange County’s problem (with proposed offshore drilling),” Badham aide William Schreiber said in making the announcement Wednesday from the congressman’s Newport Beach district office.

Agreement Broke Down

An agreement between California’s congressional delegation and Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel was struck in mid-July as a means of ending a 4-year-old moratorium on drilling off most of the state’s coast.

But Hodel last week repudiated the tentative accord, saying that less than 10% of the proposed 150 tracts to be opened were likely to yield oil. Angry Californians like Panetta, Levine and Sens. Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson threatened to renew the moratorium and impose terms of the rejected agreement on the Department of the Interior by legislation.

However, the bill--to be co-sponsored by 25 Democrats and four Republicans from California-- faces an uphill battle in Congress, particularly in the Senate. Some congressional sources view the bill’s introduction more as an attempt to put pressure on Hodel than as a serious effort to pass a piece of legislation.

“This is a bogus bill to enact a dead agreement--nothing more than that; it will go nowhere, it has no future,” a congressional source said on the condition that he not be identified. “Its only merit is as a bargaining tool to force Hodel to get serious in negotiating.”

As such, eliminating Orange County tracts amounts to “throwing a meaningless bone” to Badham, who had been taking considerable heat from his constituents for walking out on original negotiations between Hodel and members of the congressional delegation, the source said.

No Support by Packard

Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), a backer of the original agreement, will not support Panetta’s bill, even though it would appease angry Oceanside constituents by moving five offshore tracts to an unpopulated area off Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego county, a Packard aide said Wednesday.

“Congressman Packard knows that his constituents in San Clemente and Oceanside would not accept being scapegoated as the only area with tracts south of Los Angeles,” spokesman Gary Maloney said in Washington.

“While he has long supported Leon Panetta’s fine efforts to protect our coastline, Mr. Packard cannot take this step and must instead support a moratorium on all California drilling at present.”

Panetta’s staff declined to confirm Badham’s announcement. However, Panetta, Cranston and Wilson had indicated last week that they would seek to protect the coastline as part of “minor adjustments” that would be made to enact the original agreement.

150 Tracts

The original compromise would have opened 150 nine-square-mile tracts of ocean floor, most off extreme Northern California, while protecting another 6,310 tracts from oil exploration for the next 15 years. The oil industry strongly opposed the proposal.

Levine said Panetta’s bill would include the same 150 tracts with only two exceptions: the Orange County and Oceanside sites.

“From the beginning, I think there was always an anticipation that there would be some modification of those areas,” Levine said.

When the proposal was announced amid much fanfare last July 16, six tracts were proposed off Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, ranging from 3 1/2 miles to as much as eight miles offshore. Currently, there are four oil platforms in federal waters and three oil drilling operations in state waters off Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.

Five County Tracts

But Schreiber said Wednesday that there actually were only five tracts off Orange County.

Levine said he could not give precise descriptions of the new locations, but he said the Orange County tracts would be shared among several legislators with tracts proposed off their coastal districts. He declined to name them.

However, sources indicated that Panetta would take three of the tracts, increasing to 17 his total off the coast of Santa Maria; Levine would take one tract in the outer Santa Monica Bay, and Rep. Doug Bosco (D-Occidental) would take one tract off Eureka.