Governor Falls Into a Trap

The four-year moratorium on offshore drilling along critical areas of the California coast is history, barring an extraordinary and unexpected turn of events in the U.S. Senate. Thus the integrity of the coast now rests on the good faith of government officials and the oil companies. That is not a reassuring thought.

The turning point came on Nov. 21, when the House Appropriations Committee rejected by one vote, 27 to 26, an extension of the moratorium for one more year. Now opponents of drilling have resorted to their last fallback position. It is language in the House’s catch-all spending measure that would require the secretary of the Interior to negotiate proposed offshore oil leasing tracts with a committee of congressmen from California and other states. Secretary Donald P. Hodel tried that once with the California House delegation, but later pulled out of the preliminary agreement after the oil industry claimed that it was being sold out.

The new proposal would require the secretary to negotiate, but would not require him to agree to anything.

Many pressures have been at work here, including arguments by some non-California members of Congress that if places like Texas and Louisiana can live with offshore oil, California can, too. They are supported, of course, by the oil companies that run appealing television commercials telling the world how beneficial offshore rigs are to fisheries and the environment. The idea behind all this is to convey the image that it is somehow un-American for California residents to be concerned about an incomparable natural resource that is, after all, a national resource.

Unfortunately, Gov. George Deukmejian fell into that trap. And he couldn’t have done it at a worse time. Just two days before the crucial House committee vote, the governor told an oil industry meeting that he was sticking by his opposition to a “blanket moratorium” against leasing California coastal waters for oil and gas exploration and drilling. (The moratorium in Southern California covers extensive waters, but does not blanket the entire coast.) At the same time, Deukmejian said that he would not compromise the necessity of a safe environment. But he has done that consistently throughout his first term by undercutting the authority of the state Coastal Commission and its ability to enforce state coastal-protection legislation. A major mandate of the commission, written into law by the voters of California in 1972, is to guard the coast against the environmental hazards of development such as offshore oil exploration and production.

You wouldn’t think that the governor could make matters worse, but he did, sending a telegram to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on the eve of the vote to urge defeat of the moratorium extension. Even some Republicans were stunned. “I like the governor, and I would like to get him reelected, but the guy did not help our cause, to say the least,” a GOP activist said. This official pointed out that the question of oil cuts strongly across political lines in places like Marin County, Santa Barbara and the Westside of Los Angeles.

In the Senate, Republican Pete Wilson has joined Democrat Alan Cranston in a last-ditch effort to preserve the moratorium. They know that the temporary ban gives the state more leverage in negotiating a reasonable compromise on off-coast drilling--as will a united California front. Unfortunately, Deukmejian’s untimely broadsides gouged a big hole in that front.

There will, at some time, be more leasing off the California coast. This state has always done its share of contributing its natural resources to the national good. Currently approved offshore oil production will hit half a million barrels of oil a day in a few years. But unleased critical areas can be protected only if Californians stand together on this issue--and firmly. The environment can receive reasonable and necessary protection only if it is protected at the very beginning of the process, not at some hazy point down the road.

Good-faith negotiations might work, but only if there is considerable political muscle exercised on California’s side of the table.