Deukmejian Joins Oil Firms to Fight Tougher Offshore Drilling Veto

With California’s offshore oil boom just beginning, the Deukmejian Administration closed ranks Friday with the oil industry, telling a congressional committee that there is no need to strengthen the state’s authority to veto offshore drilling projects that may affect the coastal environment.

That stand was quickly criticized by conservationists and by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who said Deukmejian has, in effect, hung a “For Sale” sign on the California coast.

The exchange, which took place at a House subcommittee on oceanography hearing in Santa Monica, came in the wake of two federal court decisions that have narrowed the authority of coastal states to veto offshore oil and gas developments that are proposed in waters beyond the three-mile state coastal zone.

Bradley called for federal legislation that would not only give local governments a larger voice in offshore development decisions but would also overturn the court decisions.

The issue is of growing importance because the nation is looking to California’s huge offshore oil and gas reserves to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. By the early 1990s, production off the California coast is expected to increase at least fivefold to 600,000 barrels daily.

Many believe that a U.S. Supreme Court decision in January, 1984, and a subsequent decision last October by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles have undermined one of the states’ chief tools to protect their coastal waters and shoreline from environmental damage--the Coastal Zone Management Act.

No Lease Veto Power

The Supreme Court case held that states cannot exercise their veto power over federal lease sales. Only after plans for actual exploration and production are submitted can states attempt to block such proposals, it said.

In testimony Friday, California’s Deputy Environmental Affairs Secretary John L. Hunter--who said he was speaking for the Deukmejian Administration--told the panel, “We do not believe that the Coastal Zone Management Act has been weakened by recent court decisions.”

Hunter reaffirmed what he called Deukmejian’s commitment to “prudent energy development” accompanied by environmental safeguards.

“Any debates on the effectiveness of the CZMA must consider that it is only one of the several means available to state governments to ensure their coast is protected,” Hunter said.

Bradley, a Democrat who is expected to run against Republican Deukmejian for governor in November, also charged that Deukmejian’s opposition to a congressional moratorium on offshore oil and gas leasing in environmentally sensitive areas was instrumental in the moratorium’s repeal last year.

“As a result of the governor’s action, most of the California coastline now has a ‘For Sale’ sign hanging on it. For reasons known only to himself, the governor has heeded the desires of oil interests rather than the outraged cries of hundreds of thousands of Californians,” Bradley charged.

Bradley Also Under Fire

Bradley recently came under fire himself from conservationists after abruptly changing his mind and approved controversial plans by Occidental Petroleum Corp. to drill for oil in Pacific Palisades. That approval has been challenged in court.

Also calling for stronger state powers were Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), Robert K. Hattoy, Southern California representative of the Sierra Club, and Deputy Atty. Gen. John A. Saurenman.

However, Darrell Warner, president of the Western Oil and Gas Assn. and manager of western production division of Exxon Co. U.S.A., charged that California had “inappropriately” used its veto power under the coastal zone act to control aspects of outer continental shelf development that Congress never intended to delegate to states.

As a case in point, Warner cited the federal district court’s decision in Exxon vs. Fisher that held that California’s veto authority over oil and gas production in federally controlled waters is limited to reviewing impacts on land and water uses only within the state’s three-mile limit. That decision is under appeal.

Warner also proposed that the U.S. secretary of commerce be given broader grounds on which to overturn a state veto.

Hunter was joined by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service--which is in charge of leasing vast tracts of offshore land to oil companies--and the National Ocean Industries Assn., a coalition of businesses that supply equipment and services to the oil industry.