Occidental Might Get a Break in Drilling Fight

A bureaucratic miscue may have given Occidental Petroleum Corp. a chance to take its bitterly contested case for oil and gas drilling in Pacific Palisades before a potentially friendly panel of city officials.

Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, the council’s leading opponent of Occidental’s proposed drilling plan, warned Monday that the proposal may wind up in the hands of the Board of Referred Powers. The board is made up five City Council members, four of whom voted last year to approve Occidental’s drilling operation. Occidental’s proposal had been scheduled to go next before the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment.

However, even a sympathetic ruling by the Board of Referred Powers would not clear the way for Occidental to start drilling, because a number of major legal and administrative obstacles remain in the company’s way. But the opportunity to go before a group of sympathetic city officials would give Occidental a chance to wedge its foot back in a door that seemed to have been shut in its face.

No Right of Appeal

After winning a favorable vote by the mayor and the City Council early last year, Occidental’s project suffered a major setback in December, when a city zoning administrator refused to grant the company a drilling permit, agreeing with local residents that the drilling operation would have devastating effects on the beachfront environment.

The Board of Zoning Adjustment was scheduled this week to review the administrator’s decision. If the board were to uphold the decision, according to Braude, it could mean an end of the project. Braude said he believed Occidental would have no further right of appeal.

But Braude said Monday he feared that the adjustment board had discussed aspects of the upcoming hearing during a closed meeting earlier this month and, in so doing, may have violated the state’s open record law. The city attorney’s office, Braude said, is determining whether such a violation occurred. If it did, Braude said, the Occidental case would have to be handled by the five-member Board of Referred Powers.

Four members of the Board of Referred powers--Joan Milke Flores, Robert Farrell, David Cunningham and Hal Bernson--voted for the Occidental drilling plan last year.

If the board were to overrule the zoning administrator and decide in favor of Occidental, the oil company’s foes could appeal the decision to the California Coastal Commission--a right of appeal not available to Occidental in the event it loses, according to Braude.

Even if the Coastal Commission were to uphold Occidental’s right to drill, the matter would be far from settled.

Impact Statement

A week after the zoning administrator refused to grant the drilling permit, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge invalidated the City Council’s 1985 approval of the drilling project. The judge found legal defects in the environmental impact statement submitted by Occidental as part of its drilling application to the city.

For Occidental to hope to prevail, it must also successfully appeal the judge’s order nullifying the council’s action.