Hodel Alters Lease Plan to Exclude More Coastal Sites

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, under pressure from conservationists and California congressmen, proposed a revised five-year offshore oil leasing program Thursday that eliminates or defers lease sales in 28 areas of scenic beauty or of doubtful mineral value.

Eleven excluded areas are off the California coast, while the remainder lie along the Atlantic coast or just beyond the shores of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Texas and Louisiana.

In announcing revisions to a larger leasing plan he proposed last March, Hodel said he will continue consultations with an 18-member congressional delegation from California and other coastal states to resolve the sensitive issue of how to further limit offshore exploration.

Some critics have charged that the lease proposal was timed to use as a lever in the talks with the delegation, although Hodel has said he is simply doing what the law requires.

Under the Interior Department’s timetable, the five-year plan, which covers 1987 to 1991, will not be made final until next year, and Congress then will have 60 days to review it. Actual sales of tracts to be designated probably will not occur until 1988, Hodel said, and no oil will start flowing from them until about the year 2000.

Nonetheless, no sooner had Hodel announced the plan than he came under fire from both Gov. George Deukmejian, a Republican, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a Democrat.

Deukmejian accused Hodel of “a breach of good faith” and Bradley declared that “there’s no reason for putting up for sale this precious heritage . . . the jewel of the California coastline.”

In Washington, Hodel told reporters, “I have kept faith with opponents of offshore oil drilling in California” by excluding from the lease sale sensitive areas.

In Southern California, the proposal would exclude the 55,197-acre Santa Barbara Federal Ecological Preserve and Buffer Zone, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and nearly a million acres set aside for a U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare area southwest of San Nicolas Island.

In Northern California, Hodel called for excluding 418,000 acres off the Point Reyes Wilderness, the 645,444-acre Point Reyes-Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary, a 64,000-acre area immediately off San Francisco Bay, as well as the nearby Cordell Bank, and 516,000 acres offshore Monterey Bay and nearly 2.5 million acres off scenic Big Sur on the Monterey County coast.

In addition there are two other areas farther out to sea off Northern and Central California that are not known to be environmentally sensitive but elicited little interest from the oil industry.

But, under the five-year plan, every other outer continental shelf tract off the coast of California--including those off Santa Monica Bay and Orange and San Diego counties--are subject to eventual lease sale.

Federal officials stressed Thursday that 11 steps are involved in selling oil and gas leases. First, industry interest would have to be determined. Interest by oil companies, in turn, would trigger a series of 10 additional steps, including the preparation of environmental impact statements, public hearings, reviews and comments by state and local government agencies as well as the governor’s office, and the receipt of acceptable bids.

Throughout this process, it would be possible that areas now subject to lease would be dropped from consideration.

California Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), co-chairman of the congressional group that is negotiating with Hodel, called the revised leasing plan “disappointing but not very surprising.”

“Without exception, the areas Mr. Hodel claims to be protecting are already protected, either by federal or state law or by a total lack of interest by the oil industry,” Panetta said. “Clearly, if these negotiations are to be successful, the secretary of Interior will have to agree to exempt far more of the sensitive areas of the California coastline.”

Exclusion Supported

Andy Palmer, coastal projects director of the Washington-based Environmental Policy Institute, agreed with Panetta that more offshore areas need to be excluded.

“The leasing plan essentially covers too wide an area,” Palmer said. “It’s beyond what the market would support.”

However, the Western Oil and Gas Assn., an industry group based in Los Angeles, called Hodel’s announcement “a crucial planning tool for developing this nation’s future energy resources without placing the entire coastline up for sale.”

The association said in a statement that “three-fourths of the oil needed by the United States in the year 2000 has yet to be found, and almost half of these future discoveries are expected to come from offshore areas.”

Hodel said he hopes to conclude talks with the congressional delegation by late spring and then “feed this information into the leasing process.”

Hodel said some Americans might wonder: “Why, in the face of a world oil glut and falling prices, are we going forward with a leasing program of this kind?” The answer, he said, is that “we don’t know what the oil situation will be two to five years from now--much less by the year 2000. We’re talking about oil for the 21st Century.”

But Deukmejian’s office in Sacramento released a letter from the governor to Hodel objecting to the inclusion in the plan of an immediate invitation to oil companies to express preliminary interest in drilling sites off the Northern California coast.

Called Unwise Attempt

He called it “a breach of good faith” and “an unwise attempt to take a shortcut around the prudent process established by Congress.”

“As governor, I cannot agree to any shortcuts when it comes to protecting California’s environment and our legitimate interests,” Deukmejian wrote Hodel. Deukmejian urged Hodel to delay the invitation until after Congress has approved the five-year plan.

In Los Angeles, William Grant, Pacific regional director of the Minerals Management Service, emphasized that even if plans proceed with the Northern California invitation, the sale would not occur until April, 1988, allowing time for the state to comment.

Bradley, who is expected to seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and oppose Deukmejian this year, assailed both Hodel and Deukmejian.

Claims Wider Plans

Bradley charged that Hodel’s plan for lease sales included 66 million acres of offshore oil land in 1988-89--everything north of San Francisco, the Big Sur coastline, Monterey Bay, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Santa Monica Bay. Actually, Hodel’s plan excludes the areas offshore San Francisco Bay, the Cordell Bank, and areas offshore Monterey Bay and Big Sur.

Bradley, as he has in the past, again blamed Deukmejian’s opposition for the expiration late last year of a congressionally mandated moratorium on offshore oil and gas development in environmentally sensitive areas. That lapsed when proponents of its extension fell one vote short in Congress.

Meanwhile, Michael Wornum, the new chairman of the California Coastal Commission, assailed the five-year plan and said, “What Secretary Hodel wants to do here is like selling off the crown jewels. Based on the information available to us, this is an area that is bigger than the entire state of Oregon. It’s just too much, too soon.”

Robert L. Jackson reported from Washington and Larry B. Stammer from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Kevin Roderick in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.