Governor Asks 75% Deletion in Ocean Oil Plan

Gov. George Deukmejian has asked U.S. Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel to delete more than 75% of the California offshore areas, including Santa Monica Bay, that are in the latest version of Hodel’s five-year oil-leasing program.

“In general,” Deukmejian told Hodel in a letter made public by the state on Thursday, “I do not feel the proposed program addresses all the legitimate environmental and economic concerns of California and our local coastal governments.”

The governor maintained that 78% of areas in the Hodel plan--including Santa Monica Bay and coastal waters off San Diego and Orange counties, Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor and the Channel Islands--should be deleted “to protect sensitive resource and multiple-use areas.”

He also recommended deletion of large areas off Central and Northern California.

As for the remaining 22% of the offshore areas in Hodel’s plan, the governor said he may recommend more deletions after further study.

Hodel revised his plan in February, eliminating or deferring lease sales in 28 areas of scenic beauty or doubtful mineral value nationwide in response to pressure from conservationists and California congressmen. Eleven of those excluded areas were off the California coast.

Early this week, 22 Democratic legislators criticized Deukmejian for failing to take a strong stand against the federal leasing plan. They urged that it be cut back drastically.

Deukmejian, who favors a tract-by-tract review of coastal areas that the federal government wants to lease rather than reinstatement of a congressional moratorium on offshore oil drilling, issued his recommendations after several heated hearings and a meeting with local government officials last month.

Bill Sessa, state Environmental Affairs Agency spokesman, said the governor’s recommendations follow analysis by 19 state agencies, 45 cities and counties, as well as 42 private organizations including citizen and environmental groups.

“For those areas that the federal government does decide to offer for lease,” Deukmejian told Hodel in his letter dated Wednesday, “I expect and must insist, as I have in the past, that all necessary environmental safeguards are in place to ensure that California’s coast is protected.”

California’s recommendations, like those from other coastal states, are not binding on the Interior Department.