No Pact Seen on Offshore Drilling Curbs

California congressmen said Tuesday that they have lost hope of reaching an agreement with Interior Department officials to limit future oil drilling off the state’s coast but have scheduled a final negotiating session to discuss strategies for presenting their differences to Congress.

“We are extremely far apart with regard to a substantive proposal,” Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) said as he emerged from two hours of talks. “I do not believe an agreement can be reached.”

Members said they will hold one more meeting with Interior Department officials in hopes of achieving a so-called “process” compromise. These discussions may include an attempt to persuade the department to stop preparations for two offshore lease sales in 1988--one off Mendocino and Humboldt counties, the other off Southern California--in return for the congressmen’s agreeing not to seek another drilling moratorium or for proposing only a limited ban.

New Options Sought

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who has participated in the talks, said a “process” compromise might include a hiatus in which both sides would agree “to ice” their maneuvering while the Interior Department studies new options.

Interior officials and congressmen have failed in more than a dozen negotiating sessions to resolve the critical dispute over location and scope of future drilling--an issue that bears strong political, as well as environmental, overtones.

The anti-drilling forces believe that Republicans facing election in November fear the political fallout from the Reagan Administration’s offshore plans. “This could be a very crucial issue in those coastal communities,” Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey) said.

Sen. James A. McClure (R-Ida.) said both sides “agree we’re not going to come to an agreement” on the specifics of future drilling. McClure, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was one of 18 members of Congress who have tried to negotiate a drilling agreement with the Interior Department since February.

Californians’ Position

California congressmen have planned to ask the House Appropriations subcommittee on the interior later this month for a yearlong drilling ban. The full committee is to take up the issue later in the summer.

The Californians have offered to permit drilling in 173 nine-square-mile tracts, situated 15 to 28 miles from shore. Federal waters begin three miles from shore.

The Interior Department complained that the Californians’ proposal would have tapped little more than 5% of the state’s offshore oil. Interior officials proposed opening 670 tracts six miles from shore.

The recent round of negotiations began after a preliminary offshore compromise collapsed last summer and the Californians subsequently lost by one vote an attempt to win renewal of a drilling moratorium.

The earlier agreement, negotiated last spring by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and California congressmen, called for leasing 150 new offshore tracts. The pact collapsed after Hodel withdrew his support, saying he had discovered that the tracts contain little oil.