Panel Overrides Objections to Occidental Coast Drilling Plan

Seven months after a little-known Los Angeles city zoning official foiled its plans, Occidental Petroleum Corp. won a victory Thursday that allows the firm to resume its politically charged drive for permission to drill for oil beside the coastal highway in Pacific Palisades.

The Los Angeles Board of Referred Powers voted 3 to 1 to disregard a report by Robert Janovici, an associate city zoning administrator, who ruled in December that the Occidental project would have permanent adverse effects on the coastal environment.

Several legal obstacles remain before the drilling issue is settled, both sides in the 20-year-old controversy agreed. But the ruling allows Occidental to apply for a drilling permit from the state Coastal Commission.

Wrinkle in Plans

Janovici’s surprise report last December threw a major wrinkle into the drilling plans, which by then had won the backing of Mayor Tom Bradley, who once campaigned as a foe of Palisades oil drilling, and the Los Angeles City Council. The report, which denied Occidental a key city permit, brought Occidental’s momentum to a halt and added a formidable, unexpected and independent voice to those attacking the drilling plan on environmental grounds.

Janovici’s findings, which defied the political trend in City Hall, earned him a reputation for bureaucratic courage for sticking to his conclusion that the proposal ran afoul of environmental laws and the public’s wish to protect the land beneath the Palisades bluffs, the site of many landslides.

However, Occidental contended that Janovici made several errors and appealed his ruling to the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, which disqualified itself for an inadvertent violation of the state open meeting law, and jurisdiction automatically went to the Board of Referred Powers.

The Board of Referred Powers is a special panel that sits in place of the usual city boards and commissions when a conflict of interest arises.

Though the Board of Referred Powers exists to relieve suspicions, it was dogged by controversy even before its first hearing on the matter last April.

Four of its five panelists are City Council members who have accepted campaign contributions from Occidental and who voted last year to authorize oil drilling in the Palisades, leading drilling foes to complain that the panel was biased. In addition, the Pacific Palisades Residents Assn. complained that Councilman Dave Cunningham, the board’s president, had a conflict of interest because his campaign committees recently loaned $50,000 to interests seeking to drill for oil in Malibu.

Predictable Vote

Thursday’s vote broke down as most had predicted it eventually would ever since the Board of Referred Powers first began to consider Occidental’s appeal.

Three members who have backed Occidental in the past--Cunningham, Robert Farrell and Hal Bernson--voted that Janovici had “erred” on all of his conclusions and overturned him. Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who opposed Occidental’s drilling plans last year, voted against the appeal. Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, the fifth member, has not attended the meetings.

In an unusually harsh attack, City Councilman Marvin Braude, a leading drilling opponent who represents Pacific Palisades, said the vote was swayed by Occidental’s political influence.

“Mr. Janovici is the city’s expert on coastal matters . . . and now you’re going to look him in the eye and say ‘every single finding that you made is not correct?’ . . . You behave in this manner because it’s Occidental Oil, and the power of Occidental Oil, and the kind of attorneys they are able to afford, and the fact that they can spend $16 million to do it.”

‘I Resent That’

The comments drew an angry reponse from Bernson. “I resent that,” Bernson said. “I think it was inappropriate and out of place. I really feel you ought to think before you make some of these remarks.”

On May 6, the three Occidental backers on the Board of Referred Powers had approved the conditions of operation that will be required if an oil drilling permit is ever issued. The conditions were attacked as too lenient by opponents of Occidental.

Before any drilling begins, Occidental must secure a permit from the state Coastal Commission, which regulates new development along the beach. The firm also must win its appeal of a Superior Court ruling, issued a week after Janovici’s report last December, that barred the project until a new environmental impact study is made that deals with a proposed oil pipeline.