Hodel Offers ‘Truce’ Plan for Drilling off California

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel unveiled new revisions Monday to a proposed five-year oil and gas leasing plan for California that for the first time excludes Santa Monica Bay and areas off the Orange and San Diego County coasts from oil and gas drilling.

At the same time, however, Hodel opened up 13% of offshore areas--about 6.45-million acres--that had been previously excluded from development by Congress under a moratorium that expired in 1985.

The proposal, announced in Washington by Hodel, also contained a commitment to require that air pollution emission limits on all future offshore oil and gas platform developments be “similar” to the stricter limits required onshore.

Latest Version

The proposal is the latest version of a five-year oil and gas development plan for the years 1987 through 1991 first announced a year ago. It has been the subject of a heated controversy between oil and gas interests and environmentalists as well as of intensive behind-the-scenes negotiations between congressional leaders and the Interior Department.

Under Monday’s revisions, Hodel declared several Southern California ocean tracts off-limits to oil and gas development through 1991. They include Santa Monica Bay from Point Dume to Point Fermin, a six-mile-wide buffer (six miles seaward from the beach) from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Long Beach, as well as a six-mile-wide buffer off the Orange County coast from Newport Beach on the north to roughly Dana Point on the south, encompassing the Irvine Coast Marine Life Refuges and Heisler Park.

A large area excluded lies off the San Diego County coast from the Mexican border to a point north of La Jolla. Much of the San Diego County exclusion area is due to U.S. military activities, including weapons testing and naval exercises. In Northern California, Hodel called for buffer zones off scenic areas of Humboldt and Mendocino counties.

Hodel has previously excluded from development the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, the San Nicolas Island Navy operating area, the Point Reyes-Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary, areas offshore of San Francisco and Monterey Bays, and Point Reyes.

Under federal law, Hodel must formally submit the plan to Congress by April. Congress will then have 60 days to review it and can either approve the plan, negotiate changes or kill it. The proposal announced on Monday covered only the California portion of the plan, and it is subject to further adjustments.

“We hope we have found a way to break the battle for . . . a five-year plan--an armistice, a truce,” Hodel said in Washington.

At the same time, Hodel strongly indicated that if Congress could not accept the proposal, he could withdraw all or some of the concessions and treat oil and gas development off the coast of California as it is off the coast of any other state. He said that California had been extended “special exception” to procedures established by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Cries of Protest

But, Hodel’s call for a truce was greeted with cries of protest from key California congressional leaders, who charged that Hodel’s plan ignored major environmental concerns.

“This is a declaration of war on the California coastline,” said Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey). “This plan is absolutely no compromise whatsoever,” Panetta told a news conference, joined by four other California representatives and the state’s two senators, Pete Wilson and Alan Cranston.

Wilson, a Republican, called the plan “very disappointing news” and a “very inadequate response” to congressional concerns raised since 1981, when former Secretary of the Interior James Watt first proposed opening vast areas off the California coast to oil and gas exploration, triggering a congressional moratorium on further leasing.

Cranston, a Democrat, labeled the proposal as “environmentally blind.”

In Orange County, Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry, a long-time opponent of offshore drilling, said the plan “looks like it was written by the oil industry without any respect for the precious resource of the Orange County coastline.”

At the same time, the Western Oil and Gas Assn., which speaks for major oil companies and others, said it was “disappointed” by the plan and assailed Hodel for excluding too many areas from development.

Douglas Henderson, executive director of the Los Angeles-based association, warned that in three to five years the United States would become still more dependent on oil from the Middle East and “very vulnerable” to an embargo.

Positive Response

The most positive response came from the Deukmejian Administration in Sacramento, which noted that “nearly all” of Gov. George Deukmejian’s environmental recommendations had been accepted by Hodel, including environmental buffer zones off Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

But, Bill Sessa, a spokesman for Environmental Affairs Secretary Jan Sharpless, said that the state still believes that a larger area bordering Santa Monica Bay should have been excluded from oil and gas drilling. Sessa said that the Administration would study the proposal before deciding whether to support it.

Gentry said the proposed buffer zone around the Newport Beach coastline “is virtually no protection whatsoever. If there is a major spill on a rig six miles from shore during a heavy winter storm like we had in 1983, the precious beaches and coves of Orange County could be devastated.”

Interior Department officials said Monday that Hodel was clearly “frustrated” by the difficulty in fashioning a compromise acceptable to all sides while seeing that the nation’s energy security was protected.

The Reagan Administration has linked much of the nation’s ability to develop domestic energy resources to oil and gas reserves off the California coast, particularly because new discoveries off the Atlantic seaboard and in Alaska have been disappointing. Henderson said Monday that untapped oil reserves off the West Coast between Canada and Mexico may reach 2.2 billion barrels. By comparison, he said that Alaskan reserves are estimated at 1.5 to 1.75 billion barrels.

Chorus of Criticism

The chorus of criticism from key members of Congress and the oil and gas industry signaled an uphill battle in Congress for the plan.

Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) predicted an “explosion of individual bills” in Congress designed to restrict areas offered for lease and to impose more stringent air quality and other environmental controls than those envisioned by the Interior Department.

To underscore their objections, Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), whose district covers part of the Northern California coastline in Marin and Sonoma counties, and Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) said they would introduce a bill on Tuesday to declare the entire California coastline to a distance 200 miles offshore an “ocean sanctuary” in which all further drilling, seabed mining or waste dumping would be prohibited.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), who represents southern Orange and northern San Diego counties said Monday that Hodel’s proposal is in for a fight in Congress.

“The battle lines are drawn,” Packard said. “We will adamantly oppose it. It opens up all of the Orange County and San Diego County coastlines again for leasing. . . . The beach is our most valuable resource, and we can’t risk that kind of a resource to the commercialization of oil rigs.

Although there is strong Orange County opposition to Hodel’s five-year plan, not all of the area’s elected officials agree with Packard and Gentry. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) is one long-standing supporter of offshore drilling.

“As long as our country continues to be dependent on foreign oil sources, we will continue to support the idea of exploring all of the options for domestic oil production,” said Duane Crumb, an aide to Dannemeyer. The congressman was on his way to Washington Monday and could not be reached for comment. “One of the largest resources that’s known in this country is that of offshore oil.”

Of the five lease sales planned, two would be off the Northern California coast, one off the Central California coast, and two off the Southern California coast. The first lease sale would not occur before 1989, in keeping with a congressionally imposed delay.

Larry B. Stammer reported from Los Angeles; Robert Gillette from Washington; Maria L. La Ganga from Orange County.