‘Declaration of War’ Against Coastline Is No Such Thing

As a native Oregonian, I have enjoyed for many years the splendor and beauty of the California coastline. I want my children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy that experience years from now. It is my pledge to protect the coast.

But it also is my statutory obligation to develop this nation’s offshore energy resources in an expeditious and orderly manner so as to maintain a stable domestic supply of energy.

Many may say that these two goals are incompatible, that you cannot protect the environment and have energy development at the same time. I cannot emphasize enough that we can have both. The fact is that in many places we do have both.

That is why, after two years of consultation with Congress and the state of California, I submitted an amalgamated proposal for the orderly leasing of a limited number of carefully selected federal oil and gas tracts, three miles and beyond the coast of California, beginning in mid-1987 through mid-1992. Yet certain members of the California congressional delegation immediately called this proposal “a declaration of war” against the coastline. As someone who does care about the coast, I beg to differ.

California’s magnificent beaches, its tourism, fishing and related industries would not be sacrificed. There is a greater risk to California’s coastline from foreign oil-tanker spills than from this proposal; the fishing and tourism industries run the risk of higher inflation and loss of jobs due to higher energy costs created by increased oil imports.

If the history of offshore energy development is any guide, the majority of tracts included in the five-year plan as being potentially available for leasing will be eliminated during this long sale-planning process. Only a portion of the area will be leased, and even less will result in production. Those who conjure up visions of a “picket fence” of oil rigs on the horizon are doing nothing more than selling Californians a bad bill of goods. There are just 23 petroleum production and exploration facilities currently in federal waters off California; even if geologists were wildly successful in finding oil, drilling rigs will remain few and far between in the future.

Our plan--drawn from earlier plans submitted by Gov. George Deukmejian, Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey) and Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio)--charts a reasonable and environmentally sound course with unprecedented sub-area deferrals and other provisions that respond to the concerns of Californians. Additional deferrals and environmental stipulations, beyond those proposed in this five-year plan, would be added during the lengthy two-year process preceding each sale. After this, any oil company interested in exploration and production activities still must submit to extensive environmental review by the California Coastal Commission before any activity begins.

This proposal would make 1,120 tracts available for leasing--about 13% of the federal offshore area previously under congressional moratoriums. It would exclude from leasing about 56 million acres, or 74%, of the three California offshore planning areas. These include 5.4 million acres deferred in the Interior Department’s proposed five-year plan of February, 1986.

I have pledged that certain key areas will not be a part of the five-year plan. These are the areas off Cape Mendocino and Punta Gorda, Cordell Bank, San Francisco Bay, Monterey Bay, Big Sur, Santa Monica and San Diego. In addition, the areas off Point Reyes Wilderness, the Point Reyes-Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary, the Santa Barbara Federal Ecological Preserve and Buffer Zone, the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary and the San Nicolas Basin also are deferred. This would be the first time that a five-year plan, regardless of Administration, has identified such extensive deferrals for any planning area so early in the process.

In addition, we are working with the state, coalitions of local governments and air-quality districts, environmental groups and industry in an effort to formulate new air-quality regulations for the program. I will not support a federal offshore program that fails to address this concern.

This proposal makes the extra effort to assure environmental protection for the coastline. Yet it appears to me to be the bare minimum that can be offered for leasing if I am to meet my statutory and moral obligations to manage federal offshore energy resources for the welfare of all Americans who own them.

These resources off California are vital to the economy of both the state and the nation, as well as to our national security. Net imports in 1986 were a million barrels a day, or 23%, higher than they were in 1985. If we reach 50% or more dependency on foreign oil by the mid-1990s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would be in the driver’s seat.

We have gone the extra mile with this proposal, yet many of those opposed to offshore drilling have not budged an inch. I hope that we can continue to work toward an agreement that not only protects California’s coast but also provides the nation with an opportunity to maintain a stable domestic energy supply.