U.S. Discloses Final Offshore Drilling Plan

Citing the demands of national security, the Department of the Interior on Monday issued its final version of a long-debated five-year plan for offshore drilling that calls for leasing 750 million acres for oil and gas exploration by 1992, from the coast of New England to Alaska.

Department officials said the plan, little changed from a version sent to Congress in February, is expected to add 17 billion barrels of oil to U.S. reserves, an increase of more than 50% at a time when the United States faces declining domestic production and renewed dependence on oil imports.

An additional 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the fuel equivalent of 20 billion barrels of oil, are thought to underlie the same offshore regions.

Delay in Drilling

Huge, previously unexplored areas would be opened to leasing along virtually the whole of the American coastline, although drilling is not expected to take place in much of the area for a decade or more and is to focus only on “promising” acreage.

For California, the Interior Department pledged to “highlight for consideration” the numerous environmental concerns raised by Gov. George Deukmejian and congressional critics, before each lease sale.

In a statement, Secretary of the Interior Donald P. Hodel called the plan the “cornerstone of a rational energy plan for the future.” Congressional and environmental critics, however, denounced it as a giveaway to the oil industry that fails to take environmental concerns fully into account.

Congress has 60 days in which to disapprove or modify the plan before it takes effect. Some congressional opponents said chances of defeating or significantly altering it are slim.

Interior officials said the plan represents a 46% reduction from the 1.4 billion acres of offshore territory originally proposed for oil and gas leasing by former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt in 1981. His plan set off a storm of protest in Congress that led first to a moratorium on new leases off California and, in 1985, to legislation requiring negotiations with a bargaining team from the California congressional delegation.

Fail to Agree

After reaching a tentative agreement in 1985, then disavowing it on the ground that it excluded too much promising acreage from exploration, the Interior Department said that 16 negotiating sessions with the Californians in 1986 failed to reach a consensus.

Under the final version of the plan submitted to President Reagan on Monday, 650 million acres along the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific and Alaskan coastlines previously designated for leasing are to be deferred for environmental and economic reasons or barred in offshore areas set aside for military use.

Among areas to be opened to selective drilling for the first time are the Florida Keys, parts of the California coast and extensive areas of the Bering and Beaufort seas off Alaska.

Panetta Assails Plan

Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), a leader of the largely Democratic opposition in the California congressional delegation, said the leasing plan “reflects a lack of comprehensive energy policy for this nation.”

Vowing congressional defiance, Panetta said the Administration “proposes to put all of our coastline on the auction block” while abandoning conservation and the development of alternative fuels.

Interior Department officials, however, noted that transportation currently accounts for 60% of U.S. oil consumption and said that no economical substitute is on the horizon.

Until February, 1989

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said he believes the chances of Congress disapproving the plan in the next 60 days are “dim,” but he noted that a congressional moratorium on leasing along the California coast extends until February, 1989, after the Reagan Administration leaves office. Wilson said that in the interim he will support any effort by the state of California to block the leasing plan in the courts.

Speaking for industry, the American Petroleum Institute voiced disappointment at reductions in the area to be opened to leasing but nevertheless endorsed the plan.

In Los Angeles, the Western Oil & Gas Assn. expressed reservations about the large excluded areas but praised the Interior Department for establishing what it called an “orderly, predictable leasing schedule.”

Increase in Imports

In a news conference in Washington, Assistant Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles said the increase of oil imports to 40% of current consumption--up 27% from a year ago--makes the exploration of offshore resources imperative.

In the absence of offshore development, he said, the United States faces a “tremendous” fall in domestic production in the next decade, led by a decline in output from Alaska’s giant Prudhoe Bay field, where 7 billion of the original 12 billion barrels of reserves have already been consumed. There are 42 gallons in a barrel.

“We do not have to choose between energy development and protecting the environment. We can do both,” Griles said. He insisted that concerns of economic and environmental damage from offshore oil and gas development “are not borne out by the record.”

Plan Unchanged

Griles was unable to say how many acres along the California coast would be opened, but he said the plan remains essentially unchanged from a proposal put forward in February that called for leasing 13% of the area currently under a drilling moratorium.

In addition to exclusion zones that he said already encompass 60% of the California coastline, or 56 million acres, the final version adds “buffer zones” around Santa Catalina, San Clemente and San Nicolas islands and Begg Rock off Southern California.

The plan schedules a total of 38 lease sales over the next five years, with the earliest this July. A summary released by the Interior Department left open the possibility of excluding further areas for environmental reasons as each lease offering is reviewed in detail before the final sale. The department dropped a controversial provision that would have allowed it to accelerate the pace of lease offerings.