Offshore Oil Chokes Air and Coastal Development

Low-level ozone damages lung tissue, exacerbates respiratory illness and causes chest pain, headaches and eye irritation. It is so damaging that it reduces crop production, prematurely breaks down the rubber parts on automobiles and even deteriorates women’s hosiery.

As the deadline for meeting the federal ozone standard nears, Congress is considering critical legislation to address the problems of cities that will not attain this health-based standard. Sadly, Southern California is a region that falls in the center of the clean-air debate. Los Angeles does not meet one or more Clean Air Act standards at a minimum of once every two days.

Both the House and the Senate have offered so-called “non-attainment legislation” that would significantly strengthen clean-air requirements and improve air quality in our cities. However, because of the immense power of the oil industry, the federal outer continental shelf may continue to be the only body of water or land that is not regulated under the federal Clean Air Act. Congress must specifically address oil and gas activities in federal waters as a major source of ozone and other pollutants in Southern California--a source that has been inadequately addressed.

The Congressional Research Service has estimated that emissions from the average daily oil production of one platform are equal to the emissions from the average daily use of 15,000 automobiles. The pollutants from oil rigs and the boats that service them blow onshore, mix with other pollutants and create hazardous low-level ozone--or smog. Yet today in federal waters off the coast of California, half the active platforms are largely uncontrolled for critical nitrogen-oxide emissions--one of the two key components of ozone.

To ignore this problem as the oil industry is encouraging Congress to do is to ignore the problem of smog in Southern California. It is unfair to the people who breathe the air of Southern California that the oil industry enjoys what amounts to the largest loophole of the Clear Air Act.

It is also unfair to the local business community. Because oil and gas development on the outer continental shelf does not come under the Clean Air Act, the state air-quality management authorities cannot control this source of pollution. Instead, these authorities must require the local industrial and business communities to make further costly changes to reduce overall pollution. And more important than the inherent unfairness of this is the fact that soon this burden could result in a serious impediment to economic growth along the Southern California coast.

Congress must bring oil and gas activities on the outer continental shelf under the Clean Air Act. Additionally, specific standards must be applied to the rigs and vessels to ensure that their operations are as clean as technology can provide today.

Opponents of this effort believe that this is an attempt to unduly encumber the oil industry’s efforts to drill the outer continental shelf. They argue that new requirements could result in excessive regulation that would be needlessly burdensome. In fact, the air pollution from the rigs and service vessels are a grave burden to the coastline citizens. Legislative efforts to subject the oil industry to the same rigors that all other polluters face are fair and evenhanded. Cost-effective technology exists today to reduce emissions in some cases by more than 90%.

The oil industry has encouraged Congress to rely on the negotiations that are now taking place in Southern California between all involved parties, including the environmental community. Although the negotiations were an admirable effort, if not a preferable solution to the problem, they have not proved successful. The parties have been unable to reach a consensus, and, as a result, the Department of the Interior is now drafting its own new regulations. The department has been loosely charged with regulating the emissions of rigs in federal waters since 1978. It has failed in its task. The regulations today are weak and do not address the major pollution problem of platforms that are geographically concentrated.

Those in Congress who are sympathetic to the oil industry’s cries have indicated that while the pollution generated by oil-drilling operations offshore is bad, it will not hurt the onshore community. This is incorrect; the prevailing winds in Southern California blow onshore. Over water, emissions produced by the rigs and vessels remain intact as they approach the coast. These emissions, made up mostly of nitrogen oxides, readily form ozone when they reach shore.

On Wednesday Congress will consider legislation critical to improving our nation’s air quality. When it finishes this long and difficult process, it will not likely revisit it for some time. Congress must address Southern California’s needs, along with the rest of the nation’s, and treat offshore oil and gas activities in federal waters as it does all other sources of air pollution.