Senate Panel Backs Earlier Offshore Oil Lease Sales

In a double defeat for environmentalists, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved a plan to sell Southern California offshore oil leases in 1989 instead of 1990 and voted to delete funds for a study exploring the destruction of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, effectively killing a proposal for restoring the area.

The committee action, taken after little discussion of the two measures, followed a recommendation by the panel’s interior subcommittee Monday. The measures will go to a Senate-House conference committee, where opponents have vowed to fight the oil lease provision.

The proposed leases, known as Lease Sale 95, cover an area extending from the Santa Barbara Channel to Mexico. The sales were scheduled for the 1990 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 1989. But under the new plan, the leases will be offered “no later than Aug. 1, 1989,” according to the legislation.

The escalation angered environmentalists and their supporters in Congress, who argued that moving the lease into an earlier fiscal year will deprive the next President of valuable time needed to study the environmental impact of offshore drilling.

California Republican Sen. Pete Wilson, who fought hard against the change, said, “The new President should have as much time as possible to review these decisions instead of just rushing pell-mell into offshore drilling.”

In Los Angeles, Robert Hattoy, regional director of the Sierra Club, said new offshore drilling “would add to the problems of air quality and growth” that already afflict Southern California. “We don’t have any long-term national energy program. The whole thing (offshore drilling) needs to be gutted, and we need to come up with a national program.”

Supporters’ Argument

Supporters of an earlier lease sale have argued that it is needed to offset the loss of $100 million in federal revenues from a one-year moratorium on drilling off the shore of Northern California. The moratorium was also approved by the committee.

But Hattoy said that delaying drilling in one part of the state while accelerating it in another “pits Northern California against Southern California. We don’t want to play that game.”

The Northern California moratorium, which would allow leases there to be offered no earlier than January, 1990, instead of February, 1989, has drawn broad support, giving its proponents hope that the full Senate will pass it. Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis support the idea, foreshadowing the importance of the issue in the November election.

Meanwhile, in removing a proposal to fund a $600-million study of the feasibility of destroying the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, the committee apparently ended the dream of conservationists who want to restore the site to its natural state.

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel proposed the controversial idea last July, calling it a plan for converting the reservoir into “a second Yosemite Valley” in the overcrowded park. In November, the secretary announced what he called “exciting possibilities” for replacing water and electricity that would be lost if the system were dismantled.

But, following similar action in the House, the Senate committee deleted the money for study, saying: “None of the funds provided in this or any other act shall be available to the National Park Service to investigate, study, plan or otherwise advance a proposal to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley to a natural condition.”