Surprise Plan to Hasten Offshore Oil Leasing Draws Hot Protest

Calling a surprise proposal to hasten oil drilling off the Southern California coast “mind boggling” and an “outrage,” environmentalists, joined by officials from several coastal cities, protested the measure Thursday outside a Los Angeles hotel where Secretary of the Interior Donald P. Hodel spoke.

Later, in response to reporters’ questions, Hodel said that he, too, opposed the proposal to sell Southern California offshore oil leases in 1989 instead of 1990. The earlier lease sale was proposed this week in a plan approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Although a staunch proponent of domestic oil exploration, Hodel said he wrote a letter to the committee opposing the proposal because it would shorten the established process for approving such projects. “The process should be followed,” he said.

This was also a key criticism made by the protesters, who said the proposal would curtail public comment, as well as from an oil industry spokesman who said that repeated changes in the government’s oil-leasing schedule is “creating absolute havoc.”

‘Slap in the Face’

The proposal “is a slap in the face” to coastal residents, said Robert Gentry, Laguna Beach mayor pro tem, who added that the plan calls for short-cutting the environmental impact study process and does not allow for as much public discussion. “We are outraged at this kind of environmental planning,” he said.

In a statement released later in the day, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley also expressed concern over the issue. “We Southern Californians would be denied the rightful opportunity to make our case. . . ,” he said.

Others, including Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, Santa Monica and West Hollywood councilmen and environmental group representatives, also objected to damage to the environment and local economies which, they said, the program would bring. The proposed lease, known as Lease Sale 95, covers a 14-million-acre area stretching from Santa Barbara Channel to Mexico. The final decision on that sale would be in the hands of the next President and a new administration.

The critics also raised questions about the way in which the plan was suddenly approved by the Senate committee, on recommendation of the Senate interior subcommittee.

Delay by Department

The Senate action came only two weeks after the Interior Department delayed action on proposed offshore oil drilling lease sales off Northern California. Senate supporters argued that an earlier Southern California lease sale was needed to offset the loss of $100 million in federal revenue from a one-year moratorium on drilling off the Northern California coast.

Some protesters suggested that the action was an attempt to split the anti-drilling movement into Northern and Southern California interests.

For the oil industry, the latest proposal adds confusion to an increasingly confusing situation, Bob Getts, a spokesman for the Western Oil and Gas Assn., said in a telephone interview. Getts said that a five-year leasing plan, developed last year by Congress, has not been adhered to.

“When they keep changing on the spur of the moment like this, it rally provides a kind of chaotic situation where we don’t know how to plan. . . . It’s creating havoc for us.”