Panel Hears Parade of Offshore Drilling Foes

Declaring that federal policies are wasting far more energy than could ever be pumped from oil and gas fields off the California coast, a parade of witnesses Wednesday urged a task force appointed by President Bush to push for a national energy policy that stresses conservation and development of alternative energy sources.

The strongly worded pleas, combined with opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling by most of the state’s ranking constitutional officers, came as the President’s Outer Continental Shelf Leasing and Development Task Force pressed its review of controversial plans to open up millions of acres of offshore tracts to oil and gas development.

Earlier this year, Bush delayed oil and gas leases in three offshore areas--the Southern and Northern California coastlines and off southern Florida in the Gulf of Mexico--because of widespread environmental concerns. All three lease sales were previously scheduled to take place next year.

Bush appointed the task force March 21 to review those issues and directed it to report back to him next January, in keeping with a promise made in last year’s presidential campaign. The repeated calls Wednesday from a wide range of witnesses for federal action to take a long view at the nation’s energy needs and energy’s links with worrisome global environmental problems were additional evidence of growing support for a national energy policy.

Energy Secretary James D. Watkins has ordered a comprehensive review of U.S. energy programs and key congressmen have said they are cautiously optimistic that the Bush Administration may act. The Administration’s decision to return to an original automobile fuel economy schedule abandoned by the Reagan White House has been seen as a step in the right direction.

Still, the availability of relatively cheap oil from overseas has worked against a comprehensive energy policy in the past and may do so again. There is little prospect in the immediate future that alternative or so-called “renewable” energy sources such as solar, wind and ocean energy will make significant inroads in meeting the country’s energy needs.

U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), long an opponent of offshore oil development, said Wednesday that any decision by the President to proceed with oil and gas exploration off California would be politically costly.

“I think it costs him quite a lot,” Wilson told reporters. “California cares a great deal about the coastal environment.”

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley told the panel, “The Los Angeles and Southern California message to President Bush . . . is the California coastline is one of our most prized treasures. . . . Our message in brief is: ‘Don’t muck it up.’ ”

There was little doubt Wednesday that California political leaders saw a direct link between offshore oil drilling in California and national energy policy.

“This region does not have the patience to endure offshore oil activity when our federal government does not have a comprehensive energy policy and has not supported energy conservation to the fullest degree possible,” said Christine E. Reed, a member of the Santa Monica City Council, which Tuesday night called for a comprehensive energy policy.

“We have a government policy that wastes more oil than we have in those (California) waters,” added Robert Sulnick of the American Oceans Campaign.

Many witnesses contrasted the former Reagan Administration’s push for exploiting domestic oil and gas reserves with decisions that they said undercut the very energy security they said they backed.

“If President Reagan had not relaxed fuel economy standards to 26 miles per gallon from 27.5 miles per gallon he would have saved in the last three years as much oil as will be found off Orange County,” Laguna Beach Mayor Robert F. Gentry told the panel. Others said oil off California would meet the nation’s energy needs for about a month.

Originally, automobiles were supposed to average 27.5 m.p.g. as of 1985 model year, but the standard was weakened to 26 m.p.g. and boosted up to 26.5 m.p.g. over the four succeeding years. The Bush Administration has returned to the 27.5 m.p.g. for the 1990 model year that begins this Oct. 1.