House Votes to Bar Offshore Drilling : Moratorium Covers California, Most of U.S.; Heads for Senate Showdown

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a measure that would halt offshore drilling along much of the American coastline, with the Bush Administration bowing to growing anti-drilling sentiment and abandoning an effort to block the moratorium on the House floor.

The vote set the stage for a Senate showdown on the vast drilling ban, which has gained powerful momentum from outrage over the flurry of recent oil spills. It is opposed by the Administration on grounds that it would hinder necessary oil exploration.

Unprecedented in its scope, the drilling ban would put 84 million acres of the nation’s outer continental shelf--including the entire California coast--off limits to oil companies until at least October, 1990.

The plan, approved on a 374-49 vote as part of a measure providing $11.1 billion for the Interior Department, marked a momentous victory for those who have counseled caution toward oil exploration in the aftermath of the spills.

Jeopardizes Watt Plan

The action puts in jeopardy much of the ambitious offshore drilling plan laid out by former Interior Secretary James G. Watt nearly nine years ago and supported by Republican administrations ever since. It also could render almost powerless a White House task force appointed last February by President Bush in hopes of restoring a national consensus on the controversial oil exploration plans.

The ban, drafted by Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), vastly expands a long-standing prohibition on new drilling off Southern and Northern California. It adds Central California to the off-limits list for the first time and imposes new one-year drilling bans off sensitive areas of the coasts of Alaska, Florida and six Mid-Atlantic states.

In addition, it launches Congress’ first attempt to roll back the territory already claimed by drilling operations, requiring the Interior Department to consider buying back a substantial tract of sea floor already leased to the oil companies in Alaska’s Bristol Bay for more than $95 million.

Although the drilling moratorium surmounted what had been expected to be a major hurdle last week when it was easily approved by the House Appropriations Committee, the Bush Administration had planned to ambush the effort when it reached the full House.

But Administration officials said that they were forced to abandon that effort after finding that support from traditional quarters had crumbled under the weight of public opinion turned increasingly antagonistic to oil exploration. A final blow was dealt by television images of a crippled Exxon Valdez trailing a miles-long oil slick in the waters off San Diego Bay on Tuesday night, the officials said.

As a result, the House debate on the moratorium--a prolonged and contentious fight when the issue has been discussed in previous years--Wednesday bore the unmistakable aura of a fait accompli as the Republican congressman leading the opposition to the drilling ban yielded much of his time to colleagues supportive of the measure.

No Separate Vote

No attempts were made to delete the drilling ban from the legislation, and no separate vote was taken on the issue.

The easy victory for the drilling moratorium in the House shifted the locus to the Senate, where Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) vowed to lead the campaign for a drilling ban over what Administration officials characterized as a long-shot effort to halt it.

While the Senate previously has exhibited hostility to anti-oil efforts, an aide to Wilson said that the senator believes public sentiment has swung against drilling to such a marked extent that the moratorium should win decisive approval.

A presidential veto of the drilling ban would be out of the question because of the importance of the spending bill to which it is attached, White House officials said.

The specter of oil spills hovered over much of the House discussion Wednesday, as proponents of the drilling ban warned of the dangers of undertaking new risks in oil exploration while Administration allies touted the demonstrated safety of offshore oil.

Panetta, whose bill covers an area 100 times greater than the first moratorium he authored in 1981, described the sweeping House action as reflective of “growing public concern and anger over the failed promises that oil spills can be contained.”

But his chief adversary on the issue, Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), warned that the provision would leave the United States ever more dependent on foreign oil and “headed down the same road” that led to the devastating gasoline lines and energy crises of the 1970s.

And another powerful advocate of oil interests, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) adopted the rallying cry of earlier contentious energy fights when he said of oil moratorium advocates: “Let ‘em freeze in the dark!”

If finally enacted, the moratorium would severely limit the influence of the White House task force appointed by Bush to advise him on whether drilling should proceed in controversial Lease Sale 91 off Northern California and Lease Sale 95 off Southern California, and in another area off Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The task force has been instructed to make recommendations to Bush by the end of the year. Under the moratorium, however, the department would be unable to act until October, 1990, leaving Congress time to challenge any Administration-backed drilling plans that it still might find unacceptable.

The moratorium approved by Congress likely would delay any new federal drilling activity off California well beyond the autumn of 1990 because it includes added protection barring the government from beginning even prelease activity.

That provision most likely would affect Lease Sale 119, a massive tract off Central California, where the auction of drilling rights almost certainly would be stalled until 1992.

The $11.1-billion Interior appropriations bill includes some $220 million more than the Administration had requested, largely because of additional spending on national parks approved after a procession of 350 congressmen appeared before a House committee to request special grants for parks in their areas.