Preserve the Treasure

To listen to Bush Administration officials, the unwary would think that the only thing standing between the United States and a new energy crisis is the obstinacy of elitist Californians who refuse to let the oil companies drill in their coastal waters for the plentiful oil that will make the nation energy independent.

The record is to the contrary. The misleading argument clouds the Administration’s commendable efforts to develop a truly balanced national energy policy. It overlooks decades of California offshore oil production and implies that California is being all but unpatriotic if it does not provide as much energy as the state consumes. California is No. 4 among the states in oil production, meeting nearly 60% of its own needs. There are promising portions of the California outercontinental shelf that can and should be drilled, but federal officials have shunned reasonable compromise proposals from California congressional leaders in recent years. Still, there is not enough oil off the California coast, by anyone’s estimates, to make a significant dent in foreign imports.

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. and Energy Secretary James D. Watkins picked California this week to attack a proposed one-year moratorium on offshore oil leasing. The proposal, given momentum by the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska, has passed the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate. Both men insist they do not want to permit drilling in a manner that puts the environment at risk. But both left the impression that efforts to free the nation from the yoke of Middle Eastern imports were doomed if exploration off the coast were delayed for any reason.

Their campaign ignores history. During 1963-1984, the Department of the Interior offered 10 million acres of California coast for lease. Oil companies bid on, and leased, 2.8 million acres of that. Many leases have lapsed because the firms chose not to drill on them, but nearly 800,000 acres remain available for drilling. There are 21 working oil platforms in federal waters from Orange County to San Luis Obispo. The firms have drilled 633 wells, producing nearly 400 million barrels of crude. Production has increased about three-fold since 1980, but exploration has declined because of depressed oil prices. Since prices have increased recently, firms are focusing on foreign areas because of the the prospects for bigger discoveries.

The Administration claims the moratorium leaders are pursuing the wrong target because offshore drilling is safe while the culprits of recent spills have been tankers. Refusal to drill off the U.S. coast will only require more foreign imports that are brought in by tankers, they claim. But Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a vigorous proponent of the moratorium, counters that oil from remote oil rigs proposed in planned lease sales would be shipped by tanker and not by pipeline as with most existing platforms. And he notes that the potential oil available--an estimated 155,000 barrels a day at full production--is not going to establish U.S. independence from imports. The latest report of the Harvard Energy Project says that “there is no domestic solution” to imports as long as the United States consumes 6 million barrels a day more than it produces. Untapped oil reserves in Kern County could amount to three times the offshore potential, a state energy commissioner has said.

There is more at risk than spills. Studies indicate drilling can have a major impact on fishing and tourist industries. The air pollution from 10 new platforms would equal that of 144,000 additional autos in the South Coast air basin, according to studies by the Southern California Assn. of Governments for Los Angeles and Orange counties. Yet federal officials have refused to yield to local air pollution-control standards.

California must, and will, contribute its share of national energy needs. But in doing so, it must not be forced to subject its irreplaceable coastal environment, a true national treasure, to unnecessary risk.