Offshore Drilling Freeze Clears Subcommittee

A Senate subcommittee on Monday approved a moratorium on offshore oil drilling along most of the California coastline, as well as on millions of acres in Alaska and other areas, until October, 1990.

Approval by the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the interior increases the likelihood of a moratorium becoming law, but the measure still must pass the parent committee today and the full Senate later in the month.

The House recently approved a broader moratorium for 84 million acres of U.S. coastline, including all of California’s. Both measures would extend previous bans on drilling and are opposed by the Bush Administration, which favors increased offshore drilling as a way of lessening the nation’s reliance on foreign oil supplies.

The Senate moratorium would prohibit drilling within the off-shore tracts known as California Lease Sales 91 and 95, which extend from Morro Bay north to the state line and from Newport Beach south to Mexico.

Adopted on a voice vote as part of the Interior Department’s appropriations bill for fiscal year 1990, the Senate measure also bars offshore drilling along the Alaskan coast, which has been marred by the massive spill from the oil tanker Exxon Valdez.

California’s two senators hailed the subcommittee’s action as a significant victory for environmentalists.

“The pro-oil Senate subcommittee has never before gone on record favoring an offshore oil-drilling moratorium, and this subcommittee action today is a tremendous victory for the coalition that has fought for years to protect the California coastline,” said Sen. Pete Wilson, a Republican.

Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston called the moratorium “an important step toward total protection of a coastline we cannot and will not sacrifice.”

In a bow to the Administration, however, the subcommittee refused to impose a moratorium on preleasing activities off California, which include environmental studies undertaken by the government.

Interior Department spokesman Steve Goldstein called the rejection of the preleasing ban a victory for the Administration.

The House has approved a preleasing moratorium, which could delay the Interior Department’s oil-drilling schedule in areas not covered by a drilling ban. Such areas include Lease Sale 119, a large portion of the outer continental shelf off Central California.