The State : Sea Sanctuary Designated

President Bush has formally designated a 397-square-acre region off Northern California as a national marine sanctuary, outlawing oil, gas and mineral exploration there. Bush signed a House-Senate resolution to implement the ban in the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, offshore from Point Reyes, in what is considered one of the West’s most sensitive marine regions. The move brought praise from Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), who urged a permanent ban on oil and gas drilling for all marine sanctuaries as proposed in legislation she has sponsored with Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey). The sanctuary lies within an area that covers a massive part of the outer continental shelf, where oil exploration could have begun as early as 1991 without the ban.