Oil Moratorium No Threat

The oil industry’s friends in Congress would have Americans believe that a proposed new moratorium on offshore oil leasing along the California coast will plunge the United States into another energy crisis. That is far from the truth. The agreement worked out in a Senate-House conference committee last week will not delay leasing activity more than a few months at most beyond the end of the existing moratorium and a new year’s delay previously agreed to by the Senate and House.

The moratorium now in effect was not created by environmentalists or California members of Congress, but by the Bush Administration to fulfill a political promise made by Bush while campaigning for California votes last year. Bush suspended leasing activities while a presidential task force studied the Department of the Interior’s present program, assessed the potential for oil and the need for the oil and examined the environmental impact of such drilling.

The Bush delay affected pending Lease Sale 95 off the Southern California coast and Lease Sale 91 off the North Coast. Also tied up by the amendment worked out this past week to the Interior appropriations bill is a Central California lease sale scheduled for 1991. The new moratorium gained momentum because of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska last March. While there have been delays on leasing for much of the California coast over the past eight years, this is the first time members of Congress also have voted to restrict the pre-leasing activity that is conducted by the Minerals Management Service, an agency in the Interior Department.

The Senate had supported a one-year moratorium on granting of leases to oil companies to explore and drill in the outer continental shelf, but opposed any restrictions on pre-leasing activity. The House voted for a one-year ban on pre-leasing activities. The two-house conference agreement,at the insistence of Rep. Bill Lowry (R-San Diego), retained the pre-leasing restrictions, but limited them to five months. Lowry said this would allow time for study of the presidential task force recommendations, expected in January, before pre-leasing work resumes.

Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) complained that the opposition of California members of Congress had been allowed to supersede the national interest. But having more potential accidents like the Exxon Valdez is not in the national interest, either. In fact, the Interior Department can proceed with drafting environmental impact reports and do some other lease-sale studies in the interim. The pre-leasing delay mostly will affect the proposed sale off the Northern California coast, where there doesn’t seem to be enough oil to justify leasing anyway.

If oil is found in the more distant areas from shore contained in the forthcoming lease sales, it most likely would be transported to shore facilities by tanker. The federal government therefore must reassess such leasing plans with greater consideration for tanker safety and oil-spill cleanup in the light of lessons learned in Alaska.

A five-month delay in pre-lease activity for this purpose and to consider the Bush task force proposals is not inappropriate. The additional time also will give the Administration and the public an opportunity to consider the prospects for oil off the California coast within the broad perspective of national energy supply and demand, which is now being reviewed by the Department of Energy. What effect might there be, for instance, if air-quality legislation calls for a major shift to alternative fuels? Only with all this information on hand can the Administration make a truly informed and balanced assessment of the benefits and risks of offshore oil development.