State Senate OKs Tax for Cleanup of Oil Spills : Environment: A per-barrel levy would finance a $150-million fund. Oil companies also would provide a line of credit to deal with spills.

Warned that a catastrophic tanker spill off the California coast is an eventual certainty, the Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to tax oil companies $150 million to establish a cleanup fund.

In addition, petroleum companies would be required to provide the state with “unlimited” loans to help finance the high costs of containing and mopping up offshore spills, if necessary.

The bill sailed to the Assembly on a 34-3 vote. The Assembly already has passed a similar but less stringent bill of its own.

After further negotiations between the oil industry, environmentalists and others, a final version of the bill likely will be written by a two-house conference committee and forwarded to Gov. George Deukmejian, who has a substantially more modest oil-spill bill pending in committee.

Sen. Barry Keene of Benicia, Democratic floor leader and author of the Senate bill, cited the “alarming rate” of recent oil tanker spills, including the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, the American Trader off Huntington Beach and the Norwegian Mega Borg off the Texas coast.

“The question is not if we will have another major oil spill off our coast,” Keene warned. “It is when.”

Although state, local and federal agencies have oil-spill response programs, Keene said his bill would provide a more comprehensive and effective plan for spill prevention and clean up--along with the money to make it work.

The bill would levy a 25-cents-a-barrel tax on oil producers, except on small independent oil companies that turn out fewer than 500 barrels a day. The revenue would create a $150-million fund for oil-spill response efforts. In addition, oil companies would have to provide the state “unlimited” funds through a line of credit to pay for damage to the environment if existing cleanup revenues ran dry.

The prevention and response efforts would be coordinated by a new state office directed by a Department of Fish and Game official. Also, emergency response procedures would be developed at each oil transfer facility, and tankers would be subject to surprise safety inspections.

Historically, powerful oil lobbyists have easily and routinely killed offshore oil legislation that would tax the industry harder or subject it to what they consider unfair penalties.

But in the last couple of years, the petroleum industry has demonstrated greater flexibility as public support for environmental protection has grown stronger.

Corey Brown, of the environmentalist Planning and Conservation League, said after the Senate vote that oil company negotiators have demonstrated “good faith” in reaching a compromise.

Before passing the bill, the Senate defeated amendments that would have exempted inland oil producers from paying the offshore cleanup tax. But it did approve an amendment to grant limited immunity from lawsuits to oil-spill response workers whose “simple negligence” might cause property damage.