Bush Bars New Offshore Oil Leases Off 99% of Calif. Coast and Florida : Calls for More Steps to Save Environment Before Year 2000

President Bush, in a politically sensitive decision, today barred new oil leasing off much of California and Florida, the North Atlantic coast, Washington and Oregon until after the year 2000. “Further steps to protect the environment are needed,” he said.

Bush also canceled planned government oil lease sales in an area stretching south from San Francisco to Monterey Bay and said he will permanently block any drilling in a 2,200-square-mile proposed marine sanctuary that lies within that region.

However, Bush said tracts in the Santa Maria Basin and Santa Barbara Channel off Southern California will be available for leasing consideration at the beginning of 1996 if studies show the environment can be protected there.

Southern California is the only area involved in Bush’s decision today where oil drilling is now going on.

“The combined effect of these decisions is that the coast of southwest Florida and more than 99% of the California coast will be off-limits to oil and gas leasing and development until after the year 2000,” Bush said.

Politically, Bush’s decision shores up his effort to portray himself as the “environmental President” and helps Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) in his run for governor this year. Opinion polls have shown that most Californians oppose offshore drilling.

Lisa Speer, senior staff scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, called Bush’s decision “a major step in the right direction.” But she said “it falls short in several crucial respects.”

Environmentalists want a permanent ban imposed on offshore drilling. Spear complained that Bush did not address some areas where lease sales are upcoming, including the Mid-Atlantic coast, North Carolina, New Jersey, Alaska’s Bristol Bay and northern Florida.

In the case of Florida, where the government already has sold 73 leases to oil firms in an area off the Florida Keys, Bush said he is directing Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. to begin a process that “may lead to the buy-back and cancellation of existing leases.”

Further, he said, “Any development after the year 2000 would be pursued only if it appears viable based on the guiding principles” of environmental protection, energy needs and significant potential for oil production.

Along the New England coast, Bush announced a delay that Administration officials already had signaled. He said a sale of leases in the Georges Bank area east of Cape Cod, Mass., will be canceled until at least 2000.

“This will allow time for additional studies to determine the resource potential of the area and address the environmental and scientific concerns which have been raised,” Bush said in his statement.

In California, Bush’s long-awaited decision calls for canceling all planned government sales in Northern California, and in Southern California south of the Santa Barbara Channel, so new oceanographic and socioeconomic studies can be conducted. These areas could not be considered for new leases until after 2000.