California Tracts Reported on New Oil Lease List

The Bush Administration has proposed allowing offshore oil and gas drilling in extensive areas off Alaska, Southern California, Florida and the East Coast, according to a published report today.

Most of the California coast and all of the southern Florida coast remain off limits under the plan. President Bush, responding to protests, previously banned drilling for 10 years for all but a small part of the California coast and the entire southern coast of Florida.

The New York Times report, quoting a copy of an Interior Department plan, said the Administration proposes to lease 87 tracts, covering about 800 square miles, along a stretch of the California coast from west of San Luis Obispo south to Santa Barbara.

While the plan specifies those tracts in which the Administration hopes to sell leases between 1992 and 1997, the general areas it includes come as no surprise.

With most of the Pacific Shelf, the Georges Bank area off New England and a large area off southern Florida barred from development for the rest of the century, the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Santa Barbara Channel represent essentially all that is left for potential development. The Administration repeatedly has stated its intention to open those areas for exploration.

Asked about the report, Interior Department spokesman Steven Goldstein confirmed that the five-year plan is nearing completion and is being circulated for final review by Adminisatration officials. Goldstein cautioned, however, that the plan remains subject to revision.

In addition to the California leases, the Interior Department proposes selling two Alaska drilling leases on the north coast of the Beaufort Sea in 1993 and 1996 and another two in the neighboring Chukchi Sea in 1994 and 1997, according to the report.

The report said the Administration would also probably offer Alaska lease sales in Cook Inlet near Anchorage, along the coast between Juneau and Prince William Sound and in four areas in the Bering Sea.

The areas proposed for exploration are part of Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentalists oppose oil drilling in the area.

The plan also proposes opening areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico as close as 10 miles to the Florida Panhandle in two lease sales in 1994 and 1997. Leases would be offered to the highest bidders on 200 tracts covering 1,800 square miles.

Off the East Coast, drilling leases would be sold in 1994 and 1997 on 250 tracts covering 2,250 square miles. In addition, the plan would let oil companies study the potential of finding oil and gas in 1,000 tracts covering 9,000 square miles in a coastal area extending from New Jersey to Georgia, the report said.