Countywide : Annual Drilling Ban OKd by House Panel

For the 10th year, a key congressional subcommittee on Thursday adopted a yearlong ban on opening new areas to offshore oil drilling along the coast of California.

The moratorium adopted by the House Appropriations subcommittee on the interior protects the entire state coastline for fiscal 1992. But such yearlong bans will not have any practical effect until 1994 when the federal government begins the steps required to lease 500,000 acres proposed for new drilling off the coast of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Last June, President Bush exempted 99% of the state coastline from new oil leases until the year 2000. At that time, however, he decided to make the 500,000 acres in the Santa Barbara Channel available for oil drilling, provided that studies find it can be done in an environmentally safe manner.

If the congressional moratorium is extended in future years as expected, it would prevent the government from beginning the two-year leasing process scheduled to start in 1994.

“In a couple of years, this congressional protection will essentially preempt the President’s decision,” said Richard Charter, an organizer of oil drilling opponents.

The congressional ban, Charter said, “provides a safety net for the entire state coastline including the national sacrifice area identified by President Bush” in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The yearlong moratorium, pushed by a majority of the California congressional delegation, is expected to sail through Congress as it has every year since former Interior Secretary James Watt proposed extensive drilling in California’s outer continental shelf.