Wilson Criticizes U.S. Over Oil Drilling Plans : Environment: Governor says federal program reneges on an agreement to exclude some area offshore tracts from future leasing.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday complained that the federal government has failed to alter its plans for oil drilling off the Ventura County coast or to adopt other “vital changes necessary to protect California’s precious coast.”

The Republican governor warned that federal plans to open 500,000 more acres to drilling off Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties will lead to “inevitable disagreements” between the state and federal governments.

In a letter Thursday to Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., Wilson said that the Department of the Interior’s plans renege on a previous agreement to exclude some of the proposed 87 three-square-mile tracts from future leasing because of their “high environmental sensitivity.”

“Yet, with the proposed program, these tracts and the equally sensitive areas surrounding them are once again on the table . . . ,” Wilson wrote.

To ignore his suggested changes to the plan, he said, “only means we will continue to devote the energies of the state, federal and local agencies to rehash the same old issues.”

Wilson’s letter came in response to learning that the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service has not heeded his advice to delay drilling on existing leases and to halt all new leasing until the federal government completes various environmental studies and commits to basic environmental safeguards.

Dena Winham, a Minerals Management Service spokeswoman in Camarillo, said President Bush promised last year that the 87 tracts would be subject to “intensive environmental studies, and they would not be considered for leasing before January, 1996.”

Furthermore, she said Wilson is reacting to the second draft of the agency’s five-year plan for offshore oil production. “The final plan will be further refined based on comments we received,” she said.

Wilson’s comments are the latest development in the continuing struggle for control of California’s outer continental shelf, the federal waters between three and 15 miles off the coast. The battle has continued since former Interior Secretary James Watt threatened to open the entire continental shelf to drilling in the early 1980s.

In June, 1991, President Bush attempted to defuse the emotional issue with a promise to ban drilling along 99% of the state coastline until 2000. But the president also decided to press forward with leasing 87 tracts in the Santa Barbara Channel because they sit atop an estimated 330 million to 660 million barrels of oil.

Wilson long has opposed offshore oil development. As a U.S. senator, he joined in an annual ban imposed by Congress on any new offshore leasing.

Now, as governor, he carries even more clout in the debate because federal law dictates that the Minerals Management Service consider the comments from governors of states affected by the service’s offshore drilling plans.

Wilson’s approach is a departure from the policies of his predecessor, former Gov. George Deukmejian, who favored offshore drilling in many areas.

In his letter to Lujan, Wilson restated his belief that the environmental risks of offshore oil development outweigh the benefits to the nation’s energy needs.

Full development of the state’s offshore oil reserves would generate 150 million barrels of oil a year, Wilson said.

In comparison, he said, California’s new auto-emission standards are projected to save more than 180 million barrels of crude oil annually.

The governor suggested that California can more than offset the need for the 150 million barrels through energy conservation and developing alternative sources of energy.