Offshore Drilling Ban Is Revived by House Panel

A ban on new offshore oil drilling along the coast of California was rescued Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee, foiling an attempt to renew gas and oil exploration for the first time in 14 years.

A bipartisan team of lawmakers from several coastal states--who lobbied colleagues through the weekend and tallied votes into the final hour--rejoiced over the 33-20 decision. The vote to put the drilling ban in this year’s Interior Department spending bill soundly reversed the Interior subcommittee that rejected it just one week ago.

“Our beautiful coastlines are too important to endanger with oil drilling,” said Rep. Frank Riggs, a Republican from the Northern California town of Windsor who helped lead the fight to reinstate the moratorium. “Today’s vote was a major victory for our coasts, our economy and the people of California who are united behind keeping the ban in place.”

Environmental groups were pleased by Tuesday’s action, but cautious, given the GOP’s resolve this year to repeal or rewrite a number of landmark environmental laws.

Activists cautioned that the oil drilling battle is far from won. “Those who treasure America’s fragile coastal ocean waters can breathe a little easier today. . . . However, it would be a serious mistake to assume this fight is over,” said Andrew Palmer, spokesman for the Santa Monica-based American Oceans Campaign.

“The moratorium must still clear the full House and Senate before it is signed into law,” he noted. “We are about one-third of the way there.”

It was newly empowered Republicans who led last week’s effort to lift the moratorium that has, since 1983, spared much of the East and West coasts and the Gulf of Mexico from new oil and gas exploration in federal waters.

But it was also Republicans from California and Florida who helped lead the fight to save the ban, creating a bipartisan coalition that resisted pressure from oil interests and a persuasive GOP leadership.

So strident was the opposition that House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, the No. 3 House Republican, made a rare committee appearance to oppose the moratorium. Committee Chairman Robert Livingston (R-La.) laid down his gavel during debate in an unusual move that allowed him to vigorously oppose the ban.

Supporters of oil development argued that failure to explore the Outer Continental Shelf would increase American dependence on foreign crude. They blamed the moratorium for 440,000 lost jobs.

They decried a continuing ignorance of the extent of national oil resources, which cannot be accurately measured without the coastal exploration the ban prohibits. Only 2% of all ocean spills can be traced to offshore rigs, they said, with the greater risk posed by tankers that import foreign oil.

“The Lord spills more through natural seepage” than the derricks do, declared Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), stirring memories of the 1978 “oil shock” that sent the nation into a panic. “This is a resource of all the people. . . . If we have an energy problem, this body will be only too quick to want to do something about drilling.”

But Democrats united in favor of the ban, joined by Republicans who noted that the moratorium still leaves 75% of the nation’s unexplored reserves unrestricted. They warned that lifting drilling restrictions could devastate billion-dollar tourist industries in California and Florida.

“We really don’t have to have the experience of some of the other states where you walk on the beautiful beach and get tar on the bottom of your feet,” said C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.).

Although the Florida delegation was united in support of the moratorium, the ever-divided Californians were split, with only 30 of the 52 House members coming out in support of the ban. Even in the Appropriations Committee, with seven California members, it was touch-and-go for a while. Observers wondered if Reps. Jerry Lewis of Redlands and Ron Packard of Oceanside--both subcommittee chairmen--would defy Chairman Livingston, a move that could have political consequences.

But in the end, after a vote carefully timed to ensure that every conceivable supporter was in the room, all seven Californians came together to back the moratorium.

“I want to reassure voters living in California that they will not see oil rigs along our valuable coastline,” Packard said later.

The strategy now is to make the ban permanent, sparing California the anxiety of a battle that is certain to be repeated yearly as long as Republicans control Congress. Riggs has authored two bills--one calling for a ban on drilling off California and Florida through 2000 and another permanently outlawing all drilling on the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf.

Riggs was optimistic that a broader ban could be won in this session. But environmental activists, who were unable to sell Congress on the idea even when it was controlled by Democrats, put the odds of passage at slim to none.

“The key people in those committees that would have to pass the legislation have a long history of supporting oil development,” said Palmer of the American Oceans Campaign. “What we could hope to get out of this Congress would be at best very minimal, and I would think there is a likelihood we will not get anything.”

In other action, an effort by Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) to restore $600,000 to the National Park Service to run the newly created Mojave National Preserve failed by a vote of 31 to 17.

At the urging of Rep. Lewis, whose district includes the Mojave, the subcommittee had voted last week to give the park service just $1 to run the preserve, and gave the remaining $599,999 to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.

The funding switch gives the land management bureau the money to keep running the Mojave as a multi-scenic area without the restrictions against off-road vehicles, mining and ranching that the National Park Service now enforces. Essentially, it makes the Mojave a preserve in name only, threatening a portion of last year’s California Desert Protection Act.

“Jerry Lewis’ de-funding of the National Park Service for the Mojave National Preserve has gone from snit-fit to vendetta,” remarked Elden Hughes, Sierra Club spokesman in Whittier. “One wonders if he could manage his office with $1.”