State Can Bar Offshore Drilling, Judge Rules

A federal judge has effectively blocked new oil drilling off the California coast, ruling that state officials must first decide whether such drilling would impair the surrounding environment.

The landmark decision by a U.S. District Court judge in Oakland bars exploration in undeveloped tracts in federal waters off the state’s coast until the California Coastal Commission reviews the impact on water quality, marine life, air quality and scenic vistas.

The ruling could set the stage for a showdown between Gov. Gray Davis and President Bush over energy policy. Davis is a longtime opponent of offshore drilling; the Bush administration released an energy plan last month that seeks ways to dramatically expand domestic oil supplies, including offshore drilling and development of petroleum deposits in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Davis and several environmental groups filed a lawsuit two years ago to block development of 36 offshore oil leases stretching from Port Hueneme to San Luis Obispo.

While state and federal moratoriums prohibit new offshore oil drilling, they do not apply to dozens of oil fields that were never opened to production, many of which were leased between 1968 and 1984. Oil companies and the Department of the Interior under the Clinton administration decided to let companies begin exploration on those leases, a prelude to oil and natural gas extraction, on the grounds that states had no oversight role at such an early phase of work.

But in a 23-page decision, Judge Claudia Wilken ruled Wednesday that federal law allows California to decide whether drilling is consistent with the state’s coastal protection law.

The House of Representatives this week voted to block oil and gas development off the Florida coast and in national monuments. The vote by a broad, bipartisan coalition was an early sign of trouble for the administration’s energy plan.

Environmentalists were jubilant over the court decision in California. Among those who joined in the lawsuit were the League of Coastal Protection, the Environmental Defense Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Those leases are outdated, and this is the first time any state has won the right to review an extension of a federal offshore oil lease,” said Susan Jordan, a director of the League for Coastal Protection. “This gives us another weapon in our arsenal to prevent future drilling on the coast.”

Peter Douglas, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said the situation today on the California coast is dramatically different than it was when the oil fields were leased to industry for more than $1 billion. In the last 30 years, sea otter populations have been declining, marine sanctuaries have been established and beach tourism has accounted for a substantial part of the state’s economy.

Douglas said the commission will proceed with a review expected to last several months to ensure that new drilling activities conform to the California Coastal Act. The Davis administration maintains that the leases are so old and so much at odds with coastal protection efforts that many of them should be allowed to expire.

Today, no drilling is underway in the undeveloped tracts, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service. But the agency released its environmental review last week of drilling plans in five of those tracts. The court, in effect, said that the review itself is not enough and put the drilling plans on hold.

“We’re delighted with the court’s decision and the opportunity to ensure California’s coastal resources are protected,” Douglas said. “This puts everything on hold.”

Oil production already underway offshore in state waters and developed federal tracts is not affected by the court decision.

Officials of the Interior Department could not be reached late Thursday. A spokesman for the Minerals Management Service, which oversees oil exploration on the outer continental shelf, declined to comment until the agency has studied the court decision.

The decision affirming the Coastal Commission’s jurisdiction over offshore oil leases comes on the heels of another court decision challenging the commission’s jurisdiction.

In April, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that the 30-year-old agency is unconstitutional as currently configured. The court ruled in that case that the Legislature appoints too many commissioners to an agency that is part of the executive branch. The Davis administration has appealed that ruling.

More than 1 billion barrels of crude oil lie untapped in the undeveloped tracts along the California coast--more than has been pumped from the state’s ocean waters in the last century. Yet drilling on the coast has been a political anathema for Republicans and Democrats for a generation. Once oblivious to the dangers of spills, the state’s populace was rudely awakened in 1969 when a spectacular platform blowout dumped barrels of crude on the Santa Barbara coast and beyond, an event the ignited the modern environmental movement.

The Interior Department and oil company officials maintain that technological advances in the last 30 years make oil drilling a safer endeavor than it was a decade ago. They say that computers, slant-drilling techniques and rapid-response cleanup programs make a major spill unlikely.