Federal Panel Seeks List of Potential Coastal Sites for Natural Gas Drilling

A federal advisory panel Thursday urged the Bush administration to identify the five most promising areas to drill for natural gas in coastal waters off California and other states, which have been off limits to drilling for nearly 20 years.

Citing the nation’s unmet energy needs, the advisory group to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton suggested that locating the top reservoirs of natural gas would help determine if there “are grounds and support for a limited lifting of” moratoriums on offshore drilling. The ban now covers 610 million acres of ocean off the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

If adopted by Norton, it would be the first attempt to overturn the moratoriums on offshore oil and gas development adopted shortly after her mentor, former Interior Secretary James G. Watt, proposed opening the entire U.S. coastline to drilling in the early 1980s.

To thwart Watt’s plans, Congress adopted the first moratorium on offshore drilling in 1982 and has renewed it every year since. President Bush’s father embraced the drilling ban as part of his own environmental program in 1991, and Bill Clinton extended the presidential ban on drilling to 2012.

Norton had no immediate comment on the matter, said spokeswoman A.B. Wade, other than “she is supportive of the president’s views” on offshore drilling. President Bush supported the drilling bans off California and Florida during his election campaign.

The recommendations of the advisory panel, called the Outer Continental Shelf Policy Committee, were immediately criticized by environmentalists and members of California’s congressional delegation.

“Basically, it’s a Trojan horse designed by the oil industry and oil states to lift the moratorium,” said Warner Chabot of the Center for Marine Conservation and the lone environmentalist on the policy committee.

About 50 House members sent a letter to Bush on Thursday to advise him of their “deep and unwavering opposition” to oil drilling in fragile coastal waters.

“Many of us represent areas whose economies rely on vibrant coastal communities,” the letter said. “Tourism is a major industry for these areas and a staple of their economies. . . . Offshore oil drilling directly threatens this economic engine, and the people of these communities know it.”

The policy document weighed the nation’s supply of fossil fuels against demand. It concluded that federal waters--at least three miles from shore--called the outer continental shelf “should be viewed as a significant source for increased supply of natural gas to meet the national demand for the long term.”

A report that accompanied the recommendations shows that the eastern Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast had the largest reserve of natural gas, followed by Southern California and then various spots along the Atlantic coast.

Richard Charter, a marine conservation specialist for Environmental Defense, speculated that the two most attractive areas for gas drilling off California would be the Eel River Basin near Eureka and the waters off Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County.

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