No License to Drill

The 1969 oil drilling blowout that covered miles of Santa Barbara beaches with gooey crude oil and filled the front pages nationally with photos of dying, tar-covered birds is far from forgotten. In California, the phrase “offshore drilling” is inseparable from that spill. A federal appeals court even cited it Monday in upholding the state’s authority to review the potential effect if the Bush administration were to try to allow new drilling in waters off the coasts of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties. If the ruling sticks, renewed drilling will be much harder and perhaps impossible.

State and federal governments have imposed moratoriums on new leasing in waters off the coast. But the orders do not affect 36 leases issued by the Interior Department in 1968 and 1984, and since extended. Some wells were drilled, but they were never put into production. The administration has indicated, over strong California objections, that it might permit new drilling in the tracts in federal waters beyond the three-mile state limit.

The administration argued that the state had no authority under 1972’s federal Coastal Zone Management Act to review the leases or prevent their development. Wrong, said the three-judge panel of the generally liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Its ruling scathingly noted that the 1969 spill “might have been avoided but for a failure of federal oversight.” The administration says it may appeal to the full nine-member court.

Instead, why not stop now? Californians are all but unanimous in opposing coastal oil drilling. The oil companies are fully aware of the trouble they’d face when they hauled out the next offshore rig. Besides, the area is far from an energy bonanza. Much of the oil is heavy, low-quality crude used mostly to make asphalt.

In passing the 1972 law, Congress made its intent clear, declaring that one of its purposes is “to encourage and assist the states to exercise effectively their responsibilities in the coastal zone through the development and implementation of management programs to achieve wise use of the land and water resources of the coastal zone.” Nothing can make those words into a federal prerogative to drill for oil.

The administration bought out similar leases off the coast of Florida, where President Bush’s brother, Jeb, was just reelected governor. It’s not likely to do the same for California.

One practical alternative does exist: Allow the oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast in exchange for the California leases. California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein support such a swap, as does the Louisiana delegation to Congress. Gulf drilling would probably produce far more oil than the California leases and would not generate such bitter opposition. Everyone -- Bush, Louisiana and California -- would win.