Battle Over Oil Drilling Expands to New Front With Forest Proposal

A fight over opening the Los Padres National Forest to oil and gas development is expected to heat up in coming months, turning the long-standing battle over oil drilling anywhere near this coastal city into a two-front war.

Even as they continue their highly publicized efforts to block further drilling in the area’s coastal waters, state environmental groups and political leaders are gearing up for an escalation of the less-publicized showdown over the future of local wilderness areas.

The fight over oil and gas leases in large areas of Los Padres pits the U.S. Forest Service against a coalition of environmental groups, as well as California’s U.S. senators, both Democrats, and U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, a Santa Barbara Democrat.

“It’s going to be an uphill fight for us,” said Keith Hammond, communications director for the California Wilderness Coalition, which opposes the forest leases, as does the Sierra Club. “We have an administration that wants this, and now we have a Republican Congress.”

The Forest Service has identified about 140,000 acres in southern portions of the Los Padres forest as “high energy areas,” Hammond said. Current restrictions against road-building in the forests could limit that area to 40,000 acres, he said. But ways also could be found to bypass the current road-building bans.

“The whole world knows about the offshore drilling issue in Santa Barbara,” Hammond said. “People in Santa Barbara County now see this as a two-front war. But almost nobody else has even heard of the forest plans.”

Among the earliest critics of the forest development proposal was Capps , who wrote last January to voice her opposition, declaring: “The U.S. Forest Service must not take this action.” Los Padres Supervisor Jeanine Derby responded in February, saying that federal law dictates that the Forest Service should encourage development of minerals on federal lands.

There were more exchanges early in the year, with U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) urging the Forest Service to put environmental interests above those of the oil industry. They noted that there are 20 imperiled species in the areas involved, including condors.

Meanwhile, the Forest Service proceeded with its own study, concluding that environmental concerns could be satisfied while opening new areas of the forest to oil and gas leases.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has requested additional information, and will then have about four months to either endorse or reject drilling plans.

Boxer will be reintroducing a bill early in January to designate permanent wilderness areas where roads could not be built to open up oil fields, Hammond said.

But that would not protect the entire forest: About 40,000 acres are near existing roads.

Capps said last week that she will fight any drilling plans, using congressional power to deny funding if necessary.

Capps said she has qualms about the next moves in the battle, because “there’s a pattern of making decisions behind the scenes” in the Bush administration.

A White House spokesman, Ken Lisaius, responded that “the president works with members of both parties in Congress on national issues.”

Hammond said a lawsuit would be the final recourse by environmental groups. But, he said, the Los Padres might get a reprieve, because “oil companies aren’t exactly beating down the door to get in there.”

Jeff Wilson, a spokesman for the 36-member Western States Petroleum Assn., agreed with that assessment.

“Any future interest by a company -- small, medium or large -- would be very cautious,” Wilson said. “There would be no large-scale drilling operations destroying the environment.”

While trying to build support to block the Forest Service proposals, Capps and Boxer were also urging President Bush to drop further appeals of a decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirming California’s right to approve new oil and gas exploration.

They called on administration officials to assist in terminating 36 undeveloped oil leases along the state’s Central Coast.

“The people on the Central Coast have made it very clear that we don’t want any more oil drilling,” Capps said.