Decisions Without Facts on Drilling : End Run Around Environmental Studies Shuts Out the Public

For almost a decade Californians have been frustrated by the oil industry’s campaign to drill along our magnificent coast. Drilling would pollute our water, increase air pollution, destroy fisheries and endanger our coastal economy. But now we are faced with cause for outrage as factions in the U.S. Senate last week acted to eliminate environmental review and public hearings on the sale of Southern California drilling leases.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, without holding hearings on the matter, approved an amendment to waive the normally required environmental-impact statement and instead rely on statements written in 1983 and 1984 for other smaller lease sales in Southern California. The committee also agreed to accelerate the date for the lease sale to just over a year from now--a pace that exceeds even the Administration’s request.

The entire action is unprecedented, and it should be met by clamorous opposition in California. But the amendment is something more than an accelerated threat to our coastal environment and economy. Waiving the normal environmental-review process challenges the basic charter for environmental protection in this country.

The National Environmental Policy Act establishes the framework for environmental protection. The act sets the environmental-impact statement and public review as the pillars of this framework. Under this vital process an environmental statement is drafted, reviewed by federal agency experts and made available for public comment.

Interfering with the process weakens it and sets a dangerous precedent. The Senate committee action raises the specter of one day using old environmental-impact statements for all lease sales around the country.

More important, through its action the Senate committee has inserted itself in place of both the experts who would have written the statement and the many Californians who would have aired their views about it at public hearings.

Protection of our environment speaks to the fundamental quality of life to which we are all entitled. The National Environmental Policy Act was specifically created to guard that entitlement. When Congress arbitrarily acts to shut off the process, its decisions are planted in the politics rather than the substance.

Proponents of the amendment will argue that environmental review of offshore oil drilling has been exhaustive and that the old environmental-impact statements are sufficient because they covered the same geographic area. They maintain that further review will senselessly delay development of a vital energy resource.

Unfortunately, the proponents are confusing quantity and quality. Voluminous studies have never uncovered a way to protect our coastal environment or economy. Further, the statements that were developed five years ago do not accurately portray the effects of offshore drilling today. The old statements considered only portions of the south coast ecosystem rather than its entirety. The technology and technique used for building platforms and for drilling have changed. The state of our natural environment is different as well. The new lease sale will involve a very different set of circumstances, with effects that will differ greatly from those that were documented in 1983 and 1984.

The contention that California’s coast is crucial to the nation’s energy security has long been a self-serving argument of the oil industry. If it materialized at all, the expected petroleum potential would serve the nation for a matter of days, not the years or even decades that other sources promise. At the same time, opportunities for developing other, less environmentally disruptive, sources of energy have advanced markedly since the 1983 and 1984 environmental-impact statements reviewed the alternatives to drilling.

The amendment’s proponents may actually fear what a new statement would say. Recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed the environmental-impact statement for the Northern California lease sale and drew the following conclusion: “(The federal) Minerals management (service) has inaccurately painted a picture of a routine operation with few potential impacts when in fact offshore development in Northern California . . . is a high-risk operation . . . with potentially devastating impacts on coastal resources. Minerals management needs to reassess the potential impacts of their proposal (for the sale) and develop environmentally sound alternatives.”

For those who are genuinely concerned with protecting both the environment and an adequate energy supply, the National Environmental Policy Act is government at its best. It mandates a tried and true process, one not to be tampered with on political whim.

Until now the proponents of drilling had imperiled our coast. Now they challenge the basic tenets of environmental protection and public involvement. Shortly Congress will act on this legislation. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s acceleration of the lease sale and its bypass of the environmental process must be stopped.