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Bid to Lift Ban on Coastal Gas Drilling Halted

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 21:00 CDT

By David Whitney, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Oct. 4--Less than a week after a House committee agreed to legislation that would lift long-standing bans on offshore natural gas development, the measure is dead.

House Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, said he is looking for a compromise that won't force offshore development on states opposed to it. A committee spokesman said the legislation will not reach the House floor in its present form.

Last week, Pombo's committee agreed by voice vote to add to a post-Hurricane Katrina energy package a provision lifting congressional and presidential moratoria on offshore natural gas development.

Proponents, including Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, contended that natural gas is so expensive in the United States and so cheap elsewhere in the world that domestic manufacturing jobs are destined to move elsewhere unless large quantities of the fuel are developed soon to bring prices down.

The provision generated a tsunami of opposition from Florida.

"Eliminating the drilling ban poses a clear danger to our environment and an economy that are inextricably linked," 22 of Florida's 25 House members said in a letter to Pombo late last week.

Lifting the ban also was opposed by the state's two U.S. senators and Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother.

The moratoria, which have been in place for more than two decades, have stopped any new oil and gas development in federal offshore waters. The legislation last week would allow states to voluntarily opt out of the offshore oil drilling ban in exchange for a portion of the revenues, but for natural gas drilling all bans would have been immediately rescinded.

In California, the end of the natural gas drilling ban could have opened areas near Santa Barbara Channel and in the Eel River Basin off the coast of far Northern California to gas development.

The prohibition on offshore development has strong bipartisan support in California, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposed to lifting it. That means that even if incentives are extended to states to permit offshore drilling, California is not likely to accept the deal.

Last week's committee action was attacked by California Democrats as an effort to capitalize on Hurricane Katrina by rushing ahead with policies that have been rejected many times in the past.

Pombo announced to a group of environmental reporters over the weekend that ending the natural gas moratoria would go no further than last week's committee vote, and that he was searching now for a compromise with Florida congressional delegation.

What Pombo has in mind for natural gas is something similar to what's been proposed for offshore oil drilling -- a provision that requires a state's approval before any drilling in federal waters off its shores can occur.

"I believe the states should have ultimate authority over resource production, including the power to prevent it, in the deep waters off their coasts," Pombo said in a statement Monday.

"But the states should have the ability to make these choices for all forms of energy, not just one," he said. "I am working to make sure that is the case when this becomes law."

Committee spokesman Brian Kennedy said, however, that the energy package to which the natural gas provision had been added also is unlikely to advance on its own even if a compromise with Florida can be reached.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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