by Richard Simon and Kenneth R. Weiss
03-10-05
Citing hurricane damage to the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico,
key lawmakers are trying to relax a decades-old federal ban on new drilling off
California and the Atlantic Seaboard and to encourage energy prospecting in the
Rocky Mountains. Congressional proposals also aim to waive some air pollution
rules to encourage expansion of oil refineries and to authorize oil drilling
beneath Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"Mother Nature proved just how vulnerable America is to supply disruption," said
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy). "We must do more
to increase and to diversify domestic supplies."
The legislation, likely to be voted on soon in the House, comes as oil- and
natural-gas-dependent manufacturers have urged Congress to reopen the "85 % of
all federally controlled coastal waters [that] are currently off-limits to
energy production."
"The nation is paying the price for concentrating so much of its energy
infrastructure in a small geographic area," wrote the American Gas Assn. and
more than 100 other petrochemical companies and manufacturers. "As we go about
the business of recovering from Hurricane Katrina… Congress has an opportunity
to reduce the nation's vulnerability to sudden energy shocks by expanding our
sources and supplies of energy -- especially in our coastal waters."
Yet opponents in Congress point to the 191,000 barrels of oil that have
gushed into the gulf from ruptured pipelines and hurricane-battered oil
facilities as a reminder of the difficult-to-contain disasters that can
accompany offshore production. Spills brought about by Hurricane Katrina amount
to about 80 % of the oil that despoiled Alaskan waters when the Exxon Valdez
tanker ran aground in 1989.
Some lawmakers, including Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida), worry that hasty
federal policy changes could expose fragile coastal environments, fisheries and
beach-dependent tourism to disaster risks.
"It keeps getting morethreatening all the time," Martinez said.
Others are incensed at what they consider raw opportunism to exploit high gas
prices and hurricane damage.
"This just looks like the oil and gas industry are shamelessly using the tragedy
of Katrina and Rita to try and push their special-interest agenda through
Congress," said Rep. Lois Capps, a Santa Barbara Democrat who represents a
district that experienced a devastating oil platform blow-out in 1969. "We need
to address our energy needs, but we don't need to jeopardize our environment and
economy to do it, and we shouldn't use a national tragedy as cover for bad
policy."
States control oil and gas drilling within three miles of their coastlines.
Federal waters begin where states' end and extend 200 miles off the coast. The
federal Minerals Management Service regulates drilling there. For more than two
decades, bipartisan lawmaker coalitions have resisted challenges to Congress'
ban on new offshore oil and gas leasing on the West and East Coasts and much of
Florida.
Congress first passed the moratorium in 1981 to cover waters off Northern
California and Massachusetts in response to then-Interior Secretary James G.
Watt's plan to open the entire outer continental shelf to new oil and gas
development. The ban was expanded in 1985 to include most of the rest of US
coastal waters and has been renewed every year since.
Earlier, the House Resources Committee approved Pombo's legislation to let
states "opt out" of the moratorium in exchange for a larger federal share of the
royalties. Supporters say that would be especially helpful to Louisiana, which
already allows offshore drilling and needs billions of dollars for
post-hurricane reconstruction.
Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) is promoting similar legislation. His state has
expressed an interest in opening its coastal waters to drilling.
The California Ocean Protection Council, speaking on behalf of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, requested in a letter to Pombo that "future congressional
legislation exclude any language that threatens this moratorium that has been
protecting our shores more than two decades."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush seems to favour much of Pombo's bill, especially a portion
that would allow Florida to adopt a permanent no-drilling buffer zone within 125
miles of the state's coastline.
Florida's members of Congress, many of them Republican, have been a critical
component of the bipartisan annual renewal of the congressional moratorium on
new offshore drilling, joining a number of Democratic lawmakers from California
and New England.
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Florida) said he and his colleagues were examining Pombo's
opt-out legislation to determine "whether we think it's a better deal than
Florida has now."
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Florida) said he believed the measure could strengthen the
state's hand in protecting its coastline: "I support Florida having the
opportunity to protect its own waters, thereby taking away the pressure from
other states from controlling what takes place in our waters."
Drilling foes worry that lawmakers who favour energy development have devised
a divide-and-conquer strategy to unravel the moratorium coalition.
"If, all of a sudden, the Florida delegation drops out of the equation, it makes
the rest of the country much more vulnerable," said Lisa Speer, senior policy
analyst for the Natural Resources Defence Council. "The coastal states that
don't want to see [outer continental shelf] development really need to hang
together, or they're going to hang separately."
The House Resources Committee's top Democrat, Nick J. Rahall II of West
Virginia, agreed that Pombo's bill endangered the moratorium.
"States that opt not to drill but are adjacent to those that choose to drill
will be vulnerable to the consequences of their neighbours' actions," he said.
Pombo's 168-page bill has scores of proposals to encourage energy development --
and remove obstacles -- both on- and offshore. It would allow new exemptions
from environmental rules, shorten public comment periods and limit lawsuits over
leasing decisions made by the Bureau of Land Management.
The bill proposes to kick-start the dormant shale oil industry by greatly
discounting the royalty rate that companies would pay in the first 15 years of
production. Shale oil is found in deposits in western Colorado. It would allow a
waiver of the National Historic Preservation Act on private lands, so that oil
and gas development could proceed without assessing potential effects on Native
American burial or archaeological sites.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) has advanced
his own package of incentives to build new refineries, including certain waivers
to the Clean Air Act.
A surprise amendment to Pombo's legislation, by Rep. John E. Peterson
(R-Pa.), would lift the offshore moratorium nationwide for companies seeking to
drill for natural gas. Pombo has expressed his concern about the amendment,
which seems to conflict with his strategy.
Supporters of energy development have been encouraged by a recent survey by the
Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, which found that 57 % of
respondents view it as more important to develop new energy sources than to
protect the environment.
The industry scored a victory this year with a requirement in the energy bill
signed by President Bush for an inventory of offshore oil and natural gas
resources.
The array of new energy proposals in the House may face strong resistance in the
Senate, according to energy industry lobbyists.
Source: Sun-Sentinel