Countywide : Ban on Offshore Oil Leasing Extended

The House of Representatives approved a one-year extension Thursday to a moratorium on offshore oil leasing, including tracts in waters off Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

The extension, approved as part of a spending package for the federal Interior Department, bars the department from planning or executing oil leases in coastal waters until at least Oct. 1, 1993.

Areas covered by the ban include coastal waters off California, Oregon, Washington state, New England, the mid- and south-Atlantic coastline, near the Florida Keys and off the Florida panhandle.

Restrictions on offshore oil leasing were first drafted in 1982 and have been extended each year since then by Congress, said Richard Charter, director of the California Local Government Coordination Program.

The California congressional delegation has pushed the moratorium as a safeguard even though President Bush has postponed any new oil leasing off the coast of California until the year 2000.

Renewal of the moratorium followed House passage of an energy policy bill that incorporates bans on new oil leases until the year 2002. The Senate is expected to take up the energy bill within days.

But the one-year extension keeps coastal waters off limits until the energy bill becomes law, Charter said. “Until the completed energy bill is signed into law by the President, the yearly moratorium is an absolute necessity,” he said.