Not Now, Not Ever, Never

The Bush administration has picked the ultimate environmental fight with California. It is challenging the state’s right to review--and effectively block--the federal offshore oil leasing program. The energy companies that have the ear of the White House haven’t seen environmental zeal at work until it comes to Californians and the protection of their coast. The Clinton administration tried to reopen offshore exploration and lost, as will President Bush.

Even then-President George Herbert Walker Bush dared not interfere with a longtime ban on additional oil leasing off the California coast. One of the biggest advocates of the ban was Pete Wilson, the Republican senator and governor. Opinion polls regularly show that protection of the state’s 1,100-mile-long coast is an absolute priority with California voters. A major trigger of the entire environmental movement was the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill from an offshore rig.

The battle began under President Clinton. The Interior Department moved in 1999 to allow oil companies to explore and drill under 36 tracts off the coasts of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties that were leased between 1968 and 1984. The state countered that federal and state law gives the state Coastal Commission authority to review any new exploration or drilling proposals. Interior officials proceeded anyway. The state sued to stop them.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled for the state in June, holding that federal law does give California authority to determine whether drilling is consistent with the state’s Coastal Protection Act. Now, the Interior Department under Bush has moved to challenge Wilken’s decision in the federal appeals court. State Resources Secretary Mary Nichols says California is ready to fight in court for the state’s right to weigh the environmental impact of any further drilling.

We thought our coast, an invaluable public resource, was safe from more drilling. Californians will fight this battle as often as necessary.