April 1, 1971
Page 9163
By Mr. MUSKIE:
S. 1459. A bill to provide for the control and prevention of further pollution by oil discharges from Federal lands off the State of California. Referred to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.
SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL PRESERVATION ACT OF 1971
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, more than 2 years have passed since an oil well blew out on platform A of the Union Oil Co. in the Santa Barbara Channel. Today, wells are still leaking in the area; oil still threatens the California coast.
This situation exists because the Congress, in effect, has accepted the judgment of a special Presidential panel which concluded:
It is less hazardous to proceed with the development of the lease than to attempt to seal the structure with its oil content intact.
The special panel reported its recommendations more than a year ago, but residents of the area, reminded recently by the severe earthquake in Los Angeles, are still seriously concerned about the geologic conditions along the California coast.
And just last week, the U.S. Geological Survey published the draft of an environmental impact statement on exploratory drilling operations in the Santa Barbara Channel. Since 1967, 66 exploratory wells have been drilled on 30 of 72 leases issued to 22 oil companies.
The draft statement says flatly that “production platform drilling is not the subject of this environmental statement" But of what use, then, is an environmental impact statement on exploratory drilling? We need to know, we must know, what the effects of production platform drilling are going to be before not after a major investment in exploratory drilling is made.
We cannot afford to repeat the mistake of the Alaskan North Slope where billions of dollars have been invested in exploration without evaluation of the environmental effects of production and associated transportation of oil. The pressures to accept environmentally unacceptable alternatives is too great if environmental considerations do not precede economic commitments.
Even the language of the draft statement on exploratory drilling is far from reassuring. The draft says:
The exploration drilling program could result in an unfavorable impact on the aesthetic values of the Santa Barbara Channel only if a drilling accident should result in a major oil spill.
Minor oil pollution has long existed in the channel as the result of many natural oil seeps
It continues
No evidence yet exists of permanent damage to the environment from major oil spills, although extensive short-term damage to beaches and wildlife can occur....
The people of Santa Barbara believe that it may take years to relieve the oil pressure in the channel. I agree with them that the schedule of drilling and pumping of oil in the area should not be determined by the oil companies holding leases there.
For these reasons, Mr. President, I offer for reintroduction in the Senate today a bill providing for the orderly closing out of mineral development of the Outer Continental Shelf lands in the Santa Barbara Channel. The bill would:
First. Require the Interior Secretary to assume control and management of platform A and to take whatever action is necessary to prevent more blowouts and to stop seepage,
Second. Provide for the use of safe devices to reduce oil pressure and to collect oil in the area;
Third. Prohibit all new exploration or drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf lands in the Santa Barbara Channel:
Fourth. Close out permanently in an orderly and safe manner all oil operations in the area; and
Fifth. Provide for the orderly removal of all platforms from the area.
I ask unanimous consent that a statement on this issue by the Los Padres Chapter Executive Committee of the Sierra Club be included following my remarks.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
The Los Padres Chapter Executive Committee at a special meeting January 19, 1971 reaffirmed club policy on prohibition of oil development in the entire Santa Barbara channel region. The reaffirmation was in response to proposed new bills in Congress advocating a 38 lease oil-free sanctuary in the channel with a moratorium on development of the remainder of the 70 leases during an escrow period of the type originally proposed by the DuBridge Panel. The Committee rejected this proposal in favor of the club’s original position for a sanctuary to include all 70 leases, the principal recommendation of the bills on the channel in the last session of Congress.
The following policy recommendations are an outgrowth of the Committee's discussion and the club's existing policy on the channel oil problem. The club should consider support of these precepts and actions:
1. Reintroduction of legislation incorporating the cancellation principles of bills introduced last session of Congress. Deserving primary consideration is Senator Muskie'S legislation (S.3516).
2. Refunding of leases, if necessary as to both amount and source of payment based on court settlement.
3. Rejection of the Elk Hills trade as a means of repayment for channel leases. The Elk Hills field and other existing Naval Petroleum Reserves should remain undeveloped as production-ready resources in a National Defense Petroleum Reserve of the type proposed by Walter J. Mead and Philip E. Sorensen in their recent paper "A National Defense Petroleum Reserve Alternative to Oil Import Quotas".
4. Dedication of the channel as a whole in a petroleum reserve for purposes of conservation of oil for wiser uses (chemical and protein products), other than extravagant fuel consumption, and for the protection of the environment until some distant or near-distant future when oil can be removed safely from ocean waters. Such an Oil Conservation Reserve could be part of a national system differing in some ways from a national defense system in that the reserves would not
be earmarked necessarily for national defense nor would they necessarily be production-ready. The reserves, however, would function economically along the principles advocated by Mead and Sorensen as an alternative to import quotas.
5. Evaluation of administration proposal to reduce domestic oil production and increase importation of foreign oil (Jack Anderson, "Merry-Go-Round – White House Considers Plan to Import Oil and Cap Wells", Santa Barbara News Press, January 24, 1971). According to Anderson: "Crude oil producers with offshore Gulf of Mexico holdings would go ahead with their oil development. But instead of pumping the oil out, they would cap a large percentage of the pipes. In return for each barrel they keep in reserve they would get an extra barrel in quotas to bring in foreign oil.
"Under the quota system, the oil companies are allowed to import cheap foreign oil and sell it at domestic prices. The difference, normally about $1.25 a barrel, is made up by motorists at the pump," Anderson writes.
Variations on the administration proposal should be considered, specifically alternative allocations of the profit bonanzas the proposal would grant to the oil companies. A government tax, for example, might siphon off some of these profits for national and international crash studies on fuel policy and action programs.
6. Investigate the status of national and international fuel policy agencies, studies and programs designed to advance conservation of fuel resources, alternative power sources, consumer restraint in utilization of power, environmental protection in the face of mounting pollution from power sources, and related crucial immediate issues. The club itself, drawing upon the capabilities of its own membership, should form a study team to investigate these issues. The world fuel crisis and the attendant pollution has consumed much of the club's recent energies. References need be made to only a few of the issues: power lines, (Diablo, Calvert Cliffs), nuclear power plants, oil tanker collisions (S.F. Bay), oil platform accidents (Santa Barbara, Gulf Coast), pipelines (Alaska), oil development in wilderness (Santa Barbara Channel, North Slope), and thermal effects of conventional and nuclear power plants.
7. Development of overall policies on fuel development and consumption that recognizes the complex social, cultural, and technological interrelationship of all aspects of the fuel problem. Oil phased out of the channel possibly increases pressure for production in Alaska. Reduction of import quotas transfers the problem of on and offshore exploitation in the U.S. to the Middle East and other areas of ecological and economic concern and intensifies the pollution threat from tanker and pipeline disaster. An overall policy would include elements on alternative means of transportation, substitution of electronic communication for transportation (the "fourth revolution" – moving ideas instead of bodies), development of new fuel resources, the means of phasing in new energy program, and the paramount problem of population control. The environmental movement must develop its own initiatives in this field, process them through government, and in other ways encourage government and industry to take a stronger hand in the necessary research and development.