Stealth Coastal Drilling Plan Takes Shape In US House - SF Chron

[hatrack]

"The powerful House Resources Committee, headed by a California Republican lawmaker, is quietly circulating what environmentalists call a "stealth strategy'' to overturn nearly a quarter-century of bans against new offshore oil and gas drilling along much of the U.S. coastline. The obscure draft legislation, called SEACOR, or the State Enhanced Authority for Coastal and Offshore Resources Act of 2005, would expand state control over energy development in offshore waters -- and at the same time eliminate the blanket West and East Coast moratoriums given by Congress since 1982. California and a dozen other states have depended on the hands-off policy to protect sensitive coastal waters against catastrophes such as the Santa Barbara pipeline blowout of 1969, which blackened beaches and killed countless numbers of birds and other sea life.

The measure, under the wing of the committee chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, has not been formally introduced in Congress, but it has been quietly making the rounds of industry groups for a year and a half. Trade groups such as the American Gas Association, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America and the American Iron and Steel Institute, which says it gave input to the House Energy Committee on preparing SEACOR, have been lobbying for its inclusion in a pending omnibus energy bill.

Last week, representatives of the House committee and the American Gas Association took the SEACOR proposal to the Coastal States Organization and the National Governors Association, calling it draft legislation that may be raised in connection with the energy bill, which goes before Congress next month. Environmentalists fear it could get slapped onto the energy bill in last- minute joint House-Senate conference meetings and become law without public scrutiny.

EDIT
In anticipation of the introduction of the energy legislation, 11 bipartisan senators from coastal states, including California Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, sent a letter last month to Rep. Pete Domenici, R- N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In the letter, they did not address the issue of SEACOR but said they were expressing "strong objection to any proposed provisions that would open currently restricted areas'' to offshore oil and gas exploration. The senators referred to language in a measure authored by Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., which would give the Interior secretary sole authority over approving energy development 200 miles off the U.S. coastline. Without a vote of approval from any congressional committee, the so-called Cubin amendment was previously put in the energy bill, where it remains for consideration again this year."

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/10/MNGHOBN6M11.DTL

[Coastie for Truth]

1. I live by the Donald Edwards Wildlife Preserve

(the very Southern Tip of SF Bay - the San Jose neighborhood of "Alviso") -- and if Pombo's Bill is tied in with a zero ramp up of CAFE to Prius or Mini-Cooper standards --and a fairly complete ban on non-business SUV's, I would kind of "hestiatingly" approve.

Wew have to wean ourselves from gas guzzlers -- or pay the price.

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