Kelly's complaint

It was one of those photogenic press conferences that politicians love. Speaking at the National Ocean Conference in Monterey, Calif., on June 12, President Bill Clinton stood on the Pacific shoreline and declared offshore oil and gas drilling threatens fragile coastal ecosystems. He announced an executive order banning leasing off most areas of the U.S. for another 10 years, although the current ban has not yet expired (OGJ, June 22, 1998, p. 32). The moratorium, extended until 2012, covers

June 29, 1998

3 min read

Patrick Crow
Washington, D.C.
[email protected]

It was one of those photogenic press conferences that politicians love.

Speaking at the National Ocean Conference in Monterey, Calif., on June 12, President Bill Clinton stood on the Pacific shoreline and declared offshore oil and gas drilling threatens fragile coastal ecosystems.

He announced an executive order banning leasing off most areas of the U.S. for another 10 years, although the current ban has not yet expired (OGJ, June 22, 1998, p. 32).

The moratorium, extended until 2012, covers most of Alaska and all of the Lower 48 shoreline except the Gulf of Mexico off Texas and Louisiana.

Kathleen McGinty, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said drilling could continue in the central and western gulf because it "is less environmentally fragile."

Major newspapers reported that Clinton took a middle course between environmentalists wanting a total ban and oil companies wanting more leasing.

A letter

Paul Kelly, a Rowan Companies Inc. senior vice-president, sees it differently.

Kelly, who represented the oil industry as a speaker at the meeting, subsequently complained in a letter to Navy Sec. John Dalton, a conference co-chairman.

He said, "There was nothing in any of the panel presentations or in background documents leading up to the conference that would substantiate or justify the President's action."

Kelly said U.S. offshore drilling is a technological triumph that, in the past 20 years, has spilled less than 0.001% of the oil it produced.

He said Clinton's Monterey announcement was another instance where "Political decision-making prevailed over science, technology, and fact."

Kelly said the administration used the conference "to give luster and window dressing" to its own decision about offshore drilling, although that decision was not a conclusion of the conference.

Whipping boy

Kelly said Clinton barely mentioned the real cause of most ocean pollution-runoff from congested shoreline communities.

"Nevertheless, the President and the members of Congress from California on the beach with him chose to falsely attack everybody's favorite whipping boy, the American petroleum industry."

Kelly said Clinton's action preempted a Minerals Management Service program to use regional task forces to build trust between the federal government, coastal states, industry, and the environmentalists.

"When the President signed his executive order, the trust that had been established with the government was broken, without the stakeholders even having a chance to comment."

And he said McGinty's remarks "have spread far and wide along the Gulf Coast and rekindled regional resentment that these states bear all the responsibility and costs for offshore oil and gas production, while the states subject to the moratoria get a free ride."

Kelly said the Clinton administration revealed at Monterey that "its ocean policy initiatives ellipse will not be balanced but will favor extreme environmental interests over economic and strategic interests."