POLITICS AND LEASING OF THE OCS

There are two ways to look at the 5 year Outer Continental Shelf lease sale schedule that the U.S. Minerals Management Service unveiled in the shadow of weightier news events late last month. One has to do with what a leasing plan at this point in U.S. history should be. The other concerns the broader energy policy puzzle in which OCS leasing inevitably must fit.

March 18, 1991

3 min read

In terms of what a federal offshore leasing plan should be, this one fails. It does not make enough offshore acreage available for lease quickly enough. It therefore cannot live up to statutory requirements that the government provide for the prompt exploration and development of the country's offshore petroleum resource.

SADDENING REALITY

The plan does, however, reflect a saddening political reality. Coastal states other than Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Alaska do not want oil and gas drilling to occur in federal waters off their shores. They do not care how carefully oil companies work. They do not care how many wells have been drilled offshore without serious mishap. They do not care about constant advances in the technology of drilling safety. They do not want drilling to occur in federal waters off their shores-period. And Congress has obliged them by withholding funds from lease sales they contest.

In the statutes, then, Congress instructs MMS, through the Department of Interior, to lease the OCS. In practice, it denies MMS the money to do the job. President Bush bowed to the political reality of this contradiction last June when he delayed eight controversial lease sales for a decade or more. MMS, with its anemic 5 year lease sale schedule, is just following through. In fact, Congress would have splintered anything more ambitious with budgetary moratoriums and may stymie some of the few sales MMS proposes now.

It's too bad. A country with a demonstrated need to produce more oil and gas should not preclude exploration and development of its best prospects. But a majority of residents on the East and West Coasts apparently don't share that view, even following U.S. participation in a war fought partly over oil. And because the antileasing view prevails, U.S. energy and consumer interests suffer.

There are, however, compensations. Specifically, there is the Bush administration's renewed push to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. MMS proposed its 5 year OCS lease sale schedule the same week the Department of Energy published a National Energy Strategy urging Congress to approve Coastal Plain leasing. Timing of the proposals creates the appearance of a deal: the OCS for ANWR. And the OCS sacrifice isn't total. Deciding not to fix what was not broken, MMS kept area-wide leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. It also sustained leasing off Alaska despite some trimming here and there.

A POLITICAL PLAN

The oil and gas industry should not dismiss the MMS proposal as an antileasing document. It's a political plan that at least keeps OCS leasing alive in politically perilous times. MMS statements accompanying the schedule and echoed in the NES hail the ability of industry to work safely offshore. They cite the importance of assessing and developing the OCS petroleum resource. The statements have missionary value, even if they won't convert many leasing opponents anytime soon.

Industry should regret the new OCS lease sale schedule less than it regrets a political climate that precludes anything better. Someday the climate may change. The fight now should be over ANWR. It's the fight industry has a chance to win. After the OCS sacrifice, it's the fight industry must win.