From: EcoNet via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
Subject: NEWS: Three Oil News Items
Followup-To: talk.environment
Date: 26 Aug 1992 22:54:09 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: jym@remarque.berkeley.edu

[From EcoNet ecotopia.news Conference]
 
Offshore Oil Drilling May Be Stopped For Decade 
 
by Sidney Dominitz 
 
Congressional conferees at July's end were working on companion
bills that could ban oil and gas drilling off the California
coast for the next 10 years.
 
With a repeat of a one-year "safety net" moratorium on drilling
already adopted by the full House and sent to the Senate,
members of both legislative chambers tried to work out
differences in their blockbuster energy bills.
 
The House version, adopted in May, includes a ban until the year
2002 on all new offshore drilling along the entire West Coast,
the entire East Coast, the west coast of Florida and within
Alaska's fishery-rich Bristol Bay.
 
The more-restricted Senate version, adopted last January,
contains drilling prohibitions only until the year 2000 and
does not protect the mid-Atlantic or south Atlantic areas.
 
More critical in terms of reconciling the two versions, the
House bill contains a provision for re-purchase of already
leased tracts near the Florida Keys, off North Carolina's Outer
Banks and in Bristol Bay.
 
One Year, At Least 
 
If bickering and filibustering sidetracks the energy package
until after the presidential election, the one-year moratorium
still could stop leasing activities until October, 1993.
 
An ebullient Richard Charter, who has been lobbying on behalf
of California coastal communities against leasing of the outer
continental shelf, said the imminent ban was "the harvest of 12
years of work."
 
If all drilling off any coast is banned until the year 2002, he
added, that would be "tantamount to permanent protection because
people will know by then that we can't mess up the planet any
further."
 
Within California, bills to support a coastal sanctuary and stop
offshore oil leases in state waters out to three miles, from San
Simeon to the Oregon border, were headed to a possible August
showdown.
 
Anti-drilling activists were calling for support for AB 10 by
Assemblyman Dan Hauser and AB 854 by Assemblyman Ted Lempert by
urging citizens to write their state senators at State Capitol,
Sacramento, CA 95814.
 
Skipper Gets Off 
 
In other oil news, and Alaska appeals court last month threw
out the misdemeanor conviction of Exxon Valdez skipper Joseph
Hazelwood, saying a provision of a 1972 law gives immunity to
those who report oil spills to the authorities.
 
Though the rule generally has been applied to operators of small
vessels that spill oil out at sea which otherwise might not be
discovered, the court ruled that it also applied to the worst
oil spill in U.S. history.
 
The Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into
one of the world's richest marine environments, Alaska's Prince
William Sound, during Easter of 1989.
 
The state attorney general said he would appeal, and complained
that the decision was "akin to a fellow murdering his wife, then
calling the police and by saying, 'I've murdered my wife,' is
immunized from prosecution."
 
Meanwhile crude oil production in the U.S. has dropped so much
that in May it reached its lowest level in more than 30 years,
less than half of what the country consumes.
 
Output from U.S. wells averaged 7.06 million barrels a day.
Imports averaged 7.9 million barrels a day.
 
Re-Refining 
 
One major refiner has begun turning used motor oil into
gasoline, thus adding to supplies and also meeting the
environmental problem of what to do with oil from industrial
plants, cars and lawnmowers.
 
Lyondell Petroleum said its Houston refinery, the nation's 10th
largest, is processing used oil at the rate of 7.5 million
gallons a year--and expects to quadruple output within months.
 
No new technology is needed, with the used oil piped into the
refinery's cracking unit -- which turns hydrocarbons into
fuels -- just like other feedstocks.
 
About 260 million gallons of used lubricating oil are dumped
each year down sewers and behind garages, and an additional 177
million gallons wind up in landfills.
 
(From ECONEWS, Newsletter of the Northcoast Environmental
Center, 879 9th St., Arcata, California 95521, U.S.A., August
1992. Non-profit reprints OK with credit to ECONEWS; we like
to see clips.)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive