As for California, the Ocean Protection Act would forbid new drilling within 145 miles of the entire state coastline.
Barbara Boxer recognized and thanked the people of Mendocino County as the inspiration for this bill. Without the efforts of our county's Ocean Sanctuary activists, this Ocean Protection Act would not have been possible. Among the supporters of the bill are Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and the American Oceans Campaign.
Nearly all speakers supporting the Ocean Protection Act linked the need to protect the coast from offshore drilling with the need to develop a national energy policy using alternative energy and energy conservation.
The California Ocean Sanctuary and Fisheries Enhancement Act, HR48, supported and lobbied extensively for by Mendocino County activists, died this year in the house subcommittee on merchant marine and fisheries for lack of support. This was the second year that ocean legislation protecting only California had failed to get a hearing in Congress.
Rusty Norvell in the Jan. 11 Commentary blames the failure of this bill on the wrong lobbying approach by ocean sanctuary advocates. "Instead of going to Washington...we should have gone to Monterey, Carmel, Salinas and San Luis Obispo.. Legislators in Washington, D.C. aren't going to respond if they haven't first been lobbied by their own districts' voters. And for the most part, these voters in other parts of the county had never even heard of Ocean Sanctuary."
In his article, he laments that the ocean protection bill doesn't champion the concept of ocean sanctuary in quite the same way as the Ocean Sanctuary ACt HR 48. Nevertheless we need to support this legislation bill as providing a structure around which we can continue to focus on building a nationwide constituency for Ocean Sanctuary.
This is the lease sale which caused one of the most momentous events in Mendocino County history: the February 3, 1988 oil hearings in Ft. Bragg, at which we as a community acknowledged our power, and our unity of purpose around there NEVER being oil drilling off our coast.
This summer, a new moratorium/funding ban was agreed to, which delays lease sales (including lease sale 91) off California, Florida, Alaska, and several north Atlantic states until next year. A final environmental impact statement on lease sale 91 off the Mendocino and Humboldt coasts is delayed until next October, and any final sale of leases is delayed until January 1991.
Because of politics, we have been given even a little more time to work for Ocean Sanctuary. This is because it will be difficult for President Bush to push drilling offshore California before 1991, and still hope to get Republican Pete Wilson elected as California's next Governor. That election takes place in November 1990. He is running against State Attorney General John Van de Kamp, a fierce advocate of ocean protection.
1. Help elect Lionel Gambill who is running against Doug Bosco. P.O. Box 521, Occidental, CA 95465.
2. Thank Barbara Boxer for introducing the OPA: 307 Cannon Building, Washington D.C., 20515
3. Write Congressman George Miller asking for water, power and offshore energy subcommittee hearings on the Ocean Protection act to be held in Mendocino in February. He's on our side. 2228 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C., 20515
4. Continued to be informed. Read Richard Johnson's great article on the Ocean Protection Act in the _____ issue of the Environmentalist.
This update was based on Rusty Norvell's article in the January 11 Mendocino Commentary, and Richard Johnsons front page article in the Environmentalist.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited