People of State of Cal. ex rel. Younger v. Morton, CV 74-2374-DWW.

Decision Date17 November 1975
Docket NumberNo. CV 74-2374-DWW.,CV 74-2374-DWW.
Citation404 F. Supp. 26
CourtU.S. District Court — Central District of California
PartiesPEOPLE OF the STATE OF CALIFORNIA ex rel. Evelle J. YOUNGER, Attorney General, and California Coastal Zone Conservation Commission, Plaintiffs, v. Rogers C. B. MORTON, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Interior, et al., Defendants.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Robert H. O'Brien, Carl Boronkay, Asst. Attys. Gen., Nicholas C. Yost, Norman N. Flette, John P. Meck, Deputy Attys. Gen., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs.

William D. Keller, U. S. Atty., Frederick M. Brosio, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Chief, Civ. Div., Donald J. Merriman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., William M. Cohen, Atty., Land & Natural Resources Div., Washington, D. C., for defendants; Gary Bohlke, Jack Hughes, Attys., Dept. of the Interior, Washington, D. C., of counsel.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DAVID W. WILLIAMS, District Judge.

The energy crunch in the United States which resulted from the slackening of Mid-East oil sources in 1973 caused a revival of attention to undersea petroleum deposits which had long been assumed to exist in respectable quantities. The Department of the Interior (DOI) recommended to the President of the United States that consideration be given to the stepping-up of plans to lease acreage in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to private drillers.1 Subsequently, President Nixon delivered his "Energy Message" to the nation on April 18, 1973, a portion of which dealt with OCS leasing. Later the President announced "Project Independence" which was designed to accelerate offshore leasing and exploration so as to hopefully meet America's energy needs by 1980. DOI hastened its feasibility studies in several offshore areas, including that off the coast of Southern California, and industry was invited to make nominations of fields which their experts felt would provide the greatest drilling potential. Alarmed by the spectre of another Santa Barbara blowout,2 conservationist groups provided a chorus of protests to the resumption of any drilling to the Southern California offshore drilling. This lawsuit seeks to enjoin, or at least delay, the leasing of those offshore areas. In this action, the State Attorney General on behalf of the People of California and the Coastal Zone Conservation Commission seeks to frustrate the clear intention of the Secretary of the Interior to designate certain fields on the outer Continental Shelf to lease for development. This Court has jurisdiction to hear the controversy pursuant to 43 U. S.C. § 1333(b).

Dwindling domestic sources of oil and gas pose a definite threat to the American consumer and to industry. It is clearly in the national interest and in the interest of defense of the United States that our dependence on imported oil be minimized. Experts predict that on-shore drilling will not meet all our needs, and there is a great groundswell of demand to allow and even assist private industry discover the location and extent of submerged pools of oil and to develop new techniques of safely delivering this product to the surface. There is near-certainty that oil exists in the outer Continental Shelf, but drillers encounter at least the same problems that they encounter in land drilling — where to drill and how much to expect? Plaintiffs argue alternately that there is no certainty that oil in rewarding quantities exist off the Southern California shore, and even if it does, the DOI should first go elsewhere to begin an exploration program which carries such a high risk to the environment.

We start with knowledge that the Secretary of the Interior's power to lease offshore acreage for development is contingent upon close adherence to the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq. Section 102 of the Act in pertinent part provides that

"... (2) all agencies of the Federal Government shall — * * * (C) include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on —

(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action,

(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,

(iii) alternatives to the proposed action,

(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and

(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented."

The detailed statement referred to in the Act is known as an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and it should precede the effective commencement of any governmental project which might adversely affect the environment. There is no doubt that governmental action of offering lease interests in California offshore lands (Lease 35) by DOI is an act which poses grave danger to the environment. The very existence of unattractive floating platforms to support drilling activities is a menace to visual sensitivities. Worse, the art of drilling, laying lines, and forcing the oil and gas to surface is so unperfected that oil leaks are frequent, and gigantic spills which might match or exceed the Santa Barbara incident are ominously possible. This, then, is a highly volatile political question of powerful competing public policies — the need of energy versus environmental concerns.

Plaintiffs do not attempt to argue that the United States does not face an energy crisis. Rather, theirs is an urging to use some other frontier for undersea experimentation and to come to California's shores only when a fail-safe process has emerged. This short-sightedness fails to take into account the great developmental strides that have brought to the oil industry practiced techniques in platform drilling and improved methods of oil capture.

The Secretary of the Interior has set December 11, 1975 as the date to begin definite negotiations with oil companies for the leasing of tracts he has defined. This identification of lease tracts has come after governmental experts as well as oil company geologists and engineers have sorted over available beds and made choices known. The law mandates that the Secretary shall take no such action until his final EIS demonstrates that his agency has fully considered the impact of the action on the environment, possible alternatives, and irreversible or irretrievable effects brought about by drilling.

The DOI follows certain established procedures in the process of considering proposed OCS oil and gas lease sales. After technical reports are made by the Bureau of Land Management on a proposed leasing area, calls are made to industry to nominate tracts. Requests are then made for comments on the lease proposal from all interested groups, including state and local governmental entities. Then tentative tract selections are adopted and public announcement of this is made.

A draft EIS is prepared for a potential sale and public hearings are held to provide state and local government agencies and the public to submit comments on the proposal and the draft EIS. Then a final EIS is prepared and published which includes and reflects the materials gathered at public hearings. All of this precedes a final decision of the Secretary to hold a sale. If the agency decides that a lease sale shall be held, a notice is published in the Federal Register identifying the tracts to be offered and stating the lease terms. This procedure complies with the demands of § 102 of NEPA and was substantially followed in the events that led to a decision to sell in Lease 35.

Two EIS's have been filed by the DOI — a Program Report and a Site Specific Report, 8 volumes of over 6000 pages. These were compiled with the help of governmental experts in several fields and an independent team of experts designated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These studies discuss offshore leasing in all possible areas in coastal waters of the United States, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Alaska as well as the California coast. There is discussion of energy...

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6 cases
  • Com. of Mass. v. Andrus, s. 78-1036
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
    • February 20, 1979
    ...in connection with the decision to accelerate the leasing program has been sustained by a district court. California ex rel. Younger v. Morton, 404 F.Supp. 26 (C.D.Cal.1975), Appeal pending, No. 76-1431 (9th Cir.).3 The maritime historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, wrote,"(A)nything might happe......
  • Natural Resources Defense Council v. Administrator, Civ. A. No. 76-1691.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. United States District Court (Columbia)
    • May 8, 1978
    ...the PEIS which preceded the State of Alaska site-specific EIS had previously been challenged and upheld. See California ex rel. Younger v. Morton, 404 F.Supp. 26 (C.D.Cal.1975), appeal pending, No. 76-1431 (9th 17 Thus, both CEQ's and ERDA's NEPA regulations expressly permit an agency to re......
  • State of Alaska v. Andrus, 76-1829
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia)
    • April 24, 1978
    ...anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. CEQ Report, Supra at 78-80.7 CEQ Report, Supra n. 5, at iii.8 In California ex rel. Younger v. Morton, 404 F.Supp. 26 (C.D.Cal.1975), Appeal pending, No. 76-1431 (9th Cir.), the PEIS was found to satisfy the requirements of NEPA. The adequacy of the......
  • Gurrieri v. Gunn, CV 74-1048-DWW.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. Central District of California
    • November 28, 1975
    ......v. J. B. GUNN, Warden of Folsom State Prison, Respondent. No. CV 74-1048-DWW. United ...        Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. ...Roeschke, Deputy Attys. Gen., Los Angeles, Cal., for respondent.         ORDER DENYING ...People v. Terry, 2 Cal.3d 362, 85 Cal.Rptr. 409, 466 ...187, 34 L. Ed.2d 97; United States ex rel. Lukas v. Delaware, 371 F.Supp. 1317 (D.Del. ......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • CHAPTER 1 The History, Status and Future of OCS Leasing
    • United States
    • FNREL - Special Institute Oil and Gas Operations in Federal and Coastal Waters (FNREL)
    • Invalid date
    ...Southern California, and both the program and that sale were challenged by the state. [Page 1-4] California ex. rel. Younger v. Morton, 404 F. Supp. 26 (C.D. Cal. 1975), appeal dismissed per curiam, 608 F.2d 1247 (9th Cir. 1979). California's challenge was rejected by the court under a rati......

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