spills. Tankers contracted for after 1979 would be required to have double bottoms.

May 17, 1977.-Secretary Cecil D. Andrus outlined his new policy for oil and gas leasing on the OCS, presenting a new, more realistic planning schedule for lease sales through 1978 to replace the one issued in January by his predecessor, Secretary Thomas Kleppe. Sales in environmentally sensitive areas off Alaska, California, and the Southern Atlantic Coast were deferred. Secretary Andrus indicated that the final decision on all sales would be made after all NEPA requirements had been met and after consultation with the governments of the affected States.

May 19, 1977.-OCS Sale No. 42, covering 225 tracts totaling 1.085228 acres in the Gulf of Mexico was announced for June 23, 1977. May 23, 1977. In a far-ranging environmental message to Congress, President Carter endorsed proposals in Congress (H.R. 1614; S. 9) to require a pause between exploration and development of the Outer Continental Shelf and concellation of leases with compensation where development could create unacceptable environmental risks. Also, new procedures for preparing environmental impact statements for the OCS were ordered so as to satisfy the information requirements of State and local governments.

May 27, 1977.-Nominations and comments for proposed OCS sale No. 65, scheduled for August 1978 in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, were sought.

June 8, 1977.-The Interior Department announced the cancellation of two Federal oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, citing a lack of drilling activity.

June 22, 1977.-Eight Western European nations agreed on a program to deal with oil-well blowouts and pollution in the North Sea.

June 23, 1977.-OCS Sale No. 42 was held in New Orleans netting $1.2 billion high bids for the right to develop oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

June 28, 1977.-The GAO released its report on "Outer Continental Shelf Sale 40-Inadequate Data Used to Select And Evaluate Lands to Lease." Its criticisms and conclusions were similar to those enumerated in GAO's report on OCS Lease Sale No. 35. Although industry bidding was greater, this did not mean the most productive areas were offered. An exploration program to appraise our OCS resources was recommended.

June 29, 1977.-Secretary Andrus endorsed new conditions for onshore facilities proposed by the State of California. The proposal would govern the storage, treatment, and transportation of oil produced by Exxon from the Sante Ynez unit of the Santa Barbara Channel.

June 29, 1977.-The OCS Advisory Board urged the enactment of Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments.

June 30, 1977.-The House Select OCS Committee began markup of H.R. 1614.

July 11, 1977.-It was announced that the USGS proposed the standardization of all orders regulating the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas on the OCS.

July 14, 1977.-Interior announced the publication of proposed rulemaking regarding lease suspensions and the timing and type of environmental studies to be undertaken. The proposals were designed

to realize certain objectives of the environmental message enunciated by President Carter on May 23, 1977.

July 14-15, 1977.-The Senate debated, amended and passed S. 9 (companion to H.R. 1614). The vote on final passage was 60-18.

July 22, 1977.-The Department of Labor promulgated final worker's safety standards for divers. The standards specifically apply to OCS activities.

July 26, 1977.-In a late night session, the Federal Power Commission adopted a settlement with Texaco, Inc. regarding the illegal burning in its Port Arthur, Tex. refineries of approximately 200 billion cubic feet of Federal-domain gas, or enough to heat 325,000 plus homes a year. Under the agreement Texaco will reportedly make amends by selling an equivalent amount to interstate pipelines.

July 27, 1977.-The House Select OCS Committee ended 8 days of markup on H.R. 1614 and ordered the bill reported to the House by a vote of 11-8.

August 25, 1977.-The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed an earlier decision by a District Judge rescinding the Baltimore Canyon Lease Sale No. 40; citing its confidence in a new Secretary of the Interior to, among other things, hold a second EIS prior to development.

OCS ENERGY RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN A SETTING OF CONFLICT

If the Santa Barbara oil spill raised the level of environmental consciousness about OCS operations, the shortfall of domestic energy production and the Arab oil embargo of 1973 had an equally dramatic impact. The potential oil and gas resources on the OCS could reduce the country's dependence on foreign energy supplies and thus its economic vulnerability in relation to the OPEC nations.

Both trains of thought-environmental protection and the acceleration of OCS oil and gas development-competed for primary ranking in the list of national priorities. President Nixon called for stepping up the OCS lease sale schedule while, at the same time, environmental and citizen organizations, commercial and recreational fishing interests, and other groups, expressed public concern over the possible effects of the proposed rapid development.

Intermixed in this debate were new dimensions of federal/state relations, the genesis for what was President Nixon's theory on New Federalism. State and local governments argued that it was their beaches, estuaries, and other shoreline areas which could be severely damaged by an OCS-related spill. It was their onshore coastal lands which would be the sites for the necessary support facilities. It was their coastal communities which would experience possible "boom town" effects from the offshore development. Yet, this was a federal decision and a federally-administered process over which the states received no financial assistance. Monies received from OCS bonuses, rentals and royalties went into the United States Treasury-not those of the affected coastal states.

Consequently, while States and local governments were joining forces with some environmental groups based on ecological concerns, they were also expressing their disapproval of the Interior Department's OCS leasing process. It is, many coastal State governors argued, a process in which the affected governments had no true participation and no access to important data. The 1975 United States v.

Maine case, in which thirteen Atlantic coast States claimed ownership of the continental shelf off their shores, can be viewed, in part, as a symbolic protest against the policies and procedures of the Federal Government in general and the Department of the Interior, in particular.

A number of lawsuits have been filed by States and communities to postpone proposed OCS lease sales on the Interior Department's accelerated schedule.

Despite this, three different trends have been manifested in recent OCS lease sales, although it is premature to judge if these patterns will persist.

There has been a considerable slippage in the Interior Department's lease sales schedule. Although six sales were scheduled for 1975, only four were conducted. Six sales were also planned for 1976, but again only four were held. One sale has been invalidated (OCS Sale No. 40). The number of tracts actually offered for sale (compared with the number nominated) and the number actually bid on (compared with the number offered) appears to be smaller than what would be expected under an accelerated OCS program. The former Secretary of the Interior withdrew a number of tracts shortly before the California sale in December, 1975 and the Alaskan sale in April, 1976. And, in both cases, the oil companies bid on significantly fewer tracts than those offered. Again in the August, 1976 Baltimore Canyon lease sale, a little less than two-thirds of the tracts offered received bids. (See table 3.) 28

On the part of the Executive, the accelerated leasing program has undergone a serious review by the new Secretary of Interior. The previous administration announced a new leasing program less than two weeks before emplacement of the new administration. The new Secretary, upon his taking office, promptly canceled the upcoming sale of oil and gas leases in Alaska's Cook Inlet, previously publicized by the former Secretary of Interior 2 days before the change in administrations. Subsequently a revised leasing schedule was published in May, 1977. For comparative purposes the January and May leasing schedules are presented in figures 6 and 7, respectively.

28 To date the Interior Department has collected roughly $24.0 billion in OCS bonuses, rentals and royalties.