White House hints it may buy up oil leases

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 06/20/2002 | Marc Sandalow

[Pokey78]

Washington -- The Bush administration raised the prospect of a permanent end to oil drilling off the California coast Wednesday as it stepped squarely into a heated political dispute between Gov. Gray Davis and his Republican challenger, Bill Simon.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, in a letter to Simon, reiterated President Bush's support for a moratorium on any new drilling rights off the California coast and applauded Simon's efforts to restrict drilling on existing leases.

[dalereed]

It's really upsetting that Simon has come out against off shore oil drilling. If the oil wells in the Santa Barbara channel, Long Beach harbor, and off of Seal Beach the beaches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border would still be covered with tar like they were before they drilled the off shore wells.