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[Greenpeace Press Release from Environet]

   THE OIL WAR COMES HOME: DRILLING PLAN THREATENS U.S. COAST

SANTA MARIA, Calif. September 16, 1991 (GP) A year ago, in the 
name of national energy security, America was preparing for an 
oil war in the Persian Gulf. Hundreds of thousands of lives and
billions of dollars later, U.S. energy policy remains dependent
on oil, and the war has come home -- to America's coasts, 
threatened by new proposals to open vast offshore tracts to oil
drilling.

     The Bush Administration's just-released Five-Year Offshore
Drilling Plan would put 220 million acres of coastal waters from
Alaska to New Jersey up for bid to the oil companies. But at
hearings across the country, the proposal is meeting heavy
opposition, expected to peak next week in California, where polls
show more than two-thirds of the public against drilling.

     The California hearings will be on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 
the Airport Hilton Hotel, 3455 Skyway Drive in Santa Maria (Santa
Barbara County). Two sessions are scheduled, at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

     Prior to the hearings, an alliance of environmentalists,
elected officials and concerned citizens will denounce the
drilling plan at a news conference at noon on Sept. 18, also at
the Hilton. Hordes of area residents are expected to express
opposition to the plan, which would allow drilling in 87 tracts
totalling 500,000 acres off the Central California coast.

     "The last time the Bush administration dared to hold a
hearing like this in California, thousands of people stood up and
said no, and the drilling plan was stopped," said Kelly Quirke, a
Greenpeace energy campaigner. "But this is much more than a Not
In My Back Yard issue. When will George Bush learn that we will
never have real energy security as long as American remains
addicted to oil?"

     "If the president was trying to lay the long controversy 
over expanded offshore drilling to rest by targeting Central 
California, he picked the wrong spot," said Richard Charter, 
director of the California local government office in Washington,
D.C. "By selecting Central California to bear the brunt of the
drilling plan, the government is arbitrarily offering our coast
as a national sacrifice area. We won't allow it."

     The no-drilling alliance urges permanent protection for  the
coast as part of a national energy policy that embraces 
conservation and alternative energy production. The Bush
Administration's energy development strategy -- embodied in the
Johnston-Wallop bill (S. 1220) now before Congress -- supports 
continued dependence on fossil fuels and expansion of nuclear
power.

     In a marked departure from Bush's energy strategy,
Republican Gov. Pete Wilson has sent a strongly worded letter to
the federal government demanding that the Central California 
coast be removed from the drilling plan. The request has so far
been ignored, but the governor's office will repeat its demand at
the hearings.

     The environmental alliance's news conference will feature
Congressional candidate Bennett Johnston, an outspoken critic of
the federal energy bill sponsored by his father, Sen. Bennett 
Johnston. San Luis Obispo County Supervisor David Blakely will
also denounce the drilling plan. In addition, because the Santa
Maria hearings are the sole opportunity for Californians to speak
out against drilling, a number of state officials are sending
representatives to express their opposition.

    "All the oil that might lie off the Central Coast won't
supply enough energy to meet the nation's needs for a month," 
said Quirke of Greenpeace. "With simple conservation measures, we 
could save 60 times that much. Instead, the president wants to 
ruin our fishing and tourism industries, build drill rigs  that
will dump tons of toxics into the ocean and set the 
stage for an oil spill stretching from Los Angeles to Big Sur."