Interior Secretary Gale Norton told California earlier this month that the federal government will not buy back offshore oil/gas leases along the state’s coast as it had done recently for Florida, noting that the two states’ circumstances are markedly different. In a letter to state officials, Norton said Florida has opposed offshore drilling; California has not, an interpretation that drew immediate criticism from top state officials and environmental organizations.

California Gov. Gray Davis wrote a tongue-and-cheek letter a week earlier asking the president to do the same thing for California that he did for Florida where the president’s brother is governor.

Davis said his state has provided its “fair share” of the energy the nation uses, producing more than 2.5 billion bbl of oil over the years from coastal sources. He said the state “should not be punished” now for having done its part. “What is good for Florida’s coast is good for California’s,” Davis said. “The administration continues to fail to establish a reason to treat California differently than Florida.”

While acknowledging that California has drilling for years off its coast, the governor said all the “new drilling” cited by the Bush Administration was done from existing platforms whose leases date back close to 50 years ago. Davis stressed that state law prohibits new leases except in the case of a national emergency.

In his letter on May 30, Davis made a pitch for federal funds to help protect California’s coastal waters in a way similar to the action taken in Florida. Without mentioning that President Bush’s brother, Jeb, is the governor of Florida, Davis told the president “by proposing federal funds for the acquisition of mineral rights under three preserves in the Everglades, and by providing $115 million to three oil companies to buy out offshore oil and gas leases, you [the President] have demonstrated your concern for Florida’s Gulf Coast resources.”

Davis told the President that by providing federal funds to buy out the 36 undeveloped federal oil/gas leases off the south-central coast of California, the administration’s “vision of coastal protection” can be extended to California in the same stretch of the state’s coast where a major oil spill occurred in 1969, spurring Earth Day and a whole new generation of environmental awareness.

Davis further alleged that the 36 leases in question were reissued without what he called “legally mandated” review under the Coastal Zone Management Act and the federal Environmental Policy Act. This caused California to sue the Interior Department over the reissue of the leases, obtaining a favorable federal court judgment, which the Secretary of Interior is appealing.

Davis said the president can show he is just as concerned about California’s coast as Florida’s by providing federal funds “in an expeditious manner.”

Instead, Norton rebuffed the request, pointing out that no commercial oil or gas has ever been produced in state or federal waters off of Florida’s coast as it has off of California’s coast.

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