Feeling California

Hoping to pull the plug on off-shore drilling in California
waters, S.B. Congresswoman Lois Capps proposed the California Ocean
and Coastal Protection Act last Thursday; in a similar vein,
Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein recently brought
similar legislation to the Senate floor. Targeting specific
protection from inventory drilling with the use of seismic guns
approved by President Bush in 2005, Capps’s act would also extend
the moratorium against new leases. Linda Krop, chief counsel to the
Environmental Defense Center, which has staved off in court the
development of 36 off-shore oil leases along the South Coast,
called the proposed legislation “welcome and necessary.”