mass production. Carpooling would be popular and public transportation used to a greater degree than now.

Although today perhaps it is not a good indicator of that. Industry would tighten up its processes to make them more energyefficient and less polluting. Airline schedules would be adjusted so that most planes were full.

We believe that in an energy crisis all these indicators and more would be present. We ask you, is there an energy crisis?

One indicator does exist whose significance confuses us. The Department of Energy proposes to export California residual oil to Japan. This has, of course, been the oil industry's dream since the routing of the Alaska Pipeline was first selected. The rationale, apparently, is that regulatory economics proves that exporting domestic oil-along with logs and coal-to Japan makes sense. We realize that Washington officials are concerned with weighty matters and need to deal with them in sophisticated ways. However, we would like to suggest again that the people are not fools. At the headwaters of national thought-in your own congressional districts-such an action during an energy crisis can only be thought of as idiotic. One must choose here between the existence of an energy crisis or the existence of idiotic officials. But perhaps we can have both.

We would hope that the management agency of the marine sanctuary would be sensitive and responsive to the views of Santa Barbarans, of the residents on the south coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura County. This situation does not exist now.

An official of the Department of Interior recently spoke in Santa Barbara and assured her listeners that we citizens and our local governments were "participating" along with Interior in formulating the policies regulating channel oil operations-and this is true. We are participating in the same sense that in the drama of walking a plank on a pirate ship the person being poked at with a sword is participating along with the person doing the poking. Our own pleas have had just as much impact on Interior's policies as the pleas of the plank-walkers-zero.

Other regulating agencies are little better. It is, for example, distressing to see the Coast Guard's role in mediating the conflict between ŎCS oil operations and shipping.

Perhaps the best indicator of how the Coast Guard views its responsibility to prevent collisions between platforms and tankers is the remarkable statement attributed to Admiral Price in the Los Angeles Times recently (Exhibit 3). Responding to the objections of shipping interests to the placement of two platforms at the Long · Beach/San Pedro harbor entrance, Admiral Price is reported to have said, "If they don't want anything out there in the water, then let's take Catalina Island out of the ocean." This statement, coming from a Coast Guard official, can only be described as irresponsible.

Really, over the years regarding Admiral Price, we have come to expect the worst from him when it comes to these matters, and I think in that statement he did not let us down.

For the sanctuary to be meaningful, substantive-not symbolicactions must be taken. We may disagree slightly with the county in the matter.

The sanctuary management program proposed by the county suggests that we monitor the channel resources such as air and water quality and regulate the users of these resources. But monitoring and regulating can be worthless exercises which only document the decline of resources. What value is it to the residents of Santa Barbara to know the exact date when birds were heard coughing in the morning rather than singing? It should be remembered that air quality in Los Angeles is monitored and regulated to a high degree, but to what end? So that the residents not only breathe bad air but read about it too?

There is still oil in the channel waters. I have some samples for you picked upon the beach at Point Conception. And, as discussed in exhibit 4, others pick up oil as well.

This is the Santa Ynez oil referred to by Mr. Cassell. It is a heavy oil. Exxon is having a great deal of difficulty trying to decide where they are going to market this oil. Their own refinery can only handle about 5,000 barrels a day of this stuff. You may have been advised that Interior has considered the environmental impact of oil operations in the channel. Certainly, if report writing and verbal rhetoric is a measure, then the impact has been considered. But for even a 9-pound EIS to be useful, some action must be based on the factual disclosures in the document.

Unfortunately, there is a virtual absence of any planning regarding oil development in the channel. Everything is done on an ad hoc basis as problems develop. If this continues, the quality of life in the Santa Barbara Channel area will be sacrificed totally. Oil production represents a real threat to our air quality, and there is a continuing chance of another major spill due to a tanker accident, an earthquake, or ordinary drilling in the geologically complex channel.

Thus, the impact statements and other documents are simply prepared, filed, and forgotten. They become worse than useless since Interior uses this waste paper as a defense in asserting that it is balancing all needs in managing the channel.

As for the Coast Guard, it views the insults from both air pollution and oil spills with philosophic calm. After all, rarely are lives lost-the Amoco Cadiz crew in France was lifted off the ship by helicopter, and so what if 1.6 million barrels of oil are in the water? Time heals all. One university professor will be hired to demonstrate that no lasting ecological damage has occurred. Another will reckon the value of a bird and conclude it is small. Regarding air pollution, the Coast Guard is jealously asserting its sole right to regulate air emissions from tankers, but right now it chooses to do nothing and will permit no other agency-such as EPA or the California Air Resources Board-to do anything either. With the Amoco Cadiz on the rocks off France, with a fishing boat recently sunk by a tanker in our own channel, the assertions in a recent EIS concerned with oil and gas development in the Santa Barbara Channel seem grotesque:

The past record-no platform-vessel collisions off the west coast-considered along with the present regulations, modern equipment, and the potential platform location areas, is the basis for the Geological Survey's concluding that the probability of a collision between a major ocean-going vessel and Santa Barbara Channel platforms is remote.

And,

During periods of low visibility the existence of modern radar and adequate bridge attention should preclude the danager of collision.

Yet these two paragraphs are the Interior Department's final assessment of the dangers of tanker traffic conflicts in the Santa Barbara Channel. That is in a 9-pound EIS. That was the sum total of what they had to say about tanker traffic.

And remember, one-half the tracts Exxon is now drilling on and plans ultimately to produce from are inside or between shipping lanes as shown in exhibits 1 and 2.

Even the Army Corps of Engineers is regulating things in the channel. The corps issues the basic permit to site a platform. In short, at this time, we have the Interior Department, the Coast Guard and the Corps of Engineers all looking out for the channel-and we see its future as dismal. Would an additional agency-NOAA-change things so that the other lasting values of the channel are protected? If so, sanctuary status for the channel should be provided immediately as an urgent matter.

However, in all candor I think if the addition of NOAA is just to put another oar in the water which is already rather muddy, I do not think that is going to help us out very much.

Again, we would like to thank you for inviting us to present this testimony. We do support the notion of a Santa Barbara Channel marine sanctuary to protect the wide variety of marine resources and values extant here. But you must forgive us if we remain pessimistic that a sanctuary will be of any value until the Department of the Interior recognizes that the channel is worth preserving from the environmental insult associated with oil operations in a seismically active, deep water area.

Thank you for your patience. I realize that this has been a rambling presentation, and for this I apologize. We at GOO would be happy to answer any questions that you or your staff may have now or in the future during your deliberations on these matters. [The exhibits follow:]