Update- Bill passed the House Floor on Monday morning and will now move to the Senate.

BY SARAH ROSS

SALEM- The House Committee on Environment and Water approved a bill Thursday which will ban offshore drilling in Oregon for a period of 10 years.

The original bill brought to the committee constituted a lifetime ban on the leasing of land for the purpose of offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Little opposition for the bill was brought to the committee during the public hearing on Tuesday. Since the petroleum industry is not pursuing a lease on the land, the only real concern for the bill was its permanent status.

An amendment was therefore brought before the committee by its chair, Rep. Ben Cannon, D-Portland, to limit the ban to a 10-year period, at which time the legislature would need to renew it or make it permanent.

“[The amendment] represents a middle course with respects to the sunset. There will be advocates for the ban, including me, who feel putting a 10-year sunset on the bill weakens it,” said Rep. Cannon.

“I’m reluctant to do so but understand that in this short session, under the timeline that we’re under, and in the interest of generating as much support as possible and really moving forward in a bipartisan way, I am urging the committee to adopt the -2 amendments which would sunset the ban in 2020.”

Much opposition to the amendment came from the Democrats on the committee; but with the Chairman’s vote, the amendment passed, changing the legislation from a ban to a 10-year moratorium.

“I am in favor of the ban,” said Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Lane and Linn Counties. “The ban would require an additional step to any other steps that would be taken in order to do oil and gas exploration off the coast, and that would be a visit through the legislature.”

Republicans on the committee, however, saw the ban as being closed to future technologies and national energy crises and were more accepting of the temporary ban.