After a hiatus of over a decade, the Commission has developed a program which will enable the State to lease, by competitive bid, approximately 40,000 acres of State tidelands and submerged lands for oil and gas development. Subsequent to the 1969 blowout and oil spill on a Union platform on a Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lease in the Santa Barbara Channel, the Commission issued a moratorium on additional leasing of and drilling on State lands. Since 1973, the Commission has considered and authorized additional drilling an existing leases, but has not, until this time, considered the issuance of new leases.
