The Los Padres National Forest currently produces 700,000 barrels of oil a year on lands totaling 14, 618 acres - operations that have already degraded wildlands and habitat. Now the Forest Service, under pressure from the Bush Administration, is considering opening up additional lands to oil and gas drilling activities, including five roadless areas that historically have been off-limits to such activities.

According to the Forest Service's own Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), twenty plants and animals listed as threatened and endangered under the Endangered Species Act are at risk from expanded oil and gas activities, including the California Condor, San Joaquin kit fox, and hybrid blunt-nosed leopard lizard. Sensitive species like the mountain plover, Swainson's hawk, southern rubber boa, mule deer, brush rabbit, and California spotted owl are also likely to suffer from the resulting habitat loss, noise, and disturbance. Sixty-six percent of the oak woodlands within the Los Padres National Forest are potentially threatened with the new oil and gas exploration, jeopardizing a unique California ecosystem already weakened by livestock grazing, logging, and disease.

The remaining oil beneath the Forest is estimated at 90 million barrels BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) - representing only one percent of the oil and only 6/100 of one percent of the gas thought to underlie the Federal lands in the United States. In other words, this is equal to only five days worth of our nation's oil supply. Besides, our nation's energy problems can be resolved most effectively by increasing fuel efficiency standards and, ultimately, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Comments on the Oil and Gas Leasing DEIS are due by April 19. However, the Los Padres National Forest is also updating its Land and Resource Management Plan, which should provide a framework to better assess the toll that drilling will take on the Forest and the species that depend upon it. By fast-tracking the pursuit of oil and gas past the general management plan, the Forest Service is subverting a process intended to ensure proper management of our public lands. Finally, the DEIS does not include a true "no action" alternative which would call for no additional leases on lands already authorized for leasing, and a re-examination of current operating leases for compliance with environmental laws.