The Nation - News from Oct. 1, 1985

California’s two senators, Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican Pete Wilson, moved to postpone final congressional action on a bill to fund operations of the Interior Department, arguing that approval of the legislation might give Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel the go-ahead to sell offshore oil leases along the state’s coast. In past years, the Interior appropriations bill included a temporary moratorium on offshore drilling, but the language was dropped for fiscal 1986 after it appeared Hodel had agreed to a plan to confine offshore drilling to a small number of tracts. Hodel later changed his mind.