The San Francisco Chronicle reports the federal government is taking steps that may open California’s coast to oil drilling in as few as three years. The Interior Department has moved to open some or all federal waters for exploration as early as 2010. Rigs could go up in 2012. This could result in the construction of dozens of platforms off the coasts of Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt. The bans that protected both of the nation’s coasts beginning in 1981 ended this year when Congress let the moratorium lapse.