This is one of a series of documents by the Office of Coastal Zone Management (OCZM) intended to provide technical support to coastal zone managers on major issues which they face. Specifically, this paper provides a brief overview of OCS petroleum activities (Section 1) and a description of: Federal OCS responsibilities and roles (Section 2), offshore and onshore activities associated with OCS operations (Sections 3 and 4), socio-economic and environmental impacts deriving from those activities (Section 5 and 6) and suggestiong for planning and management for OCS developments (Section 7). The Annotated Bibliography (Section 8) describes the OCS-related portions of the literature cited, much of which should be available in a state's coastal zone management office or regional library. The Appendix is a directory of agencies and organizations involved in OCS oil and gas related activities. The recommended readings, arranged in priority order at the end of each section, were selected to direct the reader to specific portions of the most relevant articles, documents, and books related to the subject of each section. Numbers in the footnotes refer to the Annotated Bibliography.