As I celebrated my 70th birthday, I realized that 50 years is not a long time. And yet, it’s certainly long enough to see the effects of legislation.
This September, California marks the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act, the strongest land-use legislation in the country. While the act has not totally prohibited development in the narrow Coastal Zone, it has none-the-less protected the 1,100-mile California coast from over-development, ensuring access, views, near-shore water quality and habitats.
Through enforcement by the California Coastal Commission, the highly popular act has been an effective deterrent to would-be developers of private coastal enclaves, high rise hotels and utilities proposing major industrial use on the coast. And consequently, despite its popularity, the commission has had to battle numerous attempts to cut it off at the knees.
Now Trump has asked NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — to review California’s adherence to the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), the federal legislation passed by bipartisan support and signed by President Nixon in 1972.
The feds are probing whether California has complied with the CZMA, through the enforcement activities of the Coastal Commission, alleging the commission has interfered with economic development. The CZMA requires review once every 10 years and California’s adherence was reviewed recently, in 2024 under the Biden Administration. It passed. The state is therefore challenging NOAA’s attempt to pursue the review again so soon and will take matter to court. There it will play out, becoming a precedent-setting case for all 34 states affected by the CZMA.
Still, one has to wonder at the timing for what is currently happening. If the Administration’s reason is to increase offshore oil production, it is a largely symbolic move because the California coast does not produce “sweet light crude.” Much of the production off the California coast is asphalt-grade oil which, while useful for roads and other uses, requires much more refining to make gasoline and could hardly be expected to reduce the price at the pump.
In testing the strength of the CZMA, does Washington figure that no one remembers the 1969 Santa Barbara oil blowout? To this day, the images of oil-soaked birds and blackened beaches are still spread by major media whenever there’s an oil spill off the California coast. Those images were seared into the brains of California’s still-numerous baby boomers. They’re again ready to fight, as shown by the turnout at a recent hearing in Santa Monica.
Though Trump cannot exact revenge on the leadership that navigated the 1972 passage of Proposition 20 — the ballot initiative that was reauthorized four years later as the Coastal Act — he would perversely exact such revenge from their grandchildren. This is the generation that has inherited the right to access the beach and who will now have to do battle to preserve that right. Trump’s actions via NOAA challenge the identity of all who call themselves Californians.
And so, it’s time again for Californians to assert their rights to the coast. The California coast, up to the “mean high tide line” belongs to the people of California, despite the ownership of the beach property above that line. It is guaranteed by the California Constitution.
To understand the political miracles that resulted in the passage of Prop. 20 and the Coastal Act, Earth Alert invites all to watch its 52-minute documentary, Heroes of the Coast, available online.
And remember, in the words of the late Peter Douglas, the Coastal Commission’s legendary long-time executive director, “The coast is never saved. It’s always being saved.”
Janet Bridgers is co-founder and president of Earth Alert
