Californians came together to save the coast 50 years ago. Trump cancels the celebration

A young man who owns a resort on the Florida coast, where hundreds of miles of undeveloped coastline are threatened by hurricanes driven by global warming, is trying to tell Californians how to better manage our coastline.

Guess who it is.

Not that we needed help. If there is any thought of adding an eighth wonder of the world to the current list of seven, I can nominate the 1,100-mile treasure that kisses Oregon on one side and Mexico on the other. And it is no accident that the coastal areas are fiercely protected and much of the coast is devoid of large resorts and the clutter of buildings.

Half a century ago, Californians rebelled against the threat of overdevelopment. By the will of the people, the coast was enshrined in state law as a valuable public asset accessible to the many, not a private playground fenced off for the few.

This year marks the 50 years of the Coastal Act, and just as we start the party, President Trump and his minions plan to pump crude oil into the basin.

Here’s how:

Going back to the 1970s, under the Coastal Management Act, California got high marks from the feds for how its coastal management agency worked with DC to manage federal projects. But now the state is under attack, which means millions of dollars will be returned and the state’s voice silenced.

So what bad sins have we committed?

He sat down and took a deep breath.

We are here accused of “environmental extremism.”

It’s been too many years to pay attention to water quality and emissions from cars and factories and everything else. Imagine how that comes across to a president who won’t acknowledge climate change if his putter melts in his hands or Mar-a-Lago becomes a swimming pool hotel.

As punishment for our crimes, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who called us environmentalists) ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to conduct a “full, formal review” of the nation’s coastal management system.

“California has repeatedly and unjustifiably blocked development of the space station,” Lutnick said, referring to the dispute over how many rockets Elon Musk’s Space X can launch from the US military’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. (According to the California Coastal Commission, most launches are for private interests rather than military purposes, and the federal government has commented that sonic booms affect marine life and humans.)

It is also alleged that we are overlooking basic economics and the Trump administration’s preferences when it comes to “offshore oil production, pipeline maintenance and desalination.” And we need to get to the bottom of “removing regulatory barriers that hinder US technological and economic leadership while properly maintaining coastal resources.”

Where will you start?

I thought California had the fourth largest economy in the world, with technology as the main driver. In fact, it is reported that we have drawn 10 times more than venture capital than any other situation this year, with the best AI. If one or two other states match our result, imagine what a proud Trump can do, legally, to the economy.

And while management seems intent on extracting more offshore oil, it is dropping the nation’s offshore wind projects while the planet suffers from bubbles, deadly heat waves directly related to greenhouse gas emissions from burning of fossil fuels.

If the president’s blowtorch friends want to call us “environmental extremists” for not burying our heads in the sand, that’s a badge of honor.

And one more thing.

If Trump is so intent on keeping the world’s oil supply flowing, maybe he shouldn’t have gotten into a senseless war that gave Iran the keys to the world’s gas pump, raising prices for everyone.

However, it’s not like the state’s main coastal agency — the California Coastal Commission — has said nothing but “no” over the years to oil projects and desalination plants.

“If you look at the Coastal Act, it does not prevent the production of oil and gas in many countries and we have approved many of them,” he said. Susan Hanschwho retired from the top management position in 2021 after 47 years with the Coastal Commission. “It has to be done the right way.”

The commission also has it many desalination plants have been commissionedbut four years ago rejected one proposed in Huntington Beachdespite its support by Gov. Gavin Newsom. I thought rejection was the right call, because it’s a proposal he struck me as a private boondoggleexcept for the designated customer of water and mud for natural hazards.

Not that the Coastal Commission has been faultless over the years. There have been many critics, complaining that the organization has stopped on its way of housing development at a time of growing federal deficits, and that its approval process is the equivalent of a root canal that takes years.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the Coastal Act into law in 1976, once called the commissioners “bureaucratic criminals.”

And Trump has clashed with the agency over, among other things, a 70-foot-tall pole erected on his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course without a permit. Last year, Trump’s envoy Ric Grenell said The Coastal Commission was a ‘disaster’ and should be “totally defunded,” calling the commissioners unelected and “the madman rose up on the left.”

Abolishing the commission, he said, “will make California better.”

I do not think so.

Ten years ago, I had it the right to travel the length of the kingdom and meeting other beach heroes going back to the 1960s.

They were there when the devastating Santa Barbara oil spill blackened the beaches, turned the coastline into a graveyard for wildlife, and protected the rugged coastline.

When PG&E’s plans to build a nuclear power plant in the heavenly Bodega Head began to revolt.

When a large area of ​​residential development on the Sonoma Coast sparked fears that access to the ocean would be lost.

In 1972, ordinary Californians circulated petitions, knocked on doors, and rode bicycles down the coast, gathering support for Proposition 20, which aimed to control coastal development. It passed despite a massive campaign of opposition from corporate, industrial and real estate interests.

That victory led, four years later, to the Coastal Act and the establishment of the Coastal Commission, whose mission was to balance reasonable development, habitat protection and conservation, and equitable public access.

Richard Charter, a senior partner at the Ocean Foundation, told me at Bodega ten years ago that California’s coast was a “public wonder” that was protected by ordinary people who saw it as a “global treasure.”

The Coastal Act has led to the creation of 2,500 public access points in the state, and its greatest achievements include uncultivated wetlands, unspoiled habitats, and the preservation of the many wonders where the land meets the sea and California leaves you speechless, grateful.

At Tuesday’s Coastal Commission meeting, Jennifer Savage of the Surfrider Foundation took to the microphone and told commissioners:

“Surfrider sees this state review as a politically motivated attempt to strip California of the coastal protections our communities and marine ecosystems rely on, and Surfrider stands with you, and we will fight this every step of the way.”

If you’d like to join that fight, you can speak in person or remotely when NOAA hosts public hearings on Aug. 10-12 in Santa Monica. You can find more information at Surfrider Foundation website.

One of the early leaders of the Coastal Commission, the late Peter Douglas, anticipated these trials and made a statement that I have repeated many times over the years. In the 50th anniversary year of the Coastal Act, it’s worth repeating, and you should think of it as a clarion call:

“The coast has never been saved,” Douglas said. “It is always maintained.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com