Coast Guard

The Angelides Plan for Protecting the California Coasta

As Governor, Phil Angelides will reverse the policies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush, renewing California’s historic commitment to coastal and ocean protection.

Three decades ago, when oil spills blackened California beaches and uncontrolled development threatened public access to the coast, California leaders and voters acted to protect the coast, creating the Coastal Commission and passing the California Coastal Act. As Governor, Phil Angelides will call this generation of Californians to carry forward the work of protecting the coast against new threats to its environment and beauty.

The Angelides coastal protection plan will fight the unprecedented drive by President Bush and the Republican Congress for renewed oil and gas drilling off the California coast. And it will reverse the policy of coastal neglect by Governor Schwarzenegger, whose actions have not matched his rhetoric.
 
The California coast is in danger

The Pacific coastline is California’s most precious natural asset. It touches the lives of millions of Californians every day – as a place for recreation and relaxation; as a source of food and fresh air; as a habitat for fish, birds, mammals, and plants; as an engine of our economy. It is an enduring symbol of the health and vitality of California and the bond we Californians have with our environment and all of nature.  And it is a test of our commitment to be stewards for future generations of Californians.

Unfortunately, the health of the coast and the ocean are at risk on many fronts. Runoff and sewage degrade the water in the ocean and estuaries, harming marine ecosystems and closing beaches. Three-dozen wastewater plants dump 1.5 billion gallons of sewage a day into the Pacific off California’s coast, many of them into shallow waters, forcing 3,985 beach closures and warnings in 2004. This past summer, Los Angeles beaches had the worst water quality in five years. Coastal development walls off public access in many places. Seawalls and dams on coastal streams block the natural replenishment of sand, allowing waves to sweep beaches away and erode the coastline.

President Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger are taking California's coast in the wrong direction.

At a time when the California coast needs more protection, President Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger are increasing the risks to the coast and its environment. The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are pushing to resume oil and gas exploration and drilling off the cost, risking catastrophic new oil spills, and are trying to take away California's ability to regulate LNG siting on the coast. Governor Schwarzenegger pledges his support for coastal protection, but his actions have not matched his rhetoric. He slashed legislative appropriations for the already under-funded Coastal Commission, failed to fund the Marine Life Protection Act and vetoed legislation requiring public disclosure of lobbyists' private contacts with coastal commissioners. He has championed the construction of LNG terminals on the coast without adequate review and the weakening of environmental review of new development. He wants to lock up all California's infrastructure funding for a decade without devoting a dime to state parks, beaches, the purchase and protection of open space along the coast, or the reduction of sewage and urban runoff contaminating beaches, bays, and the ocean.

Protecting the coast and its environment is critical to California's economy and quality of life. The coastal economy directly employs nearly a half million Californians, and the beauty and recreational opportunities a clean coast offers define California as a special place to live and invest. As Governor, Phil Angelides will fight the Bush administration's unprecedented efforts to open up the California coast to oil drilling, and unlike Governor Schwarzenegger, he will offer real action and a real plan to protect our coast.

The Angelides Coast Guard Plan will:

1. Launch a comprehensive program to identify, purchase, and protect key undeveloped portions of the coast.

California has only one coast, and we must not allow it to be degraded bit by bit. The best way to make certain that critical coastal areas are permanently protected is to put them into public or trust ownership.

As Governor, Phil Angelides will create a comprehensive program to identify the most valuable and most threatened portions of the coast and fund the purchase of the land or, working with conservation-minded landowners, permanent easements protecting it. Unlike Governor Schwarzenegger, he will make coastal protection a priority for bond funding. His program will focus on protecting lands at risk of immediate development, major wetlands and critical habitat areas, important coastal views, lands necessary to complete the California Coastal Trail, additional public access areas, and agricultural land that can be kept in production. The program will set strict standards for purchases so that public funds are prudently used for the highest-priority lands.

2. Fight for a permanent federal ban on oil and gas drilling off the California coast.

The Bush administration, the Republican Congress, and oil companies have targeted the California coast for new offshore oil drilling, which has been prevented by a moratorium. The 2005 federal energy bill, pushed and signed by Bush, authorizes conducting exploration off the California coast to inventory potential oil and gas supplies, a first step toward more drilling. As Governor, Phil Angelides will use all the powers of his office to block any resumption of offshore oil drilling on the California coast and he will fight for congressional passage of the legislation authored by Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Lois Capps to permanently ban such drilling.

3. Require comprehensive state planning before approval of any liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals and desalination plants on the coast.

Corporations are pushing to bring a new wave of industrial facilities to the coast, proposing LNG terminals and desalination plants, which have the potential to threaten public safety and the environment. The current approach of considering each proposal in isolation risks missing their collective impact on the coast and its environment. 

As Governor, Phil Angelides will require that LNG terminals and desalination plants be considered only after a comprehensive planning process is put in place to examine the necessity, safety, and environmental sustainability of the projects and their cumulative effect on the coast.

4. Restore funding for the Coastal Commission and other coastal protection agencies.

California has many of the nation's strongest legal protections for the coast, but Governor Schwarzenegger has deprived the Coastal Commission and other coastal protection agencies of the resources they need to do their jobs. Under Schwarzenegger, the Coastal Commission's staff is 20 percent smaller than five years ago. The agency has only three employees to handle the enormous issues involving offshore oil, LNG, and power plants along 1,100 miles of the coast.  The state's Legislative Analyst says the commission lacks the necessary staff to carry out its coastal protection duties. Yet Schwarzenegger last year vetoed funds appropriated by the Legislature to address some of the under-funding. Under Schwarzenegger, the Department of Fish and Game, which is supposed to administer the Marine Life Protection Act to preserve marine life off the coast, has not received the funding to carry out its environmental duties.

As Governor, Phil Angelides will make coastal protection a top budget priority, restoring funding to the Coastal Commission, and he will find a permanent source of funding for the State's coastal program, to assure that the law is enforced as Californians intend.

5. Reduce coastal pollution and beach closures from sewage and runoff.

To protect the health of beach-goers and preserve fisheries and marine ecosystems, California must reduce the flow of untreated sewage and contaminated urban runoff. The Angelides Coast Guard Plan will make reducing coastal pollution a goal across his administration. As Governor, Phil Angelides will direct state infrastructure grants, loans, and bonds to sewage and storm water cleanup, water conservation, wetlands restoration, and urban parks and open space. By building and upgrading wastewater and storm water systems, California can reduce the amount of pollution and debris that reach the ocean, bays, and estuaries. He will also pursue a smart growth plan to reduce sprawl and encourage coast-friendly development practices, such as state-of-the art urban runoff systems. Reducing sprawl will mean less pollution from roads and the preservation of open space that retains storm waters and prevents runoff.

6. Require lobbyists to register and disclose their contacts with the Coastal Commission.

The public deserves to know who is influencing the Coastal Commission. But the current California lobbyist registration laws exempt lobbyists who try to sway the Coastal Commission's land-use decisions. As Governor, Phil Angelides will press the Legislature to apply the same lobbying disclosure rules to the Coastal Commission that now apply to lobbyists at the Capitol and other state agencies. And he will call on the Legislature to again pass rules, which Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed, requiring that lobbyists' private (ex parte) communications with members of the Coastal Commission be fully disclosed and posted on the Internet.

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