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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is my friend and colleague, Jen Savage, the California Policy Associate Director at the Surfrider Foundation. It's so much fun to have you on the show again. So in case people don't know, Jen Savage is one of the most fun people to work with in the environmental movement. And I think that she just has an infectious energy about her. And anyways, I just want to hype my friend, Jen, up. So, Jen.

JEN SAVAGE:

People can't see, but I'm totally blushing now. So, you know. And you are too. You are also very fun.

WHEELER:

So we're talking about the Coastal Commission today, or the Coastal Act. It is one of the things that we, California environmentalists, hold most dear. The Coastal Commission is probably the most effective environmental regulatory agency, not only in the state of California, but probably in the United States of America. It is remarkable in not being bowed to political, economic pressures. It has remained focused on the task ahead of it, which is always to protect the coastline of our great state. But the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission is under attack, and it's under attack from folks that we might expect, the Trump-Musk bad people of the world. But it's also under attack from our own governor. Governor Gavin Newsom has taken some swings at it. The legislature is supposed to perhaps take a bite out of the Coastal Commission.

And so let's focus show on the Coastal Commission, the Coastal Act, all the good things that it does, and the risks to it, and the way that we Californians who like to walk on our beaches and throw sticks for our dogs and be able to go to the beach because it hasn't been privatized. Let's focus on things that we can do. So Jen, let's start with what the Coastal Commission or what the Coastal Act is, how it came into place, and why it's unique then in California environmental law and regulatory whatever, whatever. Thank you.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, sure. So something for people to keep in mind is as we're talking about like this law and this commission and these like wonky political things, and I know this is a somewhat of a wonky political audience listening to this show, but not everybody is. And really, when we talk about the Coastal Act, we're talking about two things: Your right as a person in California to go to the beach and your right to have a beach that is protected from harm. So if you like seabirds, if you like ocean life, if you like a healthy, thriving marine ecosystem, like this is what the Coastal Act helps guarantee for for all of us. Right.

If you like a thriving coastal economy, Coastal Act plays a big role. So pretty much everybody in California in some way or another is affected by the Coastal Act, including folks who live inland and want to go to the beach in the summer. I grew up in the desert. I didn't grow up at the coast, but we went to the beach every weekend in the summer because like 115 out where I lived. And so getting that kind of break. And the reason that we have this Coastal Act is because back in 1972, there was a big development proposed in Sonoma County. Folks might be familiar with the Sea Ranch. What is there now is not what was initially proposed because a bunch of people said, hey, hey, hey, we don't want this massive development that is going to like destroy the coastal environment and also like create a privatized beach area. So they went to work rallying support up and down the state. There was actually folks who rode bikes from one end of the state to the other to gather signatures and gather support for Prop 20. So it's a totally like led by the people kind of thing. Got it on the ballot. It passed a few years later. The Coastal Act was official and the Coastal Commission was established. And essentially the Coastal Commission is a body of 12 people charged with enforcing the provisions of the Coastal Act. It most frequently comes in the form of what kind of development is allowed. And most also probably equally commonly is what to do when there's violations of the Coastal Act, whether it's people illegally blocking access or like bulldozing wetlands or the different things that people do for some reason known only to themselves.

WHEELER:

So I think it will be obvious, but because it regulates development, it has long been the bane of developers. Developers historically have been pretty conservative, and so the Coastal Commission has been a target of the conservative legal movement for a number of years. Do you want to make any reflections on that?

SAVAGE:

Yeah, sure. I think anytime you have a regulatory body that is standing in the way of people who have a lot of money and would like to make more money, they're going to be targeted. Right. I mean, we see that with like what you call regulatory capture in a lot of agencies so that big corporations can avoid regulations and get their projects proposed so that they can enhance their profit margins. And, you know, not all developers are bad. I don't want to say anything like that, but a lot of there's just a lot of people with ambition to build big on the coast because you can make a lot of money. It's prime real estate.

And so they apply a lot of political pressure. And because the Coastal Commission doesn't really answer to anyone, they typically don't have bread. They're like they're not the governors typically don't like the Coastal Commission because they can't control them. Same with the legislature. Right. They're a fairly independent body. And so they tend to like not have a lot of political friends and developers and big donors have a lot of political friends. And so the Coastal Commission gets just gets really caught in the crosshairs quite often because of that.

WHEELER:

So the conservative legal movement in particular, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a non-profit, they would call themselves a public interest environmental law firm, but it's probably a developer interest law firm, has sued the Coastal Commission a number of times alleging that its powers are extra constitutional, that it's acting outside the law. And generally courts have upheld the Coastal Commission, but that has been one area of sustained attack is from traditional conservative legal arms.

I think something that's interesting is in the last decade or so, the politics have somewhat shifted on the Coastal Commission. We have the rise of the YIMBY movement, the Yes In My Backyard movement that has been focused on building more housing. And they have become a left critic of the Coastal Commission, that the Coastal Commission has done its job perhaps too well in regulating development and that it prioritizes things like coastal access, which can be interpreted as parking above other potential values like living near the coast.

So we have this new politics here of folks like Pacific Legal Foundation, Robin Pickering Arkley the third of Eureka, folks who have long been against the regulatory state being opposed to the Coastal Commission because it's effective and it does the job. And now we have a new batch of critics coming from within what has largely been the support base of the Coastal Commission, which is the Democratic Party. This is changing the way I imagine that you as a defender of the Coastal Commission have to do your work. Do you want to talk about this moment in time where we have two camps that are both swinging at the Coastal Commission?

SAVAGE:

Yeah, sure. And I think at risk of putting people to sleep, I'll talk about local coastal programs for just a moment. But there is, there's a lot of finger pointing at the Coastal Commission when it's actually local cities and counties that create a lot of the problem, right? So local, so local governments, like you're, you want to build, if you want to build a house, a housing development in the city of Eureka, for example, like it doesn't go through the Coastal Commission, it goes through the city of Eureka. Now, if something's proposed that you don't like, you can appeal it to the Coastal Commission. But in general, all of that is on the city. So if there's not enough housing in Eureka, that's not the Coastal Commission. They're not the ones denying housing. In fact, the Coastal Commission in whole, only like last year, 2024, less than 400 coastal development permits came before them. And that's for everything all over the entire state, right? But within local cities and counties, it's like triple that.

So, so a lot of times, it's easy, if cities and counties aren't meeting their housing goals, it's easy to blame, like, oh, the Coastal Commission, because everybody thinks that they stand in the way and that that just gets perpetuated. But really, that's not the problem. Also, to be fair, there's always opportunities to streamline regulation, like my landlord's been subdividing the property that I live on. And what the county has made him do, like, inarguably ridiculous, some of it, right? So I get that.

On the other hand, if we eliminate all regulation, then, like the Pacific Legal Foundation, their viewpoint is essentially anyone should be able to build anything they want on their property. And they represent largely, like extremely wealthy people. So if somebody wants to build a giant seawall in front of their house at the beach, it doesn't matter that that will destroy the public beach, or if they want to build things that are incredibly huge and blocking view, like, it's just like, if you have the money to build, you should be able to build whatever you want.

Now, I don't think I have to explain to the people listening to this show where that could go awry. But somewhere in there is an opportunity to figure out where can we put more housing in the coastal zone in this, we should look at that all over California, but we're talking about the coastal zone, right?

So one can make an argument, like, let's find areas where it's not going to block public access, we're not building on top of wetlands or coastal dunes, because those are critical habitats that we also need for coastal resilience against sea level rise. And, and I don't know what else. So there's a couple things right there. So if those things are like, no ...

WHEELER:

Let's make sure that housing isn't in a tsunami inundation area that would put people at risk, right? Like there's a lot of things that we can be smart about that maybe this is not the best place for a new apartment building. Right.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, not like right on a bluff that we know is going to crumble as the sea rises and all of that. So, so there's like, I think, very common sense ways to to look at facilitating more affordable housing. But you also don't see a lot of developers wanting to build affordable housing, right? That's not where the money is.

WHEELER:

I'll push back on you here. As somebody who is kind of a YMBY-branded myself, all housing is important. All housing impacts housing availability and housing prices. If someone were to build a large development and it's these like scary luxury condos or whatever that people always love to complain about, that's still going to have knocked down effects on housing throughout a community. If we built a hundred housing units in the city of Eureka, that's going to impact all housing in Eureka in a beneficial way. So I will say here's where you lose me is focusing only on the affordable housing. I am in favor of affordable housing, but I think that we should build all housing.

SAVAGE:

Well, if you're looking, I guess the argument that I typically hear is that it's a problem that it's not affordable to live at the coast, that only rich people can live at the coast, right? So you're the first person I've actually heard argue that there should be more luxury homes in the coastal zone.

WHEELER:

I mean, I think that the density of development is important. Single family homes and sprawl on the coast. I would also posit that I'm talking about infill development on the coast and not and not developing green spaces. But if somebody wants to take something that has been a single family home and it's for some reason like in Venice on the beach or something like that and turn it into a fourplex, that's great.

SAVAGE:

I totally agree, totally agree. And those projects get approved. Like that's somebody's got an 800 foot bungalow and they want to turn it into like a 4,000 square foot duplex. Like sometimes that doesn't for different reasons, right? Like there's a lot of, it's like very project by project, which is part of the problem. But again, like the coastal commission, if you actually look at the records, which then we get dealing in the world of statistics and facts ...

WHEELER:

You want to do facts, Jen? I know. No, no, I know. I don't care about your facts, all right?

SAVAGE:

So antiquated this idea of looking at what's actually happening, but just like very few projects actually get denied. A lot of them get what I would call improved and some people might call made more difficult, but when there isn't, I think we've seen what happens when there isn't regulation, right? Like as a housing advocate who's pro infill, let me just say like the Arcata Community Forest, you knock down some of that, you could build a lot more housing near HSU. So why don't, or Cal Poly Humboldt. So why don't, like, why don't we do that?

WHEELER:

Yeah, no, again, again, as someone who's in favor of infill, I don't think that turning forests or fields or farms or, or dunes into into housing is the solution.

SAVAGE:

You wanna fill in, infill Redwood Park? Okay.

WHEELER:

You are listening to the Econews Report. Joining me is my friend and colleague Jen Savage, the California Policy Associate Director at the Surfrider Foundation. We're talking about the Coastal Commission today, or the Coastal Act.

So to go back, we now have this multi-headed monster that is attacking the Coastal Commission, right? You have people who have historically been the friends of the Coastal Commission, rank and file kind of Democrats saying it's out of control for XYZ. Obviously, Surfrider, you disagree with the caveat that we can always make things better, and there's some sort of room to have discussion about reasonable reforms. But what's being proposed is perhaps not reasonable reform. So tell us what are the things that are on the table that people are talking about that would be an existential threat or a substantial threat to the Coastal Commission that are coming in and being proposed under this guise of building more housing, but are really perhaps more about gutting this agency?

SAVAGE:

Yeah, sure, Tom. So within the state, there's a lot of legislation aimed at building more housing. Much of it is great. And to be clear, like I'm pro people living in houses and I sympathize like I've always lived in a house. Yeah, I'm a person who lives in a house -- still renting even. So yeah, like I, I want I just the problem is not that the problem is not that the Coastal Act prevents new housing, right? There's just a ton of other issues that that are the problem. And really, things should be happening more with local governments.

But at the state level, there's a lot of legislation proposed to help expedite housing throughout the state. Some of it is proposed to create exempt categorical exemptions in the coastal zone. So my example of like, identifying places that aren't wetlands, aren't bluffs, aren't whatever, and, and identifying those in advance for places that are okay to build. That's not an actual piece of legislation. That's just an example. But there's ideas like what if we just exempt 80 years from having to get permitted, like, and there's ways to do that that are like, not harmful. But there's ways to do that, that can open up the potential for for great abuse, where suddenly you can build all kinds of things that don't need to get permitted.

So I'm not like an expert in the nuances of housing policy. We just want to make sure that this beach, this coast that belongs to all of us, doesn't get sacrificed on behalf of specific interest, right? And we don't want to be a way of helping more people have homes. So we're always trying to find that path forward. And I think within the state legislature, there's actually there are ways to find a path forward and to to thread that needle between maintaining coastal protection and access and making it easier to build housing for but whether they're wealthy people, or working class people, and the bigger risk, in my opinion, is coming from the federal government and the lack of support from Governor Newsom. Because not only does President Trump, generally like hate rules, clearly, and wants things that people with money should be able to do whatever they want. But he himself has tangled with the Coastal Commission because he owns a golf course in Palos Verdes down in Southern California, and has done all kinds of illegal stuff there, that the Coastal Commission has been like, hey, hey, hey, over the years, right? So he hates them personally. And you may not know this, but he's kind of a vengeful guy.

And then, meanwhile, Elon Musk has his SpaceX facility down in Vandenberg, and just wants to be able to blast off like an endless number of rockets with no regard for the harm that's being done to the environment or to the local community. He just, again, like doesn't want any regulation interfering with his rocket projects. So the Coastal Commission had a different opinion about that, even though they I mean, they actually approved some of what they were asking. So but some of the commissioners spoke about Elon Musk in a way he didn't like. And so he, he hates them. And then we had all these fires down in LA. And one of Trump's envoys, Richard Grinnell, said that maybe what they'll do is tie LA fire relief to the condition of dismantling or defunding the Coastal Commission. And is it that clear cut? Like can can Gavin Newsom just say like, well, no more Coastal Commission? I mean, not really. But we are in bizarre times. And, and the governor has a lot of power over the budget. And if you cut their funding, then they can't really exist. Right. So there's, it's, it's not a straightforward dismantling of the commission. But there's also if, if he wanted to make it more or less go away or be totally ineffective, it's within his ability to do so.

WHEELER:

Governor Newsom has also taken advantage of the LA fires to issue his own statewide executive orders, largely constricting the power of the Coastal Commission for construction within the fire footprint. And it wasn't just replacing what was there before, but it was a larger swing at review of how we are going to rebuild, which is important as there's all sorts of toxic material left over after the fires. There's conversations that need to be had, obviously, about how are we going to rebuild to minimize and reduce our fire risk in the future. So this idea of having an intelligent conversation about what we want to do, how we should do. The governor also seems like he is in favor of using the old Rahm Emanuel thing, not letting this emergency go to waste.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, never let a good crisis go to waste.

WHEELER:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, well, the Coastal Act, I mean, part of what the governor did could be categorized as perhaps, but the Coastal Act allows for rebuilding without a permit. And like some of the executive order, it was like unnecessary, right? It was already within the Coastal Act.

But yes, then he's like, actually, you can rebuild anything you want, even like even illegal structures, even bigger. It's so it's a complete free for all. And it preempts the ability in this time of like terrible tragedy. I mean, we have Surfrider has a chapter in LA, we had so many people affected, they're still affected. I know, I'm sure lots of us up here know people who have lost homes or were affected by the fires in some way, like it's this horrible, horrible tragedy. And instead of offering people comfort and resources, and having a conversation about like, how can we avoid this in the future, we're doing what we tend to do when there's a disaster, which is just like build back better, you know, bigger, build back more.

And, and like, we're going to show nature, like how, how you don't get to win. And it just, it's short sighted. And it's actually like unfair to people in the long run, because we just keep recreating a situation in which disaster is more likely. And the folks who don't have them, the folks with the least resources who lost the most are the ones who are going to end up getting the short end of the stick when all of this is said and done. And that's really unfortunate.

WHEELER:

So we've documented a bit of threats, right? It's coming from the political right through libertarian groups like the Pacific Legal Foundation, Robin Pickering Arkley III funding lawsuits, folks like Elon Musk who are upset that they can't just burn up coastal birds with their rocket launches. So we have attacks through litigation and we also have threats from the federal side. Maybe we'll withhold federal funds until you crazy commies out in California do something about your coastal commission. And then we have the governor who maybe doesn't hate that there's some pressure coming from Trump. Maybe he's somewhat aligned with the Trump administration in wanting to attack the coastal commission.

It's a sad and disheartening picture for folks. What are we to do? Because the Coastal Commission is super important, right? I think that we here on the North Coast forget, but like in other areas of California, we've had very deliberate efforts by rich homeowners to prevent people from accessing the beach. And the Coastal Commission has been there and has tangled with these rich folks and has come out on top. We have the ability to enjoy our coastline because the Coastal Commission exists and is willing to put up a fight. So what are we to do?

SAVAGE:

Well, thanks for bringing it back to the access issue. Because the through line for me to all of this is it's not the building is like a piece of this puzzle, but all of it is really about like the coast belongs to everyone in California. And everyone in California gets to go to the beach because of the Coastal Commission, because of the Coastal Act. And even up here, like there's been fights over trails that lead to the beach and whether or not like a homeowner can block off access. I mean, there's a trail right across the street from my house that's an easement through private property. And every so often they try to block it off and there's a public right to access the beach. So we get to walk on the trail. Like if you come to Manila, you can walk out on the trail by my house. There's cases like everywhere you go in California, I guarantee somebody has tried to stop people from going to the beach, whether it's down in San Diego, whether it's in San Mateo, whether it's Martin's Beach and just south of Half Moon Bay, there are just anywhere people can block the beach, they will.

And so there's that part of it. And also looking at sea level rise, like we're losing beaches. We're losing like in Humboldt County, up and down the coast, we're gonna lose beaches due to sea level rise. And the Coastal Commission is one of the, they have a lot of tools to help make sure that our beaches last as long as they can. So there's just like really important stuff that's personal to everyone who ever loves going to the beach and what we're doing. But the main things that people can do is guess what? Call your elected officials, right? Call Mike McGuire. He's the Senate pro tem. He has a lot to say on this matter. So if nobody else, call Mike McGuire, call Senator McGuire. Also Chris Rogers, our State Assembly Rep, and call the governor's office and just say, hey, we like the Coastal Commission. We want you to support the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Act. Don't let this extortion from the Trump administration be why you sacrifice our coast, right? So those are the basic things. And to that end, Surfrider, myself, and some of my coworkers, we are actually going on a big old-fashioned grassroots tour of the coast, Tom.

WHEELER:

Yeah, so you mentioned at the beginning of the show that part of the history of the Coastal Act was people riding their bikes across the state and like spreading the good gospel of trying to protect our coast. And you are engaging in a revival of that old missionary tradition, aren't you?

SAVAGE:

Yes, it would be really, I'm not sure I like the missionary...

WHEELER:

I was using the evangelizing metaphor, you know.

SAVAGE:

Yes, yes, just to be clear. You know, it would be super cool if we were riding bikes. We're not riding bikes. We'll be road tripping in a vehicle. But we are going to start all the way down in Imperial Beach. So when I say we, it's a group of us at Surfrider and connecting with our college clubs and our volunteer activists in different chapters.

We have 16 chapters throughout the state of California and more, I don't know, like more than a hundred college clubs. I can't keep track because there's so many all the time, including Cal Poly Humboldt. We have a Humboldt chapter and a student club at Cal Poly. So we're going to start at Imperial Beach, down at the border, and we are going to make our way as far north as Humboldt. And then we are going to head over to Sacramento and deliver all the postcards that we will be collecting along the way and hand deliver those to the different offices from their constituents to show support for the Coastal Act. And there's a whole bunch of different things planned. So I'm super excited. So May 1st is when we'll be doing something in Humboldt. So folks should remember, May 1st, May Day.

WHEELER:

First, all right, well, you can find more information, I'm sure, on the Surfrider Foundation's website and their social media. Jen, where can people go online to access Surfrider? Surfrider.org. Surfrider.org. And we have a local chapter, as you said. Get involved. I believe you began your Surfrider journey as a local chapter member, is that right?

SAVAGE:

I was, I was a volunteer starting in 2008, October 2008.

WHEELER:

And we have a story, impressive history of Surfrider here on the North Coast, some really big wins, and maybe that should be a retrospective episode in the future talking about wastewater discharge and whatever.

SAVAGE:

Yes. Do you like clean water to surf in off the Samoa Peninsula? You're welcome. I had nothing to do with it at all, but yeah, Surfrider. And if you want to find out more about the local chapter, it's humboldt.surfrider.org. So easy to remember.

WHEELER:

All right. Well, Jen Savage, thank you so much for joining the Econews and best of luck on your road trip across California. I'm excited to hear how it goes. And thank you for all that you do to protect the Coastal Act and Coastal Commission.

SAVAGE:

Thank you so much for helping me.

WHEELER:

All right. Well, join us again next week on this time channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California. Until then, be well.