A 50-Year-Old Law Protects the Local
This column is published and syndicated by Zócalo Public Square. Photo of coast by Joe Mathews
By THE CALIFORNIA COAST
Hold on a sec—let me just pull this marine layer back over Santa Monica... okay, cool.
What was I saying? I forget. Fog brain. Happens when you’ve been hanging out between the Pacific plate and the North American plate for a few geological epochs. You lose track of details. Is it August? Is it May gray? Does time even exist when you’re constantly pounding shale into sand?
Now I remember why I’m taking a quick break from slowly eroding Big Sur into the abyss. It’s because people have been talking about me lately, and not always in a nice way. The occasion seems to be that the people of California and I have hit a big milestone: 50 years of the California Coastal Act.
Fifty years, dude! For a state law, that’s practically ancient. For me? A blink. But honestly? It’s been the best half-century of my life. (Well, at least since my salad days, in the pre-human Mesozoic era).
Before 1976, as California’s post-war population boomed, everyone and their venture-backed uncle was trying to carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Gated communities, private beaches, industrial hellscapes, seawalls that starve my surf ... it was getting real un-chill. Then the people of California—bless your sun-drenched, taco-loving hearts—passed Prop 20 in 1972. The state legislature made the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission permanent in 1976.
In effect, they put up a giant, legally binding sign saying that the coast belongs to everyone. Or at least the part with wet sand.
If you want to know how that miracle happened, watch Todd Holmes’ terrific documentary, To Save Our Coast. Holmes—a super-cool surfer and UC Berkeley historian who spends his days collecting oral histories from environmentalists and cannabis growers—shows how coastal protection was realized through a wild grassroots revolt, propelled by college kids in Birkenstocks and by local conservationists who built phone trees across all 58 counties. Holmes’ film should remind you that my history is defined by what you don’t see—the eyesores that were never built because regular folks gave a damn.
For 50 years, that law has had my back—and yours. It’s why you can walk along my beaches without paying a toll to a hedge fund. It’s why you can surf Trestles or (if you’re crazy) Mavericks, hike the Marin Headlands, and eat fish on Moonstone Beach without showing a membership card at a guard kiosk.
The secret of the act’s success is the Coastal Commission, which doesn’t care if you’re a rock god or an oligarch. When The Edge from U2 spent years trying to build a massive five-mansion compound on top of my fragile Malibu bluffs, the commission said nope. When Bob Dylan tried to fence off his Malibu spread, they stepped in. Even Elon Musk had to learn that blasting massive SpaceX rockets out of Vandenberg Space Force Base still requires respecting my fragile ecosystems.
So, you can imagine my annoyance—and when this 1,100-mile stretch of coast gets angry, sea caves crumble—when I see MAGA politicians and oil executives trying to tear the whole system down.
Case in point: Texas-based Sable Offshore restarted that oil pipeline west of Goleta in Santa Barbara County. You remember that line? Back in 2015, when it was owned by Plains All American, it ruptured near Refugio State Beach, spilling over 100,000 gallons of heavy crude all over my beaches, tidepools, and kelp forests. It killed pelicans, poisoned sea lions, and smeared black sludge across my sands. Fast forward to today, and Sable Offshore comes waltzing in thinking they’ll just buy off the Trump administration and restart the whole thing—cranking pressure back up through that same corroded corridor.
Now, I like to think of myself as a pretty relaxed landform. I let millions walk on me, and I let seagulls steal your fries. I’m chill. But this Sable situation? It makes me feel unusually hot, though some of that could be El Niño.
Recently, the regular author of this column drove up to look at the Sable facility near Las Flores Canyon in Santa Barbara County. What’d he find? The property looks unmaintained. Loose, rusty pipes lie around in the dirt like an oxidized game of pick-up sticks. High-pressure oil infrastructure sits near dry brush. Makes me wonder: How much care are they putting into the safety of the pipeline itself?
Sable has the backing of none other than Donald Trump and his fellow Epstein friend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. They have launched a massive federal investigation into the Coastal Commission. Lutnick is calling your state’s protections of me “environmental extremism” and “obstructionist.” They’re trying to strip federal funding and bypass state authority so energy companies can drill, lay pipes, and befoul me however they want.
How am I handling all this? Honey, I’m bedrock. I’m granite and sandstone, too. I’ve survived tectonic shifts, ice ages and millions of years of pounding surf. You think a couple D.C. fascists in expensive suits scare me?
Though I have to admit, I look over at my cousin, Florida’s Atlantic coast, and honestly, I worry. She’s been battered by so many Category 5 hurricanes, and run over by so many crooked developers, that she just lets Trump and his Mar-a-Lago crew build whatever gaudy monstrosity they want right over her dunes.
But out here, me and the rest of my West Coast brothers? We straight gangsta. (OK—jagged gangsta, but you get my continental drift.) We’ve got rocks. We’ve got cliffs. We’ve got a legally empowered public that will fight for every inch of sand.
So, happy 50th birthday, California Coastal Act. Let’s raise a toast to the activists, commissioners, legal nerds, and everyday Californians keeping me public, clean, and wild.
To my haters in Washington and Texas: Take a deep breath of sea mist and chill out. Stop the political nonsense, pick up your rusty pipes, and understand that this old coast is gonna stay the sexiest thing in California, no matter what you try to pull.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the tide is coming in, and I’ve got some salt spray to fling around. Catch you on the flip side.
