California Coastal Decommission

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

It's said all politics is local. Thanks to a couple of dogged
property-rights advocates, that might finally mean environmental politics
too.

That hasn't been the case for a long time. Instead, the tale of U.S.
environmental policy has primarily been one of federal and state governments
rolling up control, then blanketing regions with one-size-fits-all
regulations that trample land owners, democracy, and the environment itself.
Of late, however, there have been some cheering reversals in this trend --
none more so than a recent legal win in that regulatory nirvana known as
California.

That's where Sacramento lawyer Ron Zumbrun, assisted by the Pacific Legal
Foundation, a law firm dedicated to limited government, has convinced a
state appeals court to declare the California Coastal Commission
unconstitutional. The commission, for those fortunate enough to have avoided
its tentacles, was established with the California Coastal Act of 1976 to
help local governments adopt local coastal plans. Instead it pulled a
Saddam, investing itself with dictatorial powers over every last grain of
the state's 1.5 million acres of coastal property -- public and private.

As Pacific Legal attorney James Burling has said, the body's motto is "no
detail too small, no permit too large." The commission pronounces on
everything from parking slots in coastal downtowns, to where the Navy can
use its aircraft carriers, to what landowners can plant in their gardens.
Its corruption is infamous: One commissioner was convicted in 1993 for
soliciting bribes for permits. In 1987, when the commission found itself on
the losing end of a seminal land-rights case, the U.S. Supreme Court
declared its methods "an out-and-out plan of extortion."

And now, apparently, unconstitutional. In 2001, acting on Mr. Zumbrun's
case, a California Superior Court judge ruled that because eight of the
Commission's 12 members are appointed by the California legislature, it
cannot perform executive functions such as issuing permits or handing out
cease and desist orders. Last month, that legal decision was reaffirmed by a
state appeals court; the commission is now debating an appeal to
California's Supremes.

But ultimately the legislature must fix this tsunami. This being California,
it will come as no surprise that the state's liberal majority is already
making it worse. Last week they began rushing through a narrow "fix" that
doesn't address the constitutional issue and guarantees a long, protracted
legal battle. What they should be doing is dramatically reforming the
commission so that real powers return to local coastal planners.

Those locals have been under the commission's coast-sized thumb for decades,
helpless to do what is best for their areas. In a survey of local planners
last year, the commission was said to be "out of touch," "disconnected" from
communities and had no idea how local government works. A full 97% felt
their communities would be best served by having coastal plans developed by
locally elected officials.

That's because local planners, not some central, faceless body, know best
the needs of their towns. They are better positioned to decide on issues of
land use, access, and other quirks. They also have the attribute of actually
being accountable to local voters.

Moreover, for true conservationists, local administrators mean smarter
resource planning and the freedom to innovate on behalf of nature. Proof?
Consider that Mr. Zumbrun's case was actually filed on behalf of an
environmentalist, Rodolphe Streichenberger, a marine biologist at the Marine
Forests Society, who was engaged in a small, innovative experiment to
restore sea-life habitat off Newport Beach until the commission shut him
down.

California's landowners, and its environment, have suffered the commission's
blunt rule for 27 years too long. The legislature has a chance to give the
people most deeply involved with their coasts the opportunity to manage them
again. It should take it.

Ms. Strassel is an editorial writer at the Journal.