SANTA CRUZ -- Concerned community members, Santa Cruz officials and environmental advocates gathered on the Santa Cruz Wharf on a sunny Wednesday morning to declare their unified opposition to oil and mineral extraction in Monterey Bay and along the Pacific Coast.
"We were here in the 1980s when the federal government threatened to take the California Coast and pollute it, both visually and otherwise, drilling for oil, gas and now, for seabed minerals and they want to do that again," said Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley. He explained how, in the 1980s, elected officials like state Sen. John Laird and environmental advocates such as former Director of Save Our Shores Dan Haifley, rallied cities and counties in the state to pass local ordinances banning onshore oil support infrastructure without a vote of the people, ultimately creating a "blue wall" along most of the California coast.
"The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary did not get established so a few decades later, they could dot it with oil rigs," said Keeley. "This is an intergenerational fight because all environmental victories are temporary and all environmental losses are permanent."
The press conference on the wharf Wednesday comes on the heels of leaked federal documents that revealed the Trump administration's intentions for the U.S. Department of the Interior's proposed Five-Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, which would potentially allow oil drilling in federal waters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, as recently reported by the Houston Chronicle.
What came as a shock to local elected officials and environmental advocates is that the administration is reportedly planning to remove the requirement for an environmental impact review and public comment to speed up the permitting process for offshore drilling projects.
At the gathering on the wharf Wednesday, Rep. Jimmy Panetta discussed how the Trump administration attempted to open up the East and West coasts to resource extraction in his first term through a series of executive orders.
"Fortunately, back then, millions of people got involved. Our state, with leaders like John Laird, got involved and put up legal, logistical and political hurdles, which stalled those proposals and we protected our treasures," said Panetta. "But Trump 2.0 is a different beast. It's different because they don't play by the rules."
Panetta referenced the recently leaked documents and stressed the importance of letting the Trump administration know that local officials will not stand by and allow oil and mineral extraction along the Central Coast or elsewhere.
"We stand here today to let the administration know that our Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is not the east wing of the White House," said Panetta.
Laird then outlined the coordinated effort to establish the "blue wall" of cities and counties in the 1980s, Trump's attempts to allow coastal resource extraction in his first term and his intention to remove environmental review and public comment regarding offshore oil drilling in his current term.
"That's why we're here today, is to energize all of you," said Laird. "And to make sure you know that it's in your hands now. It's in your hands to make sure that we educate the public, that we make coalitions in unusual places and that we drive this home. The fight is on and all of you are soldiers in this fight."
Third District Santa Cruz County Supervisor Justin Cummings pointed out that in the 1980s, then-Third District Supervisor Gary Patton helped to establish the Local Government Outer Continental Shelf Coordination Program to combat oil drilling, and that that coalition was reestablished by order of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in late June. The coalition is led in part by local nonprofit Save Our Shores.
"So far we've reached out to every single representative of every coastal county in the state of California," said Cummings. "We have been in direct contact with San Mateo, Sonoma, Marin, Humboldt, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, San Diego County and Ventura County, along with the city of Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, all of whom are in the process of either agendizing or exploring the opportunity to join this effort. And I will say that this is just the beginning."
The Santa Cruz City Council voted to reaffirm its opposition to offshore oil drilling at a meeting in June and to join with the county's regional coalition in September. Both actions were championed by Keeley, Councilmember Renee Golder and Vice Mayor Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, who spoke at the event Wednesday.
"This is about solidarity," said Kalantari-Johnson. "This is about standing shoulder-to-shoulder, as Congressman Panetta said, and it's to protect what we know cannot be replaced, so together we will fortify our blue wall."
After he spoke to the gathering on the wharf, the Sentinel caught up with Haifley, who said the present threat of potential resource extraction along the California Coast is different than it was in the 1980s and 1990s because "this administration is not playing by the rules."
"This is fundamentally different in that the draft documents that were leaked to the Houston Chronicle indicated that environmental review may be eliminated and that public input may be limited or eliminated. In the 1980s, we were able to organize around those two elements: the environmental impact statement and public comment," said Haifley. "When that's been eliminated, that puts the burden of public involvement on local ordinances. We have 27 ordinances, with Marin County adding theirs in 2020, which all need to be updated and we need to add new ones in areas where we didn't get them before because our momentum slowed down."
Haifley pointed out that even if conducted adjacent to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, "oil spills do not respect sanctuary boundaries," and that a variety of cascading negative environmental effects in the sanctuary could result from offshore oil drilling and seabed mining.
"We will just have to wait and see what the final plan says," Haifley said. "Our resolve is to be ready."