CA Coastal Commission

===four California Coastal Commission members appointed by Gov. Jerry

Brown have been maneuvering to oust its outspoken executive director Dr.

Charles Lester. This campaign to unseat Dr. Lester is an unsheathed

assault on the coastal commission’s integrity and a dire threat to the

California coast. It is also an audacious display of industry power,

which will <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/california-coastal-commission.html?r=0" target="blank">come to a head</a> Wednesday at the commission’s <a href="http://www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html/#info" target="_blank">quarterly meeting</a> in Morro Bayon.

The 12-member coastal commission has regulatory authority over all

permits, licenses and funding approvals for projects impacting coastal

resources, including offshore oil and gas development. For more than 40

years the coastal commission has brought balance to the struggle between

advocates of clean water, healthy wetlands, unspoiled vistas, unpaved

agricultural farms and broad public access against the real estate and

energy tycoons who now seek Dr. Lester’s ouster. Dr. Lester has been the

commission’s most vocal champion for safeguarding California’s public

trust assets and preserving the coast from unwise and shortsighted

development.

Industry launched its campaign to topple Dr. Lester shortly after he <a href="http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-1008-banning-ranch-coastal-decision-20151007-story.html" target="blank">expressed skepticism</a> over the <a href="http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Coastal-Commission-May-Oust-Executive-Director-366004861.html" target="blank">proposed Banning Ranch development</a>,

which would place nearly 1,400 homes with resort and retail space on

environmentally sensitive coastal habitat and wetlands. Aera Energy, a

jointly owned affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ExxonMobil Corp, is

a <a href="http://www.banningranchconservancy.org/20things.html" target="_blank">leading project promoter</a>.

Californians are increasingly aware of the anti-democratic clout wielded by energy barons and developers.

The ongoing <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=porter+ranch">Porter Ranch</a>

gas leak offers striking parallels and strong cautions about

Sacramento’s merger with corporate power. The Porter Ranch disaster is

the offspring of a greedy company and its delinquent regulator who

ignored a missing safety valve on a 62-year-old well for 31 years. When

the inevitable blow out happened, it took Gov. Brown 40 days to <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/07/porter-ranch-state-of-emergency/">declare a state of emergency</a> to address the largest gas leak in history—one which has displaced <a href="http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/02/03/prosecutor-smells-crime-charges-utility-for-huge-gas-leak/#37273101=0" target="_blank">4,400 families</a>, sickened hundreds of adults and children and drawn compelling <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/22/erin-brockovich-porter-ranch/">comparisons to the BP oil spill</a>.

Residents wonder if Gov. Brown’s cozy ties to petroleum and real

estate interests inspired his lethargy. Brown has taken $1.1 million

from real estate developers since 2011 and $2,014,570 from oil and gas

barons since 2006. <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/19/climate-pretender-award/2/">His sister, Kathleen Brown</a>, sits on the board of Sempra Energy, whose affiliate, SoCal Gas, is the culprit in the Porter Ranch well collapse. <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/22/the-porter-ranch-gas-leak-blame-jerry-brown/" target="_blank">Sempra paid her</a>

$188,380 in 2014 and $267,865 in 2013. Kathleen Brown also owns rights

to Sempra stock worth $409,945. She is a partner at a law firm that

represents the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) and a

defendant in a RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization—<a href="http://rrexparris.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Draft-Second-Amended-Complaint-with-Redaction.pdf" target="blank">lawsuit</a> against Gov. Brown and the oil industry. CIPA and its members donated lavishly to Gov. Brown’s legacy ballot measure—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_30,2012" target="_blank">Prop 30</a>.

Beginning in 2011, CIPA joined with Occidental Petroleum to <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9c36a75698d24a888d583af76def486a/fired-regulator-brown-pushed-waive-oil-safeguards" target="_blank">persuade Brown</a>

to approve a host of illegal injection wells of the kind that failed at

Porter Ranch. In response to a direct request from Occidental’s

attorney Gray Davis, Brown <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/09/08/governor-brown-under-fire-for-axing-state-oil-regulators-and-pay-to-play-politics" target="_blank">fired two diligent public servants</a>—State

Oil & Gas supervisor Elena Miller and her boss Derek Chernow, the

acting director of the state Department of Conservation—when they

refused to issue illegal well permits.

Two months later, on Jan. 9, 2012, Brown’s new State Oil & Gas supervisor, Tim Kustic, issued Occidental an <a href="https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/11/05/784191/0/en/Lawsuit-Uncovers-Governor-Had-State-Workers-Develop-Maps-for-Personal-Oil-Holdings.html" target="_blank">illegal permit</a>

to drill a frack well in a Kern County almond orchard without the

required environmental review designed to protect vital aquifers. Four days later, <a href="https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/04/15/18771135.php" target="_blank">Occidental gave its first of two $250,000 contributions</a>

to the governor’s proposition to increase taxes. In a striking

expression of fealty to the carbon czars, Brown pledged on the same day

as the Occidental contribution that neither human health injuries nor

the law would deter him from continuing to serve their interests. “There

will be indictments and there will be deaths. But we’re going to keep

going,” he said.

In total, grateful <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/07/29/californias-biggest-secret-oil-industry-capture-of-the-regulatory-apparatus" target="_blank">oil and gas tycoons contributed</a>

more than $1.2 million to Brown’s proposition to increase income taxes.

Brown later boasted that firing Miller and Chernow facilitated oil

development in Kern County. It also meant that millions of gallons of

contaminated waste would be injected each month into the aquifers in the

California San Joaquin Valley.

In her shocking <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0385535597" target="_blank">new book</a>, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,

Jane Mayer reveals how a small cadre of oil titans have used their

astonishing riches to game America’s political system, capture our

regulatory agencies, corrupt our politicians in order to subvert

democracy, defy our environmental laws and push American democracy

toward a new Gilded Age for corporate kleptocracy.

California and a handful of other states have largely escaped this

kind of hostile takeover of state government by corporate power. But

California’s democratic values cannot flourish long with Sacramento

politicians suckling at pipelines of oily cash. The move to oust the

coastal commission director is a signal that public servants with

courage and integrity that stand up to well-connected robber barons will

be crushed and silenced by government officials on industry payroll.

As the coastal commission convenes tomorrow, the rest of the world

will be watching California, not just for how she protects her

coastlines, but how she safeguards her democracyrfk2
==
sierra 1/16<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_10059">
</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_10058">Developers

who are not satisfied with rules that protect public access and the

environment along our state's beautiful coast are trying to weaken the

12-member Commission by attacking its executive director.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_10055">
</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9855">

The developers have enlisted

four Coastal Commission members appointed by Governor Brown to try to

unseat the executive director. <a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9932" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.emails.sierraclub.org/?qs=5aab0d9795f61bee02ab3817dfb9c97ae4c3e181c4e923643edee48407a4bae6e4d07efa187cae97865c2e76216b457a" title="Tell Governor Brown now to demonstrate support for coastal access and call off his appointees' attack.">Tell Governor Brown now to demonstrate support for coastal access and call off his appointees' attack.</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9905">
</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9906">

Nearly

40 years ago, California's voters passed the California Coastal Act, and

put in place a Coastal Commission, to make sure the coast remains

accessible to every Californian.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_10054"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9889">

The act

requires the Commission and its staff to review coastal development

plans and to protect the coast from development that would damage

environmentally sensitive areas, create a hazard, or cut off public

access to beaches.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9921">
</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454261738341_9917">

Many

times in the past, developers have tried to weaken the Commission by

attacking the staff charged with making the Coastal Act work. Now

they're at it again.</div>===

The Pacific Legal Foundation was the nation's first business oriented public interest law firm founded in 1973 by members of the California Chamber of Commerce. PLF was politically supported by officials in then Governor Ronald Reagan's cabinet, including founding member Edwin Meese.

PLF's initial financial support came from members of the California Chamber of Commerce and J. Simon Fluor of the Fluor Corporation's oil, nuclear and mineral dollars. Anti-environmental from the start, PLF's early actions supported the use of DDT, the use of herbicides in national forests, and the use of public range land without requiring an environmental impact review. They also supported at least six pro-nuclear power cases before the early eighties while accepting funding from Pacific General Electric (PGE), a utility which has gained a great deal through the development of nuclear power in the Pacific Northwest.

In the nineteen-eighties PLF won several cases that are considered land marks by those working on property rights issues today: Nollan v the California Coastal Commission and First Church, both Supreme Court victories which provide precedence for the takings litigation pursued today (Oliver Houck, "With Charity For All," Yale Law Journal, 1993).