Show Up In Person
Two Ways to Be There
Washington is reviewing California's authority to protect its own coast — and Santa Monica's own city government has already shown, with AB 1740 and a budget trailer bill, that it will trade that protection away. Show up, speak up, and send your comment before the window closes.
The campaigns in this toolkit are not isolated. They are fronts in the same fight, and knowing how they connect makes each individual action make a lot more sense.
None of these fights is separate from the others. A weaker federal standard makes state exemptions easier to defend. A state exemption makes local ones easier to justify. That is exactly why this toolkit asks for your voice in more than one place, not because there are many small problems, but because there is one large one, tested at every level at the same time.
In May 2026, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick directed NOAA to conduct a full, out-of-cycle review of California's Coastal Management Program under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act. On June 26, NOAA published a Federal Register notice formally opening the public comment phase of that review.
This is a Section 312 performance evaluation. NOAA is asking whether California's Coastal Commission has given proper weight to offshore oil production, spaceport infrastructure at Vandenberg, pipeline maintenance, desalination projects, and undersea cables. The last routine evaluation was completed in 2024 — this one arrives less than two years later, well outside the normal five-to-ten-year cycle.
NOAA states this review will determine whether California is giving sufficient weight to national priorities in offshore energy, transportation, infrastructure, and commercial space development. That framing puts the burden on California to justify protections that have already proven themselves. We should not let that framing go unanswered.
You do not need a polished statement to register. Slots are limited for both hearings, so sign up first and prepare after.
All comments become part of the public record, meaning your name, city, and anything you submit will be publicly accessible. Prefer to just watch? The in-person hearing streams live, though comments are not accepted through the stream.
If you want to organize a group to attend, need help drafting something more specific to your situation, or want to talk about stronger coordinated action, contact Ashley directly at ash@thecoastalalliance.org. Do not sit this one out because you are not sure what to say.
NOAA is holding its only in-person hearing for this entire review right here in Santa Monica, on August 10. Hearings like this one often draw a wave of coordinated, industry-aligned speakers who turn out in organized numbers to argue for weaker oversight. NOAA counts everyone in that room, not just who steps up to the microphone.
500 people in that ballroom on August 10, standing for a coastline that should not be up for negotiation. A packed room of residents sends a message that three minutes of testimony alone cannot.
If public speaking is not for you, come anyway. Sit down, stay for as much of the four hours as you can, and let your presence do the talking. Wear blue if you have it, so the room visibly reads as one coastline, one message.
The hearing runs 2–6 p.m. PT on August 10. Arrive by 1:30 to get through registration before it starts.
The single biggest lever any one person has is turning a solo trip into two, or a carful into five.
Ask us for the Signal group link for carpool matching, sign making, and day-of logistics.
This is a federal administrative review, not a rally, and the comments that carry the most weight are direct, specific, and grounded in your own relationship to the coast. Firm does not mean angry. Aim for roughly 400 spoken words, which fills almost all of your three minutes without running over.
1. Who you are. Name, city, and one line about your connection to the California coast.
2. Why it matters. A specific place, memory, or livelihood tied to a healthy, well-managed coastline, backed by the record if you can.
3. What you are asking. That NOAA affirm California's full coastal management authority and reject any weakening of it. Say it directly.
Five voices, five angles on the same ask. Pick whichever fits you, blend two, or use one as a starting point — for speaking at the hearing or writing your comment. (These are the same five voices in the one-click tool above.)
Good afternoon. My name is ________, and I am speaking today because California's coastline is not a bargaining chip.
For more than fifty years, the Coastal Zone Management Act has given California real authority to manage its own coast, in partnership with the federal government rather than under its thumb. That partnership works, and the record proves it. The Coastal Commission has reviewed offshore energy leases, spaceport operations at Vandenberg, pipeline maintenance, and undersea cable projects for decades, approving the overwhelming majority of what comes before it, and objecting only when a project posed a documented risk to safety or marine habitat.
This review is being framed as a question of balance. But California already has that balance. What this review actually tests is whether a program that works will be allowed to keep working, or whether it will be weakened because it occasionally says no to a federal priority.
I am asking NOAA to look honestly at that record. A program that approves the vast majority of what it reviews, and objects rarely and for clear reasons, is not an obstacle to national interests, it is a functioning check doing exactly what Congress intended.
California's authority to manage its own coast must remain fully intact, not weakened at the exact moment other parts of government are also testing how far they can push into this coastline. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and for including this comment in the official record.
Good afternoon. My name is ________, and I live in ________.
I am not a policy expert. I am someone who grew up on this coast, who has watched it through wildfire runoff, oil spills, and years of development pressure, and who has seen a state program stand between that pressure and the beaches my family still uses every week.
California's Coastal Management Program is not perfect, but it is not broken either. For fifty years it has made sure that offshore energy projects, launch activity, and infrastructure development account for the people and wildlife who share this coast. It has approved the overwhelming majority of what has come before it, and when it has said no, it has said no for reasons tied to safety, habitat, or unresolved environmental review, not politics.
I am asking NOAA to look at that record honestly, not at the framing behind this review. A program that works this consistently should not be weakened because it occasionally protects something a federal agency wanted to move forward without full review.
I want my kids to grow up with the same coastline I did, and I do not trust that protection to happen by accident. I am calling on NOAA to affirm California's full authority to manage it, and to reject any outcome that leaves it less protected than it is today.
Good afternoon. My name is ________, and I work in marine science and coastal conservation.
California's coastline supports some of the most biologically significant habitat in the country, kelp forests, estuaries, salt marshes, and nursery grounds that sustain fisheries far beyond our state line. The Coastal Zone Management Act gives California the authority to weigh federal projects against that ecological reality before they move forward, not after the damage is done.
This is not bureaucratic overreach. It is the minimum standard of care a functioning coastal program should apply, and California's record over the past five decades shows a program that applies it consistently. The state has approved the overwhelming majority of aerospace, energy, and infrastructure projects it has reviewed, and objected only when the science supported it.
Weakening California's consistency authority would remove science-based review from decisions about offshore drilling, launch activity, and coastal infrastructure at exactly the moment when climate pressure, habitat loss, and water quality concerns demand more rigor, not less.
I am calling on NOAA to recognize California's program as a model of effective, science-driven coastal management, and to reject any outcome that diminishes the state's authority to protect its marine ecosystems. The science does not get weaker because the politics changed.
Good afternoon. My name is ________, and I run a business here on the California coast.
I am speaking today because a weakened Coastal Management Program is not good for business, it is a direct threat to it. Tourism, fishing, and coastal recreation generate billions of dollars a year in this state, and every dollar of it depends on beaches, water quality, and marine habitat that stay healthy and intact.
The Coastal Commission's review process has not slowed responsible development in this state. It has made sure that development does not undercut the very coastline our local economy depends on. Reducing California's authority to review federal projects would trade a long-term economic asset for short-term convenience on individual projects, and coastal communities like mine would be the ones who pay for that trade.
I am calling on NOAA to preserve California's full consistency review authority. Protecting the coast and protecting the coastal economy are not competing goals, they are the same goal, and this state has spent fifty years proving it. Do not let this review become the reason my business and thousands like it lose that protection.
Good afternoon. My name is ________, and I am speaking today as a parent.
I want my children to grow up on a coastline as alive as the one I did, not one that was quietly weakened in a federal review most people never heard about until it was too late to speak up.
California's Coastal Management Program has spent fifty years making sure that offshore energy, launch activity, and infrastructure projects do not come at the expense of our beaches, our wildlife, and our public access. That work is not finished, and it does not belong to a different generation's priorities, it belongs to every child who will grow up on this coast after us.
I am calling on NOAA to affirm California's full authority to manage its own coastline, and to reject any change that weakens the state's ability to protect it. My kids, and every other kid growing up here, deserve a coast that is still worth protecting by the time they are old enough to understand what almost happened, and what it took to stop it.
Every submission needs the same subject line: Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program. Personalize with your own city and reason for caring, and send to czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov before August 22.
Dear NOAA Evaluation Team,
I am submitting this comment because California's coastline is not a negotiable resource, and its protection should not depend on the priorities of whichever administration happens to be in office.
For more than fifty years, the Coastal Zone Management Act has given California the authority to manage its own coast in partnership with the federal government. That partnership works. The Coastal Commission has reviewed offshore energy leases, aerospace operations, pipeline maintenance, and undersea cable installations for decades, approving the vast majority while objecting only when a project posed a genuine risk to public safety or marine habitat.
This review should confirm what the record already shows. I urge NOAA to affirm California's full coastal management authority and to reject any effort to weaken the state's consistency review powers. Our coast, our economy, and our communities depend on it, and no other level of government has earned the right to make that trade for us.
Sincerely,
[Name], [City]
Dear NOAA Evaluation Team,
I live in California, and the coast is not scenery to me. It is where I fish, where I swim, where I take my family, and where I have watched storms, oil spills, and development pressure tested against a program built to protect it.
California's Coastal Management Program has held that line for fifty years. It has not blocked national priorities. It has made sure that offshore energy, launch activity, and infrastructure projects account for the people and wildlife that share this coast, and it has approved the overwhelming majority of what has come before it.
Please affirm California's full authority to manage its own coastline and reject any weakening of the consistency review process. This coast is too important to leave less protected than it is today, especially while it is already being tested from other directions at once.
Sincerely,
[Name], [City]
Dear NOAA Evaluation Team,
I write as someone whose work is grounded in marine science and coastal conservation. California's coastline supports some of the most biologically significant habitat in the country, including kelp forests, estuaries, and nursery grounds that sustain fisheries far beyond our state line.
The Coastal Zone Management Act gives California the tools to weigh federal projects against that ecological reality. Weakening the state's consistency authority would remove science-based review from decisions about offshore drilling, launch activity, and infrastructure development at precisely the moment when climate pressure, habitat loss, and water quality concerns demand more rigor, not less.
I urge NOAA to recognize California's coastal program as a model of effective, science-driven management, and to reject any outcome that diminishes the state's authority to protect its marine ecosystems. Science-based limits should not be negotiable simply because they are inconvenient.
Sincerely,
[Name], [Credentials or Affiliation]
Dear NOAA Evaluation Team,
I run a business that depends on a healthy California coastline, and I am submitting this comment because a weakened Coastal Management Program is not good for business, it is a direct threat to it.
Tourism, fishing, and coastal recreation generate billions of dollars a year in California, and every dollar of it depends on beaches, water quality, and marine habitat that stay intact. The Coastal Commission's review process has not slowed responsible development, it has made sure development does not undercut the very coastline our economy relies on.
I urge NOAA to preserve California's full consistency review authority. Protecting the coast and protecting the coastal economy are not competing goals, they are the same goal, and I am asking NOAA not to let this review become the exception that undoes it.
Sincerely,
[Name], [Business Name, City]
Dear NOAA Evaluation Team,
I am writing as a parent who wants my children to inherit a coastline as alive as the one I grew up with, not one that was quietly traded away in a federal review most people never heard about.
California's Coastal Management Program has spent fifty years making sure that offshore energy, launch activity, and infrastructure projects do not come at the expense of beaches, wildlife, and public access. That work is owed to every child who will grow up on this coast after us.
I am asking NOAA to affirm California's full authority to manage its own coastline and to reject any change that weakens the state's ability to protect it. This is not the moment to make that protection weaker, at any level of government.
Sincerely,
[Name], [City]
Swap in your own city, your own reason for caring about the coast, and a specific place if one comes to mind. NOAA is more likely to weigh comments that read like they came from a real person making a clear ask, not a form letter.
You do not need to be an expert to comment, but a little context helps your comment land.
This toolkit reflects publicly available information as of early July 2026. Meeting details, deadlines, and registration links can change. When in doubt, confirm directly with NOAA at czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov, or reach out to us at ash@thecoastalalliance.org.
Since 1972, the Coastal Zone Management Act has given California something most states never get to fully exercise: federal consistency review. That same authority is what stopped the Trestles toll road, what lets California object to offshore drilling in federal waters, and what forces federal infrastructure and energy projects to account for coastal impacts before they break ground. A hostile finding in this review will not end that authority overnight, but it lays the legal groundwork for dismantling it — and that is precisely the point of this exercise.
The Secretary of Commerce can suspend federal funding to the Coastal Commission, the State Coastal Conservancy, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, for a minimum of six months and as long as thirty-six. That is not a technicality. That is the machinery of coastal protection in this state going without resources for up to three years.
Aerospace and space-launch projects reviewed since 1980, with only two objections — both over unresolved safety and wildlife concerns.
Undersea fiber-optic cable projects reviewed over three decades. Every single one was approved.
Years of continuous offshore oil and gas review — approving well-sited projects while requiring real safeguards.
This is the record NOAA is being asked to weigh against. A program with this record is not one that needs correcting. It is one worth defending, loudly and specifically, before this comment period closes.
I have spent my career underwater and on the shoreline, tracking kelp forest recovery, sampling water after the Palisades Fire, and learning firsthand how fragile and how resilient our coast can be at the same time. None of that work has taught me that this coastline protects itself. It only survives because people keep showing up for it.
California's coastline is not scenery. It is a working ecosystem that filters our water, nurses the fisheries our state depends on, buffers our communities from storms, and anchors an economy worth billions of dollars a year. It is also one of the last places in this country where the public still has a real say over what happens to the water, wildlife, and land along the shore.
Every objection our Coastal Commission has raised over the past five decades has protected marine habitat, public access, or safety, and time has vindicated nearly every one of them. If NOAA weakens California's authority in this review, we lose the ability to push back on offshore drilling, unchecked launch activity, and infrastructure that treats our coast as collateral rather than something worth protecting. That is not a hypothetical. That is exactly what is being decided, in a hotel ballroom in Santa Monica, on an afternoon in August, unless enough of us show up.
I wish I could tell you our own city government would hold this line regardless of what NOAA decides. I cannot. Our Mayor and City Council co-sponsored AB 1740 without ever bringing it to a public vote, without telling the residents whose coastline it targeted, and without disclosing that staff had been coordinating the strategy for months before the bill became public. That bill would have stripped Coastal Commission oversight from our own coastal zone for over a decade. Our own city leadership was prepared to make Santa Monica the first California city on record to carve an exemption out of the Coastal Act it claims to support, and to leave that as its legacy on this coastline.
That exemption was removed from AB 1740 after months of sustained public pressure, and the same language resurfaced weeks later as a late trailer bill out of the Governor's office, an attempt to bring the same coastal zone development exemptions back for Santa Monica through the state budget process instead of open legislative debate. Coalition pressure kept it out of the budget the Governor signed on June 29, but the advocates who caught it in time are already warning it could return in August. So when I say this NOAA review matters, I mean it at every level. Our federal government is testing California's coastal authority. Our state government has already shown it will try to revive a defeated exemption through the back door of the budget process. And our own city government has already shown it will trade away coastal protection when the right deadline or the right developer is on the table. Nobody at any level of government is going to hold this line for us by default. We have to hold it ourselves, starting with this comment period.
NOAA is legally required to consider every comment it receives. A hearing room full of residents speaking with conviction is very hard to ignore, and a written record full of specific, personal comments is even harder to dismiss. Your voice carries real weight here, more than most people realize.
I built this toolkit so that no one has to figure this out alone. Everything you need to register, to speak, or to write is inside. If any part of it does not make sense, or if you want to talk through what to say, or push for something stronger, reach out to me directly. My door is open, and so is my inbox.
Your participation will help save this coastline. I am asking you to give it.
Closing the loophole that could let old pipelines carry new offshore oil
While NOAA reviews our coastal authority from Washington, a second fight is playing out in Sacramento. The Trump Administration has proposed opening new federal oil and gas leases along the entire California coast, reversing protections put in place after the 1969 Santa Barbara spill. California only controls the first three nautical miles of ocean — everything past that is federal water — but oil from federal platforms still has to cross state waters and pass through state-regulated pipelines to reach shore. That crossing point is the loophole. Current law would let companies use existing pipelines already sitting in our state waters, the same kind of aging infrastructure responsible for the 2015 Refugio spill, to move that new offshore oil onto land.
Sable Offshore Corp bought the old Exxon pipeline system on the Gaviota Coast in 2024 — the same pipeline that ruptured in 2015 and dumped roughly 450,000 gallons of oil across 150 miles of coastline at Refugio State Beach. California's Coastal Commission fined Sable $18 million for unpermitted work, and state courts blocked the company from restarting it. In March 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Energy invoked a Cold War-era emergency law to override California's own State Fire Marshal and force the pipeline back into service anyway. Oil started flowing again days later, while California's Attorney General and several environmental groups fight that order in court right now. AB 1448 exists because of exactly this pattern.
AB 1448, authored by Assemblymember Gregg Hart and coauthored by Senator Henry Stern, closes that loophole. It stops old infrastructure in state waters from being used to support new federal drilling leases, tightens California's existing ban on new oil and gas development in state waters, and requires the State Lands Commission to weigh real environmental and safety risk before renewing, transferring, or extending any existing lease.
AB 1448 already passed the Assembly, 42 to 26. It is now before the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water, the committee that decides whether it reaches the full Senate floor. This is the moment it needs to hear from constituents most.
Both legislators who represent Santa Monica already support this bill. Senator Ben Allen sits on the very committee deciding its fate and voted for it once already. Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur voted yes when it passed the Assembly. A quick thank-you to each of them keeps that support solid. Reaching the rest of the committee is what actually moves this bill forward.
Co-sponsors: Oceana, the Environmental Defense Center, and the Center for Biological Diversity, with support from Surfrider Foundation.
Official bill number: AB 1448 (Hart).
A phone call to a Sacramento office takes less time than reading this page, and every call is logged and counted by staff. Start with the two names at the top, since they already have your back.
Hello, my name is ________, and I am a California resident calling to urge Senator ________ to vote yes on AB 1448.
AB 1448 closes the loophole that would let old, aging pipelines in our state waters support brand new offshore drilling in federal waters. California cannot afford another Refugio or Santa Barbara oil spill.
Please vote yes on AB 1448 when it comes before the committee, and help move it to the Senate floor. Thank you for your time.
Hello, my name is ________, and I am calling to say thank you to ________ for supporting AB 1448, the bill that closes the offshore drilling infrastructure loophole.
This bill matters to me and to our coastline, and I wanted this office to know that constituents are watching and are grateful. Please keep up the fight to protect California's coast from new offshore drilling. Thank you.
Subject: Please vote yes on AB 1448
Dear Senator [Name],
I am writing to urge you to vote yes on AB 1448. This bill closes a real loophole, one that would let old, aging oil infrastructure already sitting in our state waters be used to support brand new offshore drilling in federal waters, at the exact moment the current administration is pushing to expand drilling off our entire coast.
California has already lived through the cost of aging pipelines and offshore spills. AB 1448 tightens the safeguards we have and closes the gap that current law leaves open. I am asking you to vote yes when this bill comes before your committee, and to help move it forward to the full Senate.
Thank you for considering my request.
Sincerely,
[Name], [City]
Step 1: Pick a name from the contact list above. Step 2: Call the number, or copy the email template into a new message. Step 3: Fill in the name and say it out loud once if you are calling. That is the whole process, and it genuinely moves the needle in Sacramento.
This campaign is one part of a much larger coalition responding to this same moment. These are real, active resources from partner organizations, worth your time alongside everything else on this page.
A coalition hub tracking every simultaneous federal rollback aimed at California right now, including this same NOAA coastal review and a separate proposal to gut public lands protections across 245 million acres, with its own comment deadline of August 24.
A shared coalition guide for turning your submitted comment into a visible public moment — visiting a threatened place, documenting it, and posting it before the comment windows close. Useful whether your focus is the coast, public lands, or both.
A separate opportunity — the California Coastal Commission meets in Santa Cruz on August 13 and could formally object to new offshore fracking, with grounds to issue a cease-and-desist order against Sable Offshore for restarting operations without a coastal permit. Rally at 8 a.m., hearing at 9 a.m., Scotts Valley Hilton. This is a separate event from the August 10 Santa Monica hearing.
Ask us for the Signal group link where we coordinate rides, sign making, and last-minute updates across every action in this toolkit — email protectourcoastline@proton.me.
This federal review is not the only threat to our coastline this summer, and it is not even the one closest to home. Santa Monica's own Mayor and City Council co-sponsored AB 1740 without ever bringing it to a public vote, without telling the residents whose coastline it targeted, and without disclosing that staff had been coordinating the strategy for months before the bill became public. That bill would have stripped Coastal Commission oversight from our own coastal zone for over a decade — making Santa Monica the first California city on record to carve an exemption out of the Coastal Act it claims to support.
That exemption was removed from AB 1740 after months of sustained public pressure. But weeks later, the same language resurfaced as a late budget trailer bill out of the Governor's office — an attempt to bring the same coastal-zone development exemption back for Santa Monica through the state budget process instead of open legislative debate. Coalition pressure kept it out of the budget signed on June 29, but advocates who caught it in time are already warning it could return in August.