Supervisors move forward with ballot measure strengthening offshore drilling ordinance

With the Trump administration actively looking to revive and expand offshore oil drilling along the California coast, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is moving forward with a November ballot measure intended to help bolster local protections to the county’s coastline.

“We have renewed threats, not only around offshore drilling oil and gas, but also now with deep-sea mining,” said County Supervisor Justin Cummings on Tuesday. 

Cummings and County Supervisor Kim De Serpa proposed updates to Measure A, an ordinance passed in 1986 that requires voters to approve any offshore facility over 20,000 square feet that supports offshore drilling operations. The ordinance was created in response to offshore drilling developments along the California coast in the 1980s.  

The proposed updates are in response to the Trump administration’s proposals to sell as many as 34 gas- and oil-drilling leases in federal waters over the next five years. This plan also includes six areas along the Pacific coast, with two leases along the Central Coast. Federal officials are also seeking to expedite seabed mining permits and projects in coastal waters in the Pacific. 

“Central to this effort is strengthening the 40-year onshore ordinance that has protected the coast for decades against these new threats,” said Katie Thompson, executive director of Save Our Shores, an environmental advocacy organization. 

Thompson and her team worked with Cummings and De Serpa on the updates to the ordinance. 

Any changes to the ordinance require voter approval, said George Leonard, a marine scientist and policy expert working with Save Our Shores on the ordinance update. Voters will see this measure on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Updates to the ordinance include expanding the scope of the local law to cover deep-sea mining — the process of extracting minerals, like cobalt and nickel, from the ocean floor — and updating outdated research from the original ordinance. 

Some of the new research added to the ordinance touches on public health hazards of oil spills, and geographical vulnerabilities, such as coastal erosion and extreme winter storms that can lead to flooding, according to a county staff report ahead of the supervisors’ Tuesday meeting.

Leonard added that the overall legal structure of the ordinance is more detailed to include definitions, exemptions and legal limits, which will make the ordinance defensible if it were challenged in court. 

“The threats of offshore oil and deep sea mining are very real, and they are moving extremely quickly under this current federal administration,” said Thompson. “Our local ordinance has protected us before, but it does need to be updated.”

Last year, Santa Cruz County officials revived the Outer Continental Shelf Local Government Coordination program, a coalition of cities and counties working to stop the sale of new offshore drilling leases in response to the federal proposals. 

The group was first established by former county supervisor Gary Patton to fight offshore oil development and continued until 1994 before dissolving. The coalition also took part in helping establish the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. It also provided local governments across California with cost-effective legal, technical and political support to oppose offshore drilling efforts, including lobbying lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and launching public awareness campaigns about the issue. 

Cummings, who has been very vocal about his opposition to the Trump administration’s proposals, previously told Lookout that elected leaders and community members “have to fight back at all costs” on this issue. Last winter, he urged community members to submit public comments for the current federal proposal to open parts of the California coast to oil drilling. 

“What we’ve seen with this administration is, if you don’t stand up to them they’ll do whatever they want, even if it’s illegal,” Cummings told Lookout in April. “It’s critical we take the threat seriously.”

The board of supervisors has continued to double down on its opposition to offshore drilling by sending a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in January. In February, it also approved a resolution condemning federal proposals to expedite deep-sea mining permits.

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FOR THE RECORD: This story has been updated with Tuesday’s action by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

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