CoastWatcher

Calif Coastal Commission files against presidential sonar order
By JACOB ADELMAN Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 01/22/2008 03:43:42 PM PST
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_8046349?nclick_check=1
LOS ANGELES—The California Coastal Commission filed a court brief Tuesday against President Bush’s exemption of the Navy from environmental laws that would restrict use of high-power sonar off the coast.

Filed in Los Angeles federal court, it argues the president violated constitutional guarantees of separation of powers by overriding an earlier court decision limiting sonar use.

“This is an effort by the president to rule by decree instead of observing the rule of law,” said California Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office represents the coastal commission. “It’s hard to find words to express the extent to which this deviates from the American tradition of separation of powers. It’s shocking.”

Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a Navy spokesman, declined to comment on the filing.

An after-hours message left with the U.S. Department of Justice’s press office was not immediately returned.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, which is fighting the sonar use, planned to file its own brief Tuesday alleging a breach of separation-of-powers doctrine and questioning the president’s reasoning that limits on testing qualified as an emergency requiring his intervention, said Joel Reynolds, a lawyer for the group.

“The president does not have authority under the laws of congress or the U.S Constitution to override an order of a federal court,” Reynolds said. “His position is dangerous, illegal and unjustified.”
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Ed. Note:  What a week for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger! First he determines that in order to balance the state budget he’d close 50 State Parks (to start) rather than consider any other strategies like cutting the fat from his own pet agencies or any sort of revenue raising schemes, then his prodigal counselors get him to support one of the least popular, most environmentally destructive development proposals in California history:  A toll road freeway right through the middle of San Onofre State Park.  Guess Arnold is done with all that ‘environmental’ stuff that earned him world wide publicity recently….
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tollway16jan16,1,5233753.story?coll=la-headlines-california
From the Los Angeles Times
Schwarzenegger backs O.C. tollway
Formerly neutral, he now urges the Coastal Commission to approve the Foothill South, which would run through San Onofre State Beach.
By Dan Weikel and David Reyes
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

January 16, 2008

Backing away from his neutral stance, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday urged the California Coastal Commission to approve a controversial tollway in Orange County that would pass through San Onofre State Beach, one of California’s most popular parks. Read the rest of this entry »

Ed. note:  George Bush has once again decided that he knows best how to defend America.  ‘The Decider’ has now figured that destroying whales is the next great step in the war on global terrorism. Environmental protections and federal law mean nothing to him and his legacy.  Apparently his idea of ‘Homeland Security’ is to destroy it. Yesterday, while on vacation in the Middle East, the lame duck anti-environmental disaster also known as the President of the United States signed an ‘exemption’ allowing the recalcitrant US Navy to destroy whales and other marine mammals along the California coast.  Gee….thanks Bud.

Bush exempts Navy to continue exercises off SoCal coast
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080116-0713-navy-sonar.html
By Pauline Jelinek
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:13 a.m. January 16, 2008
WASHINGTON – President Bush exempted the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using sonar in its anti-submarine warfare training off the California coast – a practice critics say is harmful to whales and other marine mammals. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oceans10jan10,1,7435447.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

New center to focus on solving ocean problems

Launched by Stanford University and Monterey Bay Aquarium and its research institute, the organization was created in part out of frustration from a lack of government leadership.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 10, 2008

Stanford University and Monterey Bay Aquarium and its research institute, with $25 million from the Packard Foundation, on Wednesday launched a new academic center that will focus not on the problems plaguing the world’s oceans, but on how to solve them. Read the rest of this entry »

The Orange County TCA, perhaps the least liked agency in the history of government, has issued a new report attacking the California Coastal Commission for their accounting of the myriad of illegalities and Coastal Act policy inconsistencies associated with their plan to build a private freeway 4 miles through San Onofre State Park and 17 miles straight up the San Mateo Creek watershed along the Orange County – San Diego County line.

Notable is TCA’s strategy. As the old saying goes, when the facts are against you and the law is against you, abuse your opponent. TCA is vicious in their attack of the Coastal Commission (and anyone else with nerve enough to question their evil master plan), but TCA doesn’t dispute the basic facts that their proposed toll road will decimate rare and endangered coastal resources, destroy a beloved state park, ruin a world famous surf spot, and ironically, won’t relieve traffic congestion on Interestate Highway 5 at all. Instead, TCA’s ‘freeway to nowhere’ will simply go 17 miles inland so OC’s real estate mafia can develop thousands of new houses with a big dollop of public assistance in form of free land.

Go to the Orange County Register website to read the latest and vote in an online survey in which approximately 75% of the public is against the toll road.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/coastal-agency-toll-1956562-effects-road

For more information on how you can help save San Onofre, go to http://taskforce.sierraclub.org/friendsofthefoothills/ and http://www.savesanonofre.com/ and http://www.surfrider.org/southorangecounty/

Stayed tuned, as the California Coastal Commission is set to vote on the project at their February 2008 meeting in San Diego, California.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Toll agency says criticisms of Foothill South road are flawed
Press briefing challenges Coastal Commission staff report that recommends expanding I-5 instead of building new road into state park.
By PAT BRENNAN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – A state environmental agency’s scathing report on the proposed Foothill South toll road is riddled with errors, overstates environmental harm and urges an alternative with far more devastating effects on Orange County, according to a sharply worded response released by toll road builders Wednesday.

The response escalates a war of words between the state Coastal Commission and the Transportation Corridor Agency over the proposed 16-mile toll road in southern Orange County, which would complete the agency’s network of toll roads and, the agency says, ease future traffic congestion that would otherwise be crippling. Read the rest of this entry »