America CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION


America’s Most Arrogant Bureaucracy


It rules with an iron fist, blocks development arbitrarily, imposes huge fines, and delays projects for years.


W BY JOHN FUND


hat regulatory body do Elon Musk and Pres- ident Donald Trump hate the most?


It just might be the California


Coastal Commission, perhaps the most arrogant bureaucracy outside of the federal government. Both men have tangled with it fre-


quently. The all-powerful commission dic-


tates what happens in a highly popu- lated zone that stretches up to 5 miles inland along the Golden State’s 1,127 miles of shoreline. Almost half of California’s 40 mil-


lion people live in this zone. If you want to build or renovate


your house or operate a business in this zone, you must deal with the CCC. It was created in a referendum in


1972 and supposed to last for just four years. It’s still here, 53 years later. In 1976, the state Legislature made


the CCC permanent and empowered its 12 voting commissioners — all nonelected appointees of politicians — with the wide authority to require “coastal development permits.” Since then, the CCC has seized con-


trol of everything from parking slots in coastal downtowns, to where the Navy can use its aircraft carriers, to what


landowners can plant in their gardens. The Pacific Legal Foundation,


which has frequently sued the CCC, says its motto is “no detail too small, no permit not worthy of denial.” The land use agency rules over 1.5


million acres of land with an impe- rial hand, blocks development arbi- trarily, imposes multimillion-dollar fines, delays projects for years, and has wielded its authority so recklessly that the U.S. Supreme Court once declared its methods “an out-and-out plan of extortion.” But lately, more and more Califor-


nians have come to realize that the bully must be reined in. Consider the recent wildfires in Los


Angeles that devastated that city. In 2019, the Los Angeles Depart-


ment of Water and Power sought to widen a fire-access road and replace old wooden utility poles in the Topanga Canyon abutting the Pacific Palisades neighborhood with steel ones to make


U.S. Supreme Court declared its methods “an out-and-out plan of extortion.”


12 NEWSMAX | JUNE 2025


power lines fire- and wind-resistant. In the process, crews removed an estimated 182 Braunton’s milkvetch plants, an endangered species. The utility halted the project as


state officials investigated the plant’s needs. More than a year later, the CCC issued a cease-and-desist order, fined the utility $2 million, and required “mitigation” for the project’s impact on the species. This involved replacing “nonna-


tive” vegetation with plants native to the state. You have to chuckle at the contradiction: California’s gov- ernment banishes foreign flora and fauna but provides sanctuary for ille- gal immigrants. Since the milkvetch requires wild-


fires to propagate, the only way to boost its numbers is to let the land burn. The Wall Street Journal observed that “a cynic might wonder if environmentalists interfered with fire prevention in hope of evicting humans from what they view as the plant’s rightful habitat.” After the fires devastated the Pali- sades and other areas, the commis-


BEACH/GARY CORONADO / LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES


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