Opinion- My letter to protest offshore oil driling and the Coastal Act performance review- if you feel like we do, please send your own letter. See Dobie Dolphin letter too! Deadline is today!! Aug. 22, 2026
Editor Frank Hartzell has written a letter protesting offshore oil drilling. Back in 1988 while enrolled at Humboldt State, Frank had his letter published in the San Francisco Chronicle protesting this exact same subject. At that time I believed a journalist should not express opinions, but this subject was clearly a horrible idea that was opposed by right-wing, left wing, Boards of Realtors, City Councils, Tribal governments, and fishermen’s groups. Doing this would destroy what we all have here and, more importantly, the ocean. NO, just NO! was what both parties and pretty much everybody thought in 1988.
Fort Bragg was a center of anti-drilling activism. That community is long gone. Southern California is the only place that has protested this loudly
The political world has moved miles to the right since then, and there is no longer universal support or even much interest. But we are writing another letter anyway. We know that if you write a letter of your own, it should express legal issues with the Trump Administration proposal to have more weight. We have listed at the end good stuff that other opponents of this entire process should put in their letters.
I still think offshore oil drilling is a horrible idea on our West Coast.
The public comment deadline for the NOAA performance review of the California Coastal Management Program closed at 11:59 p.m. PT on August 22, 2026. Written comments must be submitted via email to. Your comments need to have in the subject line of the email” Comments on the Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program
Use this email: czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov
To the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
RE: Performance Review of the California Coastal Act.
My name is Frank Hartzell, i am a resident of Fort Bragg, California. I am offering specific objections to the Performance Review
Please consider these comments
Donald Trump wants to drill for oil off the entire California Coast because the USA needs domestic energy. Donald Trump says the Coastal Commission has gone rogue.
These statements are untrue. It is your obligation legally and morally as NOAA employees not to act on this if it is based entirely on false statements and uses an illegal process.
`1. Donald Trump is not seeking to increase offshore energy and development. Here is one piece of proof:
Donald Trump canceled two huge wind energy programs off California, which were not at the nascent phase; they were funded and were on the way to producing a large amount of electrical power. A Central California community and our neighbor, Humboldt County, had begun investing in this project, which had bipartisan support and which even Trump never really criticized. He just killed it. He actually paid off another company so it would stop developing offshore wind energy. Instead of speaking to NOAA here, I personify with Trump. Only he dislikes wind energy as a personal preference and is willing to decide national policy and damage energy resilience for personal whims, which not coincidentally benefit big oil.
2. All of this is not motivated by science or even a legitimate political process. The Secretary of Commerce directly states in his announcement of this process that the reason is that SpaceX is frustrated with how fast they are getting to use a part of Vandenberg Space Base.
Interestingly, this entire plan we are commenting on here proposes to open up the entire California Coast to offshore oil drilling over the next 5 years. But there is actually no reasoning in favor or offshore oil driling, much less science The performance review is entirely based in Elon Musk’s frustration with the process at Vandenberg Space Base. The secretary’s letter initiating this process lays the blame for all of this on California not giving SpaceX what it wanted. The Trump Administration gave him a big part of the historic base launching area, which the military tore down for him. Now he wants to have special treatment in the permitting process, but has produced no evidence that anything was amiss about the actual process and rules, arguing personal bias by the Coastal Commission.
Launching this effort to punish California based on the whims of one man, Musk, is not only reprehensible; it is thoroughly illegal. I wish to join the legal objections that were raised on the one day of live public hearings that was held on Tuesday, Aug 11. I would also like to object to the illegal shortcutting that has gone on during this process, such as cutting out local hearings and greatly reducing the opportunities for public input and speeding up the timeframe It is illegal to use previous public hearings on an entirely different proposal so that public input does not need to happen for THIS proposal. I join others in objecting to the illegality of this entire process, including the shortcutting that was done.
And this process is provably illegal and based on the whim of Elon Musk and nothing else. I say that because throughout the history of the California Coastal Plan, the state has been found to be in compliance with the federal Coastal Act. This was true every year from the 1970s to 2025, when the Trump administration itself found the California Coastal Act to be in compliance with the federal Coastal Act. One year later noting has changed; California and the federal government continue to agree at the historic rate of 97 percent in compliance. But then Elon Musk complains And the Secretary of Commerce writes a letter scolding California for being a rogue state, when he said the opposite in 2025 and the statistics bear this out. The Secretary writes a letter saying California is being subjected to a “performance review” on all matters related to offshore development. He does not include the canceled and in-process wind energy projects off Humboldt County and Central California.
The Secretary mentioned three areas for the review. Offshore Oil (but not any other offshore energy) 2. Undersea cables 3. The Vandenberg Space Base. Only the third on this list is referenced in the reasons why this performance review is being done. It cannot be used as a shortcut to the restart of oil drilling and the expansion into new areas.
NOAA is punishing our beautiful ocean and a $ 30 billion coastal recreational and beauty economy over a complaint by the president’s biggest donor and profiteer seems to be a very shallow legal basis, not to mention grossly immoral and violating good science. Punishing an ocean already fragile from plastic pollution and warm waters that very nearly killed the entire key to life, the Bull and Giant Kelp forests off, for SpaceX’s whims, is one thing for Trump, but how can any of you working at NOAA go along with such a thing? The offshore oil would come at such a high price to the ocean and at so little benefit to the actual flesh and blood humans of this nation, that it must be stopped for that reason alone. California residents don’t all support offshore wind, but many do. But Californians of both political parties have been absolute about any new offshore oil drilling and against expanding the existing rigs in California. There was no stronger foe of offshore oil drilling than GOP Governor Pete Wilson and his Republican led administration; to break a half-century of California opposition and advance this five-year offshore oil drilling solely because the Trump administration is upset on behalf of SpaceX is something that will not survive any legal, scientific or moral test.
Please end this process now, NOAA.
Our suggestion- If you are writing a letter, consider putting in that you believe the process is illegal and give some of the above reasons. If you have time, do some research, there are many other reasons this is illegal in our view. If you state these legal objections, it might help create a more formidable lawsuit against this process.
We would also recommend putting in some of your love and passion for the ocean. Check out this wonderful edition of the Noyo Center for Marine Science dedicated to the wonderful Dobie Dolphin. In the newsletter is a letter written by Dobie about this.
