Two bills under consideration in the California Senate, AB 226 (Ruskin) and AB 291 (Saldana), give the California Coastal Commission judicial powers and gives Commission staff new, unprecedented authority to stop permit applications.
AB 226 would greatly expand the Coastal Commission’s enforcement authority by allowing the Commission to act as both prosecutor and judge and impose civil penalties and allow the Commission to retain the penalties it assesses to augment its own budget. Currently, civil penalties are imposed by the Attorney General’s office on behalf of the Coastal Commission. Meanwhile, AB 291 would allow the staff of the Coastal Commission to halt processing of a permit application if the Commission staff asserts that any violation exists on any property for which a permit is filed.
Staff discretion does not equal due process. Under AB 291, the executive director of the Coastal Commission has sole discretion to completely halt an application for a coastal development permit without any basis other than an assertion of a violation, which may not be related to the permit application. The Commission, not its staff, is the decision-making body, and it should remain that way.
The Coastal Commission already has the necessary tools by which to enforce the Coastal Act. Besides, the Attorney General has been effective at collecting civil penalties for the Coastal Commission through the judicial system, collecting millions of dollars in fines and penalties over the years.
