Federal Offshore Energy Policy Affects California Surf Breaks In Ways The Surf Community Has Not Fully Reckoned With

The Energy Permitting, Environmental Review, And Regulatory Framework That Governs Offshore Oil, Wind, And Other Development Directly Affects The Wave Environment Surfers Depend On

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

CALIFORNIA COAST — Federal energy policy is not typically discussed at the local surf break. It should be. The permitting decisions that govern offshore oil platforms, offshore wind installations, undersea cable routing, and other ocean development directly affect the wave environments that California surfers depend on. The siting of offshore structures changes swell patterns, affects bottom topography, and in some cases permanently alters the wave quality at breaks that have existed in their current form for decades.

The Surf Revolt analysis of federal offshore energy policy notes that surfer-community perspective on coastal development is “substantially broader than media coverage suggests” — a polite way of saying that the narrative that surfers universally oppose offshore development is incorrect. Some surf community members support offshore wind as environmental progress. Others — particularly those whose local breaks would be affected by the altered swell patterns that offshore structures produce — experience specific development proposals as threats to the surf environment regardless of their energy policy benefits.

The Property Rights Framework

From a libertarian property rights perspective, the framework for offshore development decisions is unsatisfying regardless of the outcome: decisions about how federal waters are used are made by federal agencies through regulatory processes that surf communities participate in through public comment rather than through any ownership stake in the affected resource. The ocean is public property managed by federal agencies whose priorities reflect national energy policy rather than local surf community interests.

The Antiwar.com tradition of opposing concentrated federal power over individual lives and communities extends naturally to offshore development policy: the federal government’s power to alter the surf environment through energy permitting is a form of power over the surf community’s most valued resource. The libertarian response is not to oppose all offshore development but to advocate for processes that give affected coastal communities — including surf communities — meaningful stakes in decisions that affect their environment rather than advisory roles in federal regulatory processes controlled by agencies with different priorities.

About SurfRevolt.com: Libertarian surf journalism from California. Further reading on political comedy and freedom: India Comedy Writing: From Street to Stage | A Reader’s Manifesto.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/