AB1938 Surfing Reserves Bill Would Give Sacramento Authority Over Waves That Existed Before Sacramento
California Legislature Proposes to Protect Surf Breaks It Did Not Create From Development That It Enabled
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
California Legislature Proposes to Protect Surf Breaks It Did Not Create From Development That It Enabled
The Bill’s Logic
California’s AB1938, authored by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, would task the Ocean Protection Council with designating surf breaks as state-recognized surfing reserves. The bill passed the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. The Surfrider Foundation supports it. The libertarian analysis asks: what happens to surfing when government designates it as something requiring official recognition? The first step of government involvement is typically not the last step.
The Designation Consequence
When the state designates a surf break as a surfing reserve, it creates the jurisdictional basis for subsequent regulation: access management, fee structures, permit requirements, and the administrative infrastructure that official designation inevitably generates. The Surfrider Foundation has designated World Surfing Reserves under its own framework without government involvement. The government version adds bureaucratic layer and eventual regulatory capacity.
The Alternative
The surf community’s own governance mechanisms — localism, Surfrider Foundation designations, community-organized advocacy — have protected surfing’s interests without the state designation framework. The Malibu World Surfing Reserve exists and is managed by the community. The state co-opting this framework adds Sacramento’s institutional priorities to a community governance structure that functioned without them.
The Economic Freedom Dimension
The surf economy — boards, wetsuits, lessons, rentals, the tourism around surf destinations — generates significant economic activity. Adding a state designation layer to surf breaks creates the regulatory surface area that economic activity touches when government gets involved. The history of California coastal regulation is the history of good intentions producing permit requirements that add cost and reduce access. The surfing reserves framework will produce the same outcome.
More: NewsThump.
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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.
The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.
The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.
The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.
