Supervisors Embrace Alternative Facts, Oppose Marine Sanctuary

By Andrew Christie, Chapter Director

On January 22, D. Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway claimed that White House press secretary Sean Spicer had not lied to reporters about the size of the crowd for the Trump inaugural; rather, he had presented “alternative facts.”

Two days later in San Luis Obispo, after a five-hour public hearing on the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary and the receipt of 15,000+ petition signatures in support of the sanctuary, Supervisors Lynn Compton, Debbie Arnold and John Peschong directed staff to prepare a resolution opposing the sanctuary and made it clear they were basing their vote on their own set of alternative facts, rather than the simple facts of what national marine sanctuaries do.

The two coastal supervisors, Bruce Gibson and Adam Hill, noted the pro forma nature of the pre-ordained vote – i.e. their three colleagues had clearly made up their minds before going through a charade of public testimony. That resolution will now head back to the Board for another pro-forma vote. The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary has provided another demonstration of the degree to which the ultra-conservative, anti-environmental board majority is out of step with the majority of our citizens and the County’s own General Plan, which expressly calls for marine sanctuary protections.        

But what the heck. As Supervisor Arnold put it, the fishing industry asked her to do it, so she did.

At the hearing, alternative facts were on parade.

Opponents:

-          said a marine sanctuary would “greatly restrict” activities on the ocean and regulate discharges of water from ag operations. (It would do neither.)

-          routinely confused national marine sanctuaries with California state marine protected areas. (MPA’s regulate fishing. Marine sanctuaries don’t.)

-          said the sanctuary proposal is a plot to control salt water “so we’ll have to pay [the Chumash] to do desal.”

-          said the sanctuary proposal is part of “Agenda 30” which states the “the whole Earth should be run by bureaucrats.” (Agenda 30, one may assume, is even worse than conspiracy fave Agenda 21.)

-          and repeated perhaps their biggest and most cherished canard: A national marine sanctuary will cause us to lose “local control.”

 

Supervisors Gibson and Hill pointed out that the County has no “local control” over the state and federal waters that would be within the proposed sanctuary, and invited their board colleagues to define exactly what “local control” we would lose in the event of designation of a sanctuary. No answer was forthcoming.

Opponents continued to repeat their second-favorite alternative fact-based mantra (after “we’ll lose local control”): We have plenty of local, state and federal regulations that protect everything already so we don’t need a marine sanctuary. The Sierra Club submitted a 1981 report and findings of the U.S. General Accounting Office helpfully entitled “Marine Sanctuaries Program Offers Environmental Protection and Benefits Other Laws Do Not.” The 50-page report was prepared by the GAO at the request of the Congressional Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries to determine “whether the [sanctuary] program is providing, or has the potential to provide, marine environmental protection over and above that which is or can be provided under other Federal statutory authorities.” They found that it does. In 2008, the intervening 27 years had not altered this conclusion when the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce reaffirmed the finding by the GAO that the national marine sanctuary program “effectively complements other federal, state, and local resource protection efforts by offering benefits other laws or regulations do not.”

These facts sailed past sanctuary opponents at the hearing, who continued to repeat the “everything’s protected” mantra, nor did they disturb the alternative fact-filled universe of Supervisors Compton, Arnold and Peschong, who continued to cite that talking point while holding the GAO document in their hands.

All three were likewise impervious to suggestions by Hill and Gibson that they simply accompany their proposed resolution with a statement of continued opposition to offshore drilling, or amend the resolution to state that they will oppose the sanctuary if it regulates fishing.  This curious reluctance strongly suggested that their opposition was actually based on marine sanctuary prohibitions against new offshore oil and gas development; a suggestion not dispelled when Board Chairman Peschong ensured that a pair of oil and gas cheerleaders batted clean-up, giving them the final two speaking slots of the hearing. Featured most prominently in this gambit was his old corporate consultancy stablemate, Amber Johnson -- who, at this point, may have logged even more time working on behalf of oil company interests than Peschong has.

The SLO board troika is trying to head off the designation process for the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, which will serve to initiate an extended dialog in which all stakeholders and members of the public will be able to give their input and have any concerns fully addressed. Hence, their “oppose” resolution means that they’d rather not let the people know the facts, and they’d rather not let the people decide.