Bill seeks to redirect funds to beach projects

Alex Coolman

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) introduced a bill in

Congress on Thursday that he said should benefit the nation’s beaches.

The bill, the Coastal Resources Enhancement and Restoration Act of

2000, has a number of provisions, including proposals to allocate more

money for erosion control and the consolidation of efforts by agencies

that study pollution.

“It is designed to address some of the inequalities we’ve had in the

past” in spending, Rohrabacher said. “In the past, the vast majority of

the money that the Army Corps of Engineers spends on projects has gone to

the East Coast.”

Rohrabacher’s proposal would not have any new programs starting or any

new money generated for environmental projects. Instead, the bill

redirects existing funds toward coastal projects.

Ten percent of National Science Foundation funds would be directed

toward “coastal engineering and coastline protection research,” according

to the bill.

Additionally, the proposal would send 2% of funds from the federal

Outer Continental Shelf royalty fund toward sand replenishment, sewage

treatment and urban runoff programs. The transferred funds would probably

amount to roughly $66 million per year, said Ricardo Bernal, a

Rohrabacher spokesman.

The measure represents more government involvement in environmental

affairs than Rohrabacher has typically championed. The congressman has

often said he would rather create incentives for private enterprise to

tackle environmental challenges than use legislation to achieve those

goals.

Bernal said the proposed legislation was consistent with Rohrabacher’s

conservative political philosophy.

“It’s not creating any new bureaucracy, and it’s using already

existing funding,” he said.

Nancy Gardner, president of the Newport Beach chapter of the Surfrider

Foundation, gave the proposed legislation a cautiously optimistic review.

“It looks like there’s some good things in it,” she said. “It just

depends on how things are interpreted.”

Gardner praised the attention given to urban runoff but said the

bill’s focus on coastal engineering would need to be dealt with

carefully.

“Coastal engineering tends to mean armoring” the shoreline, a practice

of using concrete or boulders to reinforce the beach. Surfrider generally

opposes the practice, she said.

The bill also contains language that would direct funding only to

public beaches with sufficient public access.

Gardner said the restriction sounded like “a nice way of keeping

access in people’s mind.” But she cautioned that the language could also

be used as an excuse to restrict public access to hard-to-reach beaches,

such as those in the Dover Shores area.

The bill will not be taken up in this session of Congress. But

Rohrabacher said he hopes it will be enacted next year.