The federal government is reviewing whether California's Coastal Commission is doing its job and accepting public comment through August 22nd. The Coastal Commission is the agency that oversees Oceano Dunes and the riding that takes place, or has taken place there historically.
Every few years, under Section 312 of the Coastal Zone Management Act, NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Office for Coastal Management is required to check whether California is actually running its coastal program the way federal law says it should.
NOAA is required to ask a broad question: has the Commission stayed within the authority Congress and the state legislature actually gave it, and has it honored the Coastal Zone Management Act's mandate to balance environmental protection with public access and recreational use? Oceano Dunes is one of the clearest examples in the state of a coastal agency answering "no" to that second half of the balance.
The Commission's Track Record at Oceano Dunes
Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is one of the last places in California where families can legally drive a street-legal vehicle onto the sand. Generations of visitors have camped, ridden, and built traditions there. California State Parks manages the park day to day, but it's the Coastal Commission that has spent years shaping the permitting decisions underneath it — air quality and dust mitigation requirements, habitat protections for species like the western snowy plover and California least tern, and limits on camping and vehicle access. Layered together over time, those permitting conditions became the foundation for the state's plan to phase out OHV recreation at the dunes entirely.
BRC's allies at Cal4Wheel, ORBA, American Sand Association, American Motorcyclist Association & Friends of Oceano Dunes have already won a legal fight over exactly this question. A court found that the Commission exceeded the authority it was actually granted by statute when it tried to use its permitting power to phase out recreation the legislature never told it to eliminate. Agencies don't get to expand their own jurisdiction one permit condition at a time — and NOAA's review is a chance to make that case directly to the federal government charged with overseeing California's program.
However, the state of California isn't taking this review quietly. On August 6, the state's Natural Resources Agency filed formal comments opposing it outright, with Governor Newsom and Secretary Wade Crowfoot arguing the review is unprecedented. Notably absent from the states comments is any mention of Oceano Dunes or off-highway recreation at all — which is exactly why BRC members need to be the ones putting that history into the record NOAA is compiling, rather than leaving the state's self-assessment unchallenged.
What BRC Is Asking You to Do
The Commission has not stayed within its statutory authority in restricting access at Oceano Dunes and it has not actually held up its end of the Coastal Zone Management Act's balance between environmental protection and public recreational access. The state of California cannot go rogue on these issues anymore. This review won't reopen Oceano Dunes or undo existing state plans by itself. But it will shape how much scrutiny the Coastal Commission gets going forward — and that scrutiny only happens if people who actually use these public lands show up in the record. Don't let this deadline pass quietly. The recreation community needs to submit comments using the tool below.
