several of the states developed in coastal problems, such as those mentioned above, encouraged the Federal agencies to look to the states for advice." The Third Reauthorization The Administration recommended rescinding the 1985 state grant appropriations, but Congress continued funding for Section 306 grants. And in 1986, the 99th Congress passed the Coastal Zone Management Reauthorization Act of 1985 (PL 99-272). This Act kept the coastal program alive but put it on an increasingly strict diet. Administrative grant matching ratios were reduced to four to one (from the previous five to one or 80 percent) in FY 1986, 2.3 to one in FY 1987, 1.5 to one in FY 1988, and one to one (50 percent match) thereafter. The Act also renamed estuarine areas as National Estuarine Reserves and created the NERRS under Section 315. Cumulative Program Funding As national expenditures go, the coastal program has not been a big spending effort. Cumulative federal funding from the first grants in FY 1974 through FY 1988 for all elements of the coastal program has amounted to less than $696 million. (See Table 3.) The largest amount, some 49 percent, has been allocated to Program Administration, encompassing the activities by the states to implement their approved coastal programs. The next largest amount, about 34 percent, has gone to the CEIP. Program Development, the phase in which the states designed and enacted their coastal management program, received 10 percent of the overall funding for the period. Estuarine Reserves received just under 5 percent. And modest amounts of less than 1 percent of the total were allocated to Interstate Coordination, Research and Technical Assistance, and P.L. 92-532, the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972. Table 3. Coastal Program Expenditures, Fiscal Years 1974-1988. (OCRM, 1988-a) One way to assess the progress of the coastal program is to compare its costs and benefits over its lifetime to other possible uses of the federal funds allocated to it. For example, it is tempting to make comparisons with the costs of various pieces of expensive military hardware or with the success of other national programs, such as air quality, in meeting mandatory national standards. Rather than make such possibly spurious comparisons, this research has instead focussed on the accomplishments of the coastal program and on the relative importance of the coastal zone to the U.S. economy. By these measures, the $696 million invested in the coastal program over its first 14 years has generated remarkable returns, motivating 29 states to design and carry out far-ranging coastal management efforts in the coastal counties where some 31.7 percent of the 1985 U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) originated and where 59 percent of the nation's population growth between 1980 and the year 2000 is expected to occur. And the participating coastal states are matching the federal grants, at least dollar for dollar and in some cases more, with their own state funds. At this macro scale, the coastal program's relatively small federal funding "carrot", coupled with its willingness to let the states design programs to fit their individual situations, has produced a very active intergovernmental coastal management partnership. Another way to assess the programs' progress in dealing with coastal problems is to review the way that states spent their implementation funding relative to the national priorities declared by Congress. Looking at the use by the states of their federal program grants, a great variety of allocations is evident. Table 4 shows the amounts and percentages of state program implementation funds allocated to a set of seven national interest areas (aggregated from the nine areas specified in the 1980 Act) for the six FYs between 1982 and 1987, the latest period for which data was available. Not unexpectedly in a program dedicated to resolving coastal interagency and private sector conflicts, the largest expenditure category, totaling some 39 percent, was improved government decision-making. Second highest, at about 28 percent, was natural resource protection. Public access was the third highest category at about 11 percent. Urban waterfront redevelopment, hazard mitigation, and natural resource development were grouped together in fourth place, at between 6 percent and 8 percent each. And ports and marinas expenditures were the smallest, at about 2 percent. Table 4. State Allocation of CZMA Program Implementation Funds to A 1988 report by OCRM documented a number of successful projects carried out by the 29 federally-approved state coastal management programs. This report described accomplishments in terms of the nine national interest areas under the CZMA. For each area, the problem was identified and specific benefits ascribed to state CZMA projects, following the format of a similar 1985 report by the CSO. This framework, also to be utilized in the new 1989 Section C-Annual Report of Performance, provides decision-makers with a more structured way to evaluate the funding priorities of state programs relative to national policies. In the past, it has been difficult to assess the central trends in state coastal program spending and the relationship of state to federal priorities. Interstate Coordination In addition to the 306 Program Administration grants, states have received other funding related to specific elements of the CZMA. The CEIP and estuarine reserves programs are discussed in later chapters. One other program element is Interstate Projects, which were authorized under Section 309 of the 1976 amendments to the CZMA, in order to improve coordination between neighboring coastal states and between federal and state agencies. Section 309 authorizes grants to any group of two or more states under an interstate agreement or compact or temporary planning and coordinating entity. (See Table 5 for funding summary.) The intent of Congress is to provide incentives and mechanisms to improve interstate planning efforts and to reduce the likelihood of conflict between Federal and state managers of the coastal area. Examples of recent interstate projects are: the Long Island Sound Dredged Materials Management Plan involving Connecticut and New York state, the Comprehensive Regional Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and Planning project involving California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska; the Habitat Requirements for Chesapeake Bay Living Resources project involving Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; and the Controlling Toxic Pollution in the Great Lakes project involving Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Source: OCRM, nd. Table 5. 309 Project Funding Through Fiscal Year 1989 By Region ($000) REASSESSING THE COASTAL PROGRAM: FORGING AN ARENA FOR THE NINETIES 1988-1990 Looking back on the implementation of the CZMA during the 1980s, it is clear that the program continued to function despite the impact of a hostile Administration. Even those critics who judge that the governmental sector of the coastal field has become less dynamic, more fragmented, narrower in application, and less innovative, find that active coastal management initiatives continue within individual federal agencies and states. They see a balancing expansion of the roles of nongovernmental organizations, such as scientific and conservation groups. And they identify a new intellectual phase of coastal management marked by greater breadth of vision in which "coastal scholars and managers are beginning to ponder fundamental choices among contrasting management philosophies, interrelationships among coastal and marine management, links between coasts and the broader canvas of the global environment, and ways of developing more effective, flexible partnerships between public and private sectors" (Mitchell, 1986, p. 345). In looking to the future, coastal interests currently advocate maintaining the national coastal program, but broadening and strengthening it. At a 1989 meeting of national coastal and estuarine program managers (OCRM, 1989, p. 3), the Assistant Administrator of the National Ocean Service supported reauthorization and pointed out that it will have to consider issues of coastal pollution, sea level rise, wetlands loss, hazards, and significant program improvements. Others cautioned about the uncertain potential for increased federal CZM appropriations and about regaining consistency authority over OCS lease sales through legislation. There was agreement that coastal pollution and hazards issues provide a basis for reauthorization, if grass roots political support is forthcoming from the states, which seems likely. The issues facing the coastal program were higlighted by a 1988 oversight report from the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, entitled Coastal Waters in Jeopardy: Reversing the Decline and Protecting America's Coastal Resources, and by a 1990 report from the National Research Council, entitled Managing Coastal Erosion. The 1990 Reauthorization Congressional action on reauthorization of the coastal program in 1990 could have taken several forms. Congress could have simply continued the program on its present tack, incrementally or radically revised and strengthened it, built linkages between it and other environmental programs, or decided to terminate it. Termination was unlikely, in light of the program's record of achievement and its new found support from the Bush Administration, which reversed the Reagan policy and requested Congressional appropriations for state implementation of the coastal program and proposed its own bill to reauthorize the CZMA in 1990. During the pre-authorization debates, the most likely outcomes were either continuation or further strengthening and linking to other environmental programs. The 101st Congress held hearings on a number of bills affecting coastal management, whose content illustrates the current issues under debate during the reauthorization period. The Report from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries (U.S. Congress, 1990) on H.R. 4450, Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments of 1990, lists eight coastal issues of the 1990s: 1. Coastal environmental protection problems emphasize the need for a stronger priority for maintaining the function of natural systems in the coastal zone, in light of impacts from pollution of beaches and coastal waters, continued growth in coastal population, and the potential for sea level rise in response to global warming. 2. Coastal pollution problems emphasize the need for improved coordination between coastal management of land use and coastal water quality, particularly nonpoint source pollution, to reverse the declining health of coastal waters. 3. Wetlands managment and protection problems emphasize the need for better mechanisms for managing and protecting coastal wetlands, in order to achieve the proposed goal of "no net loss" of the nation's remaining wetlands base. 4. Natural hazards management problems emphasize the need for more effective state and local measures to manage and deter development in hazard-prone areas through setbacks, limitations on infrastructure in hazard areas, and other techniques, whose value was highlighted by the impacts of Hurricane Hugo. 5. Public access problems emphasize the need for increasing the ability of the public to gain access to the shore as coastal population increases, through means such as purchase of land, low cost construction of boardwalks, and other methods. 6. Cumulative and secondary impacts problems result from the collective effects of various land and water using activities and from those indirect effects that do not result directly from the activity itself but have impacts on related resources, requiring new impact assessment approaches that do not look at individual projects in isolation or narrowly. 7. Coastal energy development problems emphasize the need for effective ways to site necessary coastal energy facilities while protecting the environment, especially in light of the high level of oil imports and the uncertainty about future Persian Gulf sources. 8. Federal consistency with state CZM programs problems center around the issues of whether oil and gas leases should undergo consistency review and what other activities "directly affect" the coastal zone, following the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Secretary of the Interior v. California that lease sales do not directly affect the coastal zone. Other coastal resource issues in the 101st Congress included a possible reorganization to elevate coastal zone management to a higher position at NOAA and a search for alternate ways to fund both traditional and new coastal management programs. As Simmons (1990) points out, not all of these issues were addressed in a single bill, and several alternative approaches were proposed. Four bills focused on coastal management program approaches: H.R. 4030, H.R. 4450, H.R. 4438, and S. 1189. Three other bills added key roles for EPA in improving coastal water quality through the Clean Water Act, sometimes in combination with the CZMA: H.R. 2647, S. 1178, and S. 1179. In the end, Congress adopted a comprehensive and innovative coastal management bill (including parts of H.R. 4030, H.R. 4450, and S. 1189, and identified as H.R. 4450), as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Despite opposition from a number of cabinet-level federal departments, especially to the consistency-overturning provision, Congress passed the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments of 1990, which made the following major changes to the CZMA of 1972. 1. Amended the federal consistency provisions (Section 307) in order to overturn the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in Secretary of Interior v. California, clarifying that all federal agency activities, in or outside the coastal zone, are subject to the consistency provisions of the CZMA if they affect natural resources, land uses, or water uses in the coastal zone. 2. Established a Coastal Zone Management Fund (under Section 308) consisting of CEIP loan repayments from which the Secretary shall pay for the federal administrative costs of the program and fund special projects, emergency state assistance, and other discretionary coastal management activities. 3. Reinstated program development grants (Section 305) by authorizing the Secretary to provide assistance to a state for development of a CZM program. 4. Set up the Coastal Zone Enhancement Grants Program (Section 309) to encourage each coastal state to continually improve its CZM program in one or more of eight areas: coastal wetlands management and protection; natural hazards management (including potential sea and Great Lakes level rise); public access improvements; reduction of marine debris; assessment of cumulative and secondary impacts of coastal growth and development; special area management planning; ocean resource planning, and siting of coastal energy and government facilities. 5. Authorized annual Walter B. Jones Awards (Section 313) to recognize individuals, local governments, and graduate students for outstanding accomplishments in coastal management. 6. 7. Authorized appropriations for five years at increased levels. Established a Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program to require each state to develop a program to be implemented through the CZMA and Section 319 of the Clean Water Act, to protect coastal waters from nonpoint pollution from adjacent coastal land uses. In addition to the reauthorization of CZMA, the 101st Congress passed an expanded version of the CBRA of 1982. The 1990 Coastal Barrier Improvement Act significantly expanded the coverage of the Coastal Barriers Resources System to include areas in the Florida Keys, |