Who We Are
The Save My Coast Coalition is a statewide coalition of local governments, nonprofit organizations, and community advocates working to defend California’s coastline from renewed offshore oil and gas drilling threats.
The effort was established by the County of Santa Cruz in 2025, continuing more than four decades of local leadership in coastal protection, and has been proudly joined by advocates with a history of preserving the coast for all.
Members include:
San Luis Obispo County
More on the way!
Our Mission
To preserve and strengthen California’s permanent protections against offshore oil and gas development through coordinated advocacy, education, and public engagement.
We work with local governments and partners to:
Protect the Ocean — Prevent new oil and gas exploration in or near California’s marine sanctuaries and coastal ecosystems.
Defend Coastal Economies — Preserve the tourism, recreation, and fisheries that sustain millions of jobs and billions in annual revenue.
Advance Climate Action — Align energy policy with California’s clean energy goals and the global transition away from fossil fuels.
Richard Charter
Richard Charter is a longtime California-based ocean advocate and Senior Fellow at The Ocean Foundation, where he also directs the Friends of Coastal Coordination project. He has spent more than four decades leading citizen campaigns to protect U.S. coastal waters—especially fighting offshore oil drilling and advancing marine conservation.
Local Governments Lead Efforts to Protect the Coast
California’s Local Government Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Coordination Program was created in 1980, when coastal cities and counties joined forces to oppose federal plans for expanded offshore oil and gas development. At the time, the federal government was proposing new OCS lease sales along the California coast, raising widespread concerns about environmental risks, damage to coastal economies, and the potential need for large onshore industrial facilities. Individual jurisdictions often lacked the technical and legal capacity to respond to complex federal leasing proposals on their own, so local leaders built a shared structure to coordinate their efforts.
Over the next decade, the coalition became one of the most effective local-government alliances in the country. Member counties and cities collaborated on scientific review, legal strategy, and public outreach. Their joint efforts helped establish what became known as California’s “Blue Wall”—a series of more than two dozen local ordinances that restricted or prohibited onshore support facilities for new offshore drilling. Despite lawsuits from industry groups, the local governments prevailed, cementing a strong layer of community-driven protections along the coast.
The coalition’s work also contributed to major federal and state policy outcomes. Most notably, the unified local opposition was a key factor in the designation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1992, which permanently bans new oil and gas development in one of the nation’s most ecologically significant marine regions.
Although the original program wound down in the mid-1990s, renewed federal interest in offshore leasing has prompted California communities to revive the coalition. Today, the Local Government OCS Coordination Program is once again bringing together coastal jurisdictions to protect marine ecosystems, coastal economies, and the safety of local communities.