April 21, 2025 – media contact Walter Lamb, 310-384-1042, walter@ballona.org

In an effort to align itself with vague “informal guidance” from President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission voted on April 17th to replace numerous scientific and policy terms in its work plan with what Commission staff referred to as “alternative language”. Commission staff and EPA staff admitted that no written guidance was ever provided and Commission staff were forced to guess as to what words or phrases might result in the work plan, and the federal funding that goes with it, to be rejected. However, in a stark contrast to much of the news coming out of California, the majority of Commissioners voted to strip out phrases like “climate change”, “ocean acidification” and “equity”, which UCLA affiliated environmental attorney Sabrina Ashjian, representing the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, called “potentially offensive” to the Trump administration.

A written statement by Gabrielle Crowe (below), Co-Chair and the Secretary of Environmental Sciences for the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California, was read by Commission staff at the meeting. Ms. Crowe noted that the commitment to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPoC) communities had been deleted from the new work plan and noted that unless such commitment were in writing, the Commission would lack accountability.

EJ Caldwell, general manager of the West Basin Municipal Water District and serving as an alternate for District President Gloria Gray, introduced a motion to have the deleted terminology added back into the work plan. Mr. Caldwell had requested clarity from EPA on its guidance, but EPA staff was unable to provide additional information. Hermosa Beach mayor Dean Francois supported West Basin’s motion. However, Commissioner Dan Hall, representing the Westside Council of Governments as a City Council Member for Santa Monica, introduced a substitute motion to approve the work plan with the proposed deletions, and that substitute motion passed. The argument put forth by Commissioner Hall, and supported by the majority of Commissioners, was that it was not worth risking $850,000 of federal funding to keep terms like “climate change”, “ocean acidification” and “equity” in the work plan because only the wording would change, not the actual work.

Commissioner Sabrina Ashjian, a UCLA affiliated attorney representing the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, asserted that “we need to do what we need to do in order to get grant funding, because grant funding is not by law, it’s not by statute, it’s just if they decide they want to give it to us or not.” However, the Commission staff report on the topic cited Section 320 of the Clean Water Act as the governing statute for the grant funding in question, and Commission staff also cited federal regulations during the meeting that control how funds are approved or rejected. The statute and applicable regulations do not appear to support the notion that a President of any party to can reject a work plan and grant application due to the inclusion of scientific and policy terms previously approved by both local decision-makers and EPA.

Discussion around the need to remove the term “ocean acidification” showed that even Commissioners who voted to support the changes were deeply skeptical. Commissioner Ryan Valencia, serving as the alternate of Assembly Member Jaquie Irwin, noted that the term is still used on federal websites. EPA employee Erica Yelensky was unable to explain the discrepancy. In a previous meeting of the Commission’s Executive Committee on March 20th, Commissioner Jacob Burman, serving as the alternate for Los Angeles City Council Member Traci Park, called the confusion around whether the term “ocean acidification” needed to be removed “absurd”. In that same meeting, Commissioner Annelisa Moe, representing Heal the Bay, said it was “ridiculous that we have to do this”, in reference to the need to remove language from the work plan.

The Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, a local non-profit that first uncovered and made public the proposed language changes, sees several serious flaws in the argument that only the wording in the work plan is changing and that the work itself will continue as before. Lamb believes the Commission will be setting a dangerous precedent by replacing broadly accepted scientific terminology with alternative language, despite having never actually received any official request to do so, and will be setting itself up for additional conflict with the Trump administration.

Prior to the April 17th meeting, the Land Trust submitted extensive comments and documentation showing that the Trump administration was not merely seeking to have wording removed from the work plan, but to end the actual work being performed. Walter Lamb, President of the Land Trust’s board, notes that the language coming out of the White House and EPA headquarters shows that the issue isn’t with the terms being used, but with any work linking greenhouse gas emissions to environmental harm, because policies that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are seen as threating to the rhetoric around unleashing “American energy independence” and the promise of a “golden age of American success”.

Lamb argues that “by voluntarily removing scientific and policy terms from its work plan without ever actually having been told, the Commission is taking ownership of those changes and waiving any legal argument that the Clean Water Act vests authority for Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program in the Commission, not the federal executive branch.” If the Commission continues to address the impacts of climate change and to promote environmental justice using different labels, Lamb believes the Commission will be vulnerable to claw back of funds or even more severe retaliatory action from the Trump administration.

Below is the statement from Gabrielle Crowe, followed by links to agency records and other documentation.

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Links:

Staff Report for Final Draft Work Plan:
https://www.smbrc.ca.gov/calendar/2025/apr/250417_gbmtg_3b_workplan.pdf

Final Draft Work Plan:
https://www.smbrc.ca.gov/calendar/2025/apr/smbnep_wp_fy26_draft_250408.pdf

Final Approved Fiscal Year 2025 Work Plan:
https://www.smbrc.ca.gov/docs/work-plan/smbnep_wp_fy25_final.pdf

Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (Strategic Plan)
https://cms.santamonicabay.org/wp-content/uploads/smbnep_ccmp_action_plan_2018.pdf

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment
https://www.smbrc.ca.gov/docs/other/Climate-Vulnerability-Assessment-Report_Final_2016_V2.pdf

Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program
https://www.smbnep.org/

[Note differences references to climate change, equity, disadvantaged communities, etc. in FY2025 work plan]

EPA – Climate Change Indicators for Oceans
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/oceans

EPA’s Climate Ready Estuary Program
https://www.epa.gov/cre

Cal EPA Secretary Yana Garcia on climate and equity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wewUFrjWp5A&t=536s

NASA – Extreme Weather and Climate Change
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/extreme-weather/

Trump administration seeks to undo environmental protections
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5242921-trump-executive-order-environmental-protections-sunset/

Bay Foundation Climate Change Infographic
https://cms.santamonicabay.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Climate-Change-Infographic.pdf

National Estuary Program Enabling Statute – 33 USC 1330 (Section 320 of Clean Water Act)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/33/1330

Financial Assistance for NEPs – 40 CFR Subpart P
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-35/subpart-P

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – DEI Memorandum
https://www.opm.gov/media/e1zj1p0m/opm-memo-re-initial-guidance-regarding-deia-executive-orders-1-21-2025-final.pdf

California AG – Joint Statement on DEI Legal Analysis
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/joint-statement-13-state-attorneys-general-president-trump-misleading-american

California AG – Guidance for Businesses on DEI
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-provides-guidance-businesses-diversity-equity-inclusion

Association of National Estuaries – Background and List of Executive Directors
https://www.nationalestuaries.org/about-anep

San Francisco Estuary Partnership – Climate Resilience Programs
https://www.sfestuary.org/climate-resilience-programs/

San Francisco Estuary Partnership – Commitment to Equity
https://www.sfestuary.org/commitment-to-equity

Archived Delaware Center for the Inland Bays Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, Access, Site
https://web.archive.org/web/20241101221904/https://inlandbays.org/about/committees/deija/

DELETED Delaware Center for the Inland Bays Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, Access, Site
https://inlandbays.org/about/committees/deija/

Heal the Bay – Environmental Equity and Inclusion are pillars of Environmental Health
https://healthebay.org/big-wins-2024-highlights/

Los Angeles Waterkeeper – Inclusion Statement
https://www.lawaterkeeper.org/inclusion-statement

Loyolan Student Newspaper Interview with Tom Ford (Climate change is greatest threat)
https://www.laloyolan.com/news/12-burning-questions-with-tom-ford/article_e7a5b553-6b65-5727-af8c-260acd4bfdb9.html

State Water Resources Control Board – Climate Change
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/climate/

State Water Resources Control Board – Environmental Justice
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/outreach/education/justice.html

Senior Executive of Organization Represented on Bay Restoration Commission

Ballona Wetlands Land Trust – Commitment to DEI
https://ballona.org/dei/