Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA): Overview and Issues for Congress
Released: 2019-01-15T00:00:00

Introduction

Congress enacted the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA; P.L. 92-583 , 16 U.S.C. §§1451-1466) in 1972 and has amended the act 11 times, most recently in 2009. Congress deliberated and passed the act at a time when concern about environmental degradation spurred passage of many of the nation's environmental statutes. CZMA sets up a national framework for states and territories to consider and manage coastal resources. If a state or territory chooses to develop a coastal management program and the program is approved, the state or territory (1) becomes eligible for several federal grants and (2) can perform reviews of federal agency actions in coastal areas (known as federal consistency determination reviews ).

Since 1972, many of the trends that called congressional attention to coastal management have continued. Over a third of the U.S. population lived in shoreline counties in 2010, with more expected by 2020 as people continue to migrate to coastal areas to take advantage of economic opportunities, retire, and pursue recreational interests. Coastal areas are also home to economic sectors such as fishing, transportation, defense, offshore energy, and tourism and to natural resources such as estuaries, beach systems, and wetlands. The shoreline likely will continue to be affected by pressures to develop and preserve areas, large-scale events (e.g., hurricanes and tsunamis), and long-term changes (e.g., relative sea level, changes in rainfall, wetland loss, and increased temperatures). In addition to responding to these pressures, Congress may continue to consider whether CZMA is being effectively implemented and whether changes should be made to CZMA grant programs.

This report provides a review of CZMA with a specific focus on the National Coastal Zone Management Program (NCZMP). The report discusses how and why states and territories may choose to participate in the national program (namely to access federal grant programs and undertake federal consistency determination reviews) and recent issues for Congress. The appendixes include information about amendments to CZMA over time and section-by-section summaries of current CZMA provisions.

Coastal Zone Management Act

Congress enacted CZMA "to establish a national policy and develop a national program for the management, beneficial use, protection, and development of the land and water resources of the nation's coastal zones." Although CZMA has been amended 11 times ( Appendix A ), the national policies as declared by Congress have stayed relatively consistent over time. They currently include the following six policies:

1. to preserve, protect, develop, and, if possible, restore or enhance coastal resources; 2. to encourage and assist states and territories to effectively exercise their development and management responsibilities in the coastal zone, giving full consideration to ecological, cultural, historic, and aesthetic values as well as the needs for compatible economic development; 3. to encourage the preparation of special area management plans to protect significant natural resources, support reasonable coastal-dependent economic growth, and improve protection of life and property; 4. to encourage the participation and cooperation of the public, state and local governments, interstate and other regional agencies, and federal agencies to carry out CZMA; 5. to encourage coordination and cooperation with and among appropriate federal, state, and local agencies, and international organizations, in collection, analysis, and dissemination of coastal management information and research; and 6. to respond to changing circumstances affecting the coastal environment and resources and their management by encouraging states and territories to consider ocean uses that may affect the coastal zone.

Under CZMA, each level of government plays a role in coastal management. At the federal level, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Office for Coastal Management (OCM) in the Department of Commerce (DOC) implements CZMA's national policies and provisions. To participate in the NCZMP, states must adhere to guidelines as set in statute and related regulations. States and territories, however, determine the details of their coastal management programs (CMPs), including the boundaries of their coastal zones, issues of most interest to the state, and policies to address these issues, among other factors. Local governments implement the approved CMPs, often through land use regulations.

National Coastal Zone Management Program

OCM administers CZMA provisions under four national programs: NCZMP, National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS), and Digital Coast. This report focuses on the NCZMP. The NCZMP encourages interested coastal states and territories (hereinafter referred to as states ) to work with NOAA to develop and implement coastal zone management programs. To join, states must develop CMPs pursuant to CZMA and federal regulations. States that join the NCZMP are eligible for several federal grants and have the right to review federal actions for consistency with state coastal policies.

How States and Territories Become Part of the NCZMP

If a state chooses to become part of the NCZMP, it must develop a CMP pursuant CZMA Section 306 and NOAA regulations. CMPs must contain "a broad class of policies for ... resource protection, management of coastal development, and simplification of governmental processes."

The Secretary of Commerce (the Secretary) must conclude that the state has completed certain tasks (e.g., included required program elements and coordinated with local and regional agencies) to approve the CMP. Once the Secretary approves the state's CMP, the state is eligible to receive the NCZMP's benefits and is referred to as a participant of the national program. The Secretary is expected to evaluate participants at least once every three years to determine whether they are working toward their stated plans.

Thirty-five states and territories (including states surrounding the Great Lakes, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands) are eligible to participate. Although all 35 eligible states and territories have at some point chosen to participate, 34 are currently part of the NCZMP.

Why States and Territories May Choose to Join the NCZMP

Participation in the NCZMP provides various benefits to participants, including access to several federal grant programs and the right to review federal actions for consistency with state coastal policies. These provisions have been mainstays of CZMA since its development and enactment.

Access to Federal Grant Programs

Coastal states or territories with approved CMPs are eligible to apply for federal grants for coastal zone management. Grant programs have changed over time to reflect congressional priorities and have included grants for program development, coastal energy impacts, and research and technical assistance. Currently, CZMA authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to provide grants related to program administration (Section 306), coastal resource improvement (Section 306A), coastal and estuarine land conservation (Section 307A), coastal enhancement objectives (Section 309), technical assistance (Section 310), and coastal nonpoint pollution control (Section 6217) ( Table 1 ).

Since 1972, NOAA has allocated over $2 billion in coastal zone management-related grants to eligible coastal states and territories ( Figure 1 ). NOAA disbursed the majority of the funds under Sections 306 and 306A grant programs. All 35 coastal states and territories received a portion of the funds since 1972, including Alaska, which is not currently a part of the NCZMP. States have received amounts ranging from $13 million to over $106 million in grant funding, depending on factors such as how long the state has been a part of the NCZMP, the state's size and population, and the extent of its success in competitive grant programs.

In FY2017, Congress appropriated $85 million to NOAA for coastal management grants. Of that total, NOAA allocated nearly $58 million for Section 306 grants, with smaller amounts awarded for Sections 306A, 309, and 310 grants or withdrawn via government-wide rescissions and Department of Commerce NOAA assessments. The current CZMA grant program authorizations of appropriations have expired, but Congress has continued to fund the programs (see " Authorization of Appropriations for CZMA Grant Programs " for a longer discussion of the topic).

Federal Consistency Determination Review

CZMA Section 307 requires federal actions that have reasonably foreseeable effects on coastal uses or resources to be consistent with the enforceable policies of a participant's approved CMP. These actions may occur in the state's approved coastal zone or in federal or out-of-state waters (which may cause interstate coastal effects). Federal agencies or applicants proposing to perform these federal actions must submit a consistency determination to the potentially affected participant to consider whether the actions are consistent with state coastal policies.

Legislation and NOAA regulation have defined several terms related to consistency review, including the following:

Coastal zone is defined as the coastal waters and adjacent shorelands, strongly influenced by each other, and includes islands, transitional and intertidal areas, salt marshes, wetlands, and beaches. The zone extends in Great Lakes waters to the international boundary and in other areas seaward to the outer limit of the state title and ownership under various acts, such as the Submerged Lands Act. The zone extends inland from the shorelines only to the extent necessary to control shorelands and to control those geographical areas that are likely to be affected by or vulnerable to sea level rise. Identification of the coastal zone boundaries is a required part of an approved CMP.

Effect on coastal use or resource refers to "any reasonable foreseeable effect on any coastal use or resource resulting from a federal agency activity or federal license or permit activity," including federal assistance to state and local governments. Effects may be environmental or impact coastal use; may be direct or secondary; and may result from the incremental impact of past, current, or future actions. The determination of whether the action will have a reasonably foreseeable effect is also known as the effects test.

Enforceable policies are "state policies which are legally binding through constitutional provisions, laws, regulations, land use plans, ordinances, or judicial or administrative decisions, by which a state exerts control over private and public land and water uses and natural resources of the coastal zone."

Federal actions include federal agency activities, federal license or permit activities, outer continental shelf plans, and federal assistance to state and local governments. NOAA requires participants to submit lists of federal actions that are subject to consistency determination reviews and their general geographic areas.

Interstate coastal effect refers to any reasonably foreseeable effect resulting from a federal action occurring in one state on any coastal use or resource of another state that has an approved CMP. Effects may be environmental or impact coastal use; may be direct or secondary; and may result from the incremental impact of past, current, or future actions. A state must identify a list of federal actions in other states for approval by NOAA to perform interstate consistency determination reviews.

Participant reviews of federal actions are context-specific and depend on the location and action in question, with different rights and responsibilities assigned to the federal agency, applicants, and participants involved. Details of the action—such as which party determines the foreseeable effects, the length of the participant review period, the effect of a participant's objection to the action, and the available conflict resolution or appeals options—depend on the federal action in question ( Table 2 ).

Resolutions to participant objections to consistency determinations depend on the federal action in question, as follows:

Federal agency activities and development projects: If a participant objects to a federal agency's consistency determination, the participant may request mediation from the Secretary of Commerce or OCM. Regardless of the mediation outcomes, the federal agency may proceed with its activities or development projects if the agency provides a legal basis for being consistent to the maximum extent practicable , or the agency has concluded that its proposed action is fully consistent with the participant's enforceable policies. Federal license or permit activities, outer continental shelf plans, and federal assistance to state and local governments: If the participant objects to the consistency certification, the federal agency cannot authorize the action unless the Secretary of Commerce overrides the objection. The applicant may appeal to the Secretary, who then will review the administrative record and may override a participant's objection if he or she finds that the action is consistent with the objectives of CZMA or is necessary for national security. For example, in 2008, the Secretary of Commerce overrode Maryland's objection to an applicant's consistency determination, finding that "the project [was] consistent with the objectives of CZMA."

According to NOAA, participants review thousands of federal consistency determination each year, with more than half of the reviews being for federal license or permit activities. Remaining reviews are, in descending order, federal agency activities and development projects, federal financial assistance activities, and outer continental shelf plans. Over time, participants have concurred with 93% to 95% of the federal consistency determinations they have reviewed. The high concurrence rate may indicate that participants, federal agencies, and applicants often have negotiated project modifications or alternatives before the formal review process.

Since the first CMP was approved in 1978, 45 consistency decisions have been subject to secretarial appeals, most recently in 2014 ( Figure 2 ). Of the 45 appeals, the Secretary overrode participant objections in 14 cases and agreed with the participant in the other 31 cases. An additional 65 appeals have been settled or withdrawn after they reached the secretarial level but before a determination was made, and 33 additional requests for appeals were dismissed or overridden on procedural grounds. As of April 2018, there were no appeals pending before the Secretary of Commerce.

Issues for Congress

Congress may continue to consider the effects of natural and man-made changes on the coast, the effectiveness of CZMA implementation, and the expired CZMA grant program authorizations of appropriations. These concerns have been considered in previous Congresses and/or have been recently raised by government agencies and various coastal stakeholders.

Changes Along the Coast

Congress may continue to examine CZMA in light of continued population and infrastructure growth along the coast, as well as coastal hazards such as flooding and erosion. According to the 2010 census, coastal shoreline counties were home to over 123 million people (39% of the U.S. population), and were expected to grow by another 10 million people by 2020. The ocean and Great Lakes economy accounted for 2.3% of total employment and contributed $320 billion to the total U.S. gross domestic product in 2015. Much of the population and infrastructure growth has occurred in shoreline communities amid ecosystems such as beaches, reefs, sea grasses, wetlands, estuaries, and deltas. The combination of built and natural systems has been and likely will continue to be affected by changes in sea level (and its impacts, such as higher tides, greater storm surge, saltwater intrusion, erosion, etc.), local rainfall, increasing water and air temperatures, and ocean acidification, among other factors.

Several bills to amend CZMA would have addressed some of these changes. In the 115 th Congress, Members proposed bills focused on climate change preparedness or adaptation (e.g., H.R. 3533 and H.R. 4426 ) and "working waterfronts" (e.g., H.R. 1176 ). Other proposals would have expanded CZMA grant programs to locations (the District of Columbia, e.g., S. 3146 and H.R. 2540 ) and groups (Indian tribes, e.g., H.R. 2607 ) currently not eligible to apply to the grant programs. In previous Congresses, other bills proposed additional grant programs related to offshore activities, such as renewable energy siting surveys (e.g., H.R. 1690 , 111 th Congress), responses to oil spills and other disasters related to outer continental shelf energy activity (e.g., H.R. 3757 , 112 th Congress), aquaculture siting (e.g., H.R. 2046 , 104 th Congress), harmful algal blooms (e.g., H.R. 4235 , 105 th Congress), and Great Lakes restoration (e.g., S. 2337 , 108 th Congress). Some scholars have argued for substantial revision or improvements to CZMA to account for changes along the coast.

Effectiveness of CZMA Implementation

Congress may examine how NOAA has implemented CZMA and whether changes to the agency, the law, or the law's implementation are necessary. The effectiveness of CZMA implementation, specifically the NCZMP, has been evaluated since the law's enactment by a variety of entities, including the Department of Commerce inspector general, the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and scholars. Evaluations have noted a range of issues, from monitoring and measuring the success of the program as a whole to issues concerning specific grant programs.

GAO reported several issues with NOAA's implementation of CZMA and program evaluation in a 2014 report, including limitations to the coastal zone management performance measurement system, weaknesses in NOAA's method for selecting stakeholders for state program evaluations, and the agency's limited use of collected performance data. NOAA agreed with the recommendations. It is unclear whether NOAA has completed changes to address GAO's recommendations fully. In a separate 2016 study, GAO surveyed state coastal zone managers about the actions NOAA was taking under CZMA to support state efforts to make marine coastal ecosystems more resilient to climate change. GAO found that state coastal zone managers "generally had positive views of the actions NOAA [was] taking."

Some have argued that the implementation of some CZMA programs has been inadequate. For example, some have questioned whether Section 6217 provisions have been properly implemented. Section 6217 of the Coastal Zone Reauthorization Amendments Act ( P.L. 101-508 ) amended CZMA to establish the Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program (CNPCP). The CNPCP requires coastal states with approved CMPs to reduce polluted runoff to coastal waters through coastal nonpoint pollution control programs that include specific land-based measures. NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly administer the CNPCP. Under Section 6217(c)(3), participants that fail to submit "approvable programs" lose a portion of their allotted funding under CZMA Section 306. Most participants received conditional approval between 1997 and 1998, and the majority have since received final approval. Several states have yet to receive final approval, including Alabama, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. In 2009 and 2016, a private organization sued NOAA and EPA for continuing to grant funds to Oregon and Washington, respectively. According to NOAA, the agency and EPA currently are working with the conditionally approved states to address the programs' remaining conditions.

Authorization of Appropriations for CZMA Grant Programs

Although Congress has continued to appropriate funding for CZMA grant programs, the program's authorizations of appropriations have expired. Current CZMA coastal zone management grant programs were last authorized for appropriations in the following years:

Section 306 (Administrative Grants): FY1999; Section 306A (Coastal Resource Improvement Grants): FY1999; Section 307A (Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program): FY2013; Section 309 (Coastal Zone Enhancement Grants): FY1999; and Section 6217 (Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program): FY1995.

Since 1995, two pieces of legislation have been enacted to reauthorize appropriations for a CZMA grant program ( P.L. 104-150 in 1996, which reauthorized appropriations for Sections 306, 306A, and 309 grant programs, and P.L. 111-11 in 2009, which established and authorized appropriations for the Section 307A grant program). Introduced pieces of legislation have proposed to reauthorize and increase appropriations for Sections 306, 306A, and 309 grant programs (e.g., S. 1142 in the 104 th Congress and S. 3038 in the 114 th Congress) or add additional authorizations for new grant programs (e.g., H.R. 3533 in the 115 th Congress and H.R. 1690 in the 111 th Congress).

Congress appropriated $75 million to the NCZMP for "coastal zone management grants" in FY2018, despite the expired authorizations of appropriations. In FY2019, as in FY2018, NOAA has proposed to eliminate all coastal management grants. According to the FY2019 budget proposal, NOAA would "continue to support states' participation in the National CZM program by reviewing and supporting implementation of states' management plans, supporting Federal consistency reviews, and providing technical assistance services."

Some stakeholders have contended that financial assistance to states from the NCZMP is important and more funding is necessary. For example, in a 2016 GAO survey, state coastal zone managers stated that "financial assistance provided by NOAA [was] critical" and that "the amount of financial assistance available [was] insufficient to address states' needs in implementing projects." NOAA officials also have stated that financial assistance for coastal zone management is in high demand. For example, the NOAA Regional Coastal Resilience grant program, administered under Section 310, received 132 applications requesting $105 million in FY2015; $4.5 million was available for grants. Others argue that funding should not be appropriated to the grant programs, as noted above, making the authorizations for appropriations no longer necessary.

Appendix A. Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (CZMA) and Its Amendments

Appendix B. Section-by-Section Summaries