Voters in Santa Cruz County will decide in November’s general election whether to prohibit onshore oil, gas, and deep-sea mining facilities from being permitted in the county without specific voter approval.
Santa Cruz County’s Measure D would require any proposed storage, processing, or development facility to be directly approved by voters in the same way offshore oil and gas facilities are. It passes with a simple majority vote.
The added regulatory hurdle requiring offshore oil and gas facilities to be scrutinized by citizens was added to the county code by residents in 1986, who passed Measure A with 78% approval.
That measure did not ban offshore oil and gas extraction facilities but required them to be approved by voters before any state or local permit could be deemed valid. None have been built in waters off Santa Cruz County since its passage.
Protections added by the National Marine Sanctuaries Act in 1992 helped keep the waters from being developed to a distance of about 30 miles from the coastline.
But a proposal in 2026 from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management indicated the federal government could offer lease sales for oil exploration and deep-sea mining in the near future.
The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, asked the fossil fuel and mining industry for proposals regarding which coastal areas to open to new extraction as part of a new multi-year lease program implemented by the administration of President Donald Trump in 2025.
“This call solicits industry nominations of acreage for possible inclusion in these proposed sales and requests information from the public…for lease sale planning,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management call for information and nominations read.
Backers of Santa Cruz County’s Measure D include Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kristen Brown and former Save Our Shores executive director Dan Haifley, who signed the ballot argument in its favor, along with others.
They argue the prohibition on onshore facilities that support extraction processing and deep-sea mining was made more urgent by the federal lease proposal. They also said that seabed mining was not considered by the measure in 1986.
“While offshore oil drilling has long threatened the central coast, seabed mining wasn’t an issue in 1986, but it is now,” measure supporters wrote in the official ballot argument to voters. “Mining the ocean floor would devastate the deep sea ocean environment that scientists are just beginning to understand. The federal administration is now fast-tracking this new destructive industry elsewhere in the country and California could be next.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration loosened rules and sought to streamline the permitting process in a separate move by the Trump administration following an executive order in 2025.
Measure D’s proposed restrictions
The measure’s text itself lists several justifications for adding another layer of regulatory approval to industrial activity in ecologically sensitive areas like Santa Cruz County’s unique coastline, mountains, and its farmland.
It mentions hazards such as oil spills, poor air quality, water contamination and other industrial and health dangers.
It also specifically mentions risks of radioactive material being discharged into the air from processing minerals and metals that are mined from the deep sea and seabed, which include manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements, according to NOAA.
The ordinance created by the measure would define a covered facility as one that supports the operation of an offshore oil, gas, or seabed mining facility.
That would include the transportation, storage, processing, and waste disposal associated with crude oil, seabed minerals, slurry ponds, and other associated processes and materials.
Existing facilities, gas stations, and power plants would not be covered by the regulation.