Navy Offshore Training Expansion

The Navy submitted a consistency determination for a 7-year expansion of its offshore training and testing program across 330,000 square miles of California’s coastal waters. The proposal would increase sonar use, explosives, vessel traffic, and uncrewed system operations across new areas, including MPAs and National Marine Sanctuaries, while reducing mitigation zones. Staff recommended an objection based on significant impacts to marine life and inadequate protections.

This decision reinforces the Commission’s longstanding defense of California’s marine ecosystems. The proposed activities would have allowed over 38 million behavioral disturbances and thousands of injuries and deaths to marine mammals, with minimal restrictions. NRDC and CCPN highlighted the Navy’s failure to protect critical beaked whale habitat and called for stronger mitigation, including limits on dipping sonar and retention of prior sonar-exclusion zones. The vote sends a clear signal that California won’t rubber-stamp military operations that harm whales, violate the Coastal Act, or ignore best available science.