Pub. Resources Code, § 36001

The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The Pacific Ocean and its many renewable and nonrenewable resources are of economic, environmental, aesthetic, recreational, military, and scientific importance to the people of the state and the nation.

(b) Humankind will benefit from ocean resources as technology continues to develop. Our ability to protect, preserve, coordinate, develop, and utilize these resources requires that we do so in an informed and balanced manner.

(c) On March 10, 1983, President Reagan established by proclamation an exclusive economic zone for the United States, declaring sovereign rights over living and nonliving resources within the 200-mile United States exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

(d) On December 27, 1988, President Reagan extended by proclamation the seaward limit of United States territorial waters from 3 to 12 nautical miles.

(e) The establishment of the exclusive economic zone and the extension of the Territorial Sea create zones under federal jurisdiction adjacent to state waters, and provide opportunity for all coastal states of the United States to more fully exercise and assert their responsibilities pertaining to the protection, conservation, and development of ocean resources under United States jurisdiction.

(f) Exploration, scientific research, development, and production of ocean resources resulting from differing jurisdictions and multiple programs in federal and state waters, will increase the chance of conflicting demands on ocean resources and uses, such as those for food, energy, minerals, and waste disposal.

(g) Resolution of conflicting interests in the use, development, and conservation of ocean resources will become one of the major policy issues facing the state. The problems which will emerge in the future due to interactions of competing users are already prevalent to some degree today.

(h) State agencies do have particular regulatory or program interests in protecting and managing resources and uses in state waters and for coordinating state interests in the territorial sea and the EEZ, but the state needs to formulate a framework of statewide objectives for management of ocean resources and their uses, and outline a clear statement of functional responsibility for state ocean resources management.

(i) The exclusive economic zone, the territorial sea, state waters, and terrestrial environments are an interdependent system that has to be managed through a cooperative effort between appropriate federal, state, and local agencies. The fluid, dynamic nature of the ocean and the migration of many of its living resources beyond state and federal boundaries extend the ocean management interests of this state beyond the three-nautical-mile limit currently managed by the state pursuant to the federal Submerged Lands Act (43 U.S.C. Sec. 1301 et seq.).