Making history in Santa Barbara on Thursday, the state Coastal Commission unanimously decided that the Cabrillo Port project -- a plan to haul Australian liquefied natural gas across the ocean to a giant floating terminal off the coast between Oxnard and Malibu -- would violate state policy by fueling global warming.

According to a commission staff report, the plan by BHP Billiton LLC, the largest mining company in the world, would spew 23 million tons of greenhouse gases into the air yearly -- or 40 percent as much as New York City.

A crowd of 300 people attended the California Coastal Commission hearing on the Cabrillo Port project at Fess Parker's DoubleTree Resort Hotel Thursday. On the screen, BHP Billiton President Renee Klimczak is shown speaking to the commission. The company did not make a presentation at the hearing. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

Turning to a large crowd of project opponents who, wearing blue “Terminate the Terminal” T-shirts, had endured an 8-hour hearing at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort Hotel, Clark said, “It just makes me proud to be a Californian to see you here. Your voice has been heard.”

Thursday’s hearing marked the first time the 12-member Coastal Commission had ever considered the impact amount of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that an industrial project might spew into the atmosphere, trapping heat and fueling climate change.

Billiton officials have 30 days to appeal the commission’s decision to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. They had no comment on the vote Thursday, except to say they were exploring their options.

During the hearing, Billiton chose not to make a presentation or argue on its own behalf. The company had asked for a postponement in the wake of the State Lands Commission’s 2-1 vote against Cabrillo Port on Monday.

“Our goal here today is to listen,” Billiton President Renee Klimczak told the Coastal Commission, adding that the company also had asked its supporters not to speak. “We believe California needs natural gas to meet its future economic demands. BHP would like to be part of California’s cleaner energy future.”

This week’s votes by the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission cast in doubt not only the future of Cabrillo Port, but of the other two liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects that are under review off Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

The “no” votes from two powerful commissions also increase the pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- who has the final say.

In the past, the governor has said he favors importing liquefied natural gas to California. Schwarzenegger was in New York City Thursday making a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, on how to protect the environment and promote economic growth. Last September, he signed legislation that commits California to reducing its greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

Schwarzenegger has until May 21 to approve or deny the Cabrillo Port project.

Susan Jordan, above, director of the California Coastal Protection Network, and Linda Krop, below, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, led the opposition to a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast between Oxnard and Malibu. Photos by Melinda Burns / SBN

The commission staff said that its estimate of 23 million tons yearly from Cabrillo Port took into account the entire project -- from the extraction of natural gas in Australia, to the voyages by tanker across the sea, the conversion of the liquid gas back into its gaseous state, and the pumps that ship the gas onshore through pipelines.

Billiton could reduce some greenhouse gases by using natural gas instead of diesel fuel to power its oceangoing tankers, but the company did not offer to make that change, the staffers said.

“It’s not because we’re pioneering here,” he added. “It’s because we feel we have the responsibility to make this recommendation to you, not only for consistency with the Coastal Act, but for the planet.”

During four years of hard lobbying, Billiton gained the support of numerous chambers of commerce, farm bureaus, taxpayers’ associations and business and manufacturing groups. The company argued that liquefied natural gas was a “bridge fuel” to a future 10 or 20 years from now when solar and wind power could take over.

But on Thursday, a string of speakers, including Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara; Ventura county supervisors; mayors and councilmembers from Malibu, Port Hueneme and Oxnard; schoolchildren and teachers from Oxnard; and, celebrities from Malibu rejected this argument -- saying that Cabrillo Port would be harmful to public health, ugly to look at and discriminatory against the largely Latino population living along the coast of Ventura County.

Steve Bennett, a Ventura County supervisor, objected to a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to exempt Cabrillo Port from onshore air quality regulations.

According to the commission’s staff report, the project would add more than 200 tons of smog-producing pollutants into the air yearly, most of which would blow onshore. Bennett said Cabrillo Port should have to comply with Ventura County’s rules and “offset” their pollution, just as oil platforms do.

“It makes no common sense for the EPA to exempt this project,” Bennett said.

Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center, representing Jordan’s group, said the state did not need to import natural gas.

“Cabrillo Port would create a roadblock to California’s meeting its renewable energy goals,” she said.

Project opponents said the noise from Cabrillo Port would harm the whales, and the night lights would harm seabirds. They showed videos of humpback whales floating underwater and videos of Oxnard schoolchildren asking the commission to protect the ocean.

Pierce Brosnan, an actor and a resident of Malibu, said, “I have not heard one person argue for building such an awful terminal.”

At the commission’s request, there was no applause, so people showed their support by raising their hands in the air and waving them.

Near the hearing’s end, Commissioner Ben Hueso, a San Diego councilman, said it was unfortunate that BHP Billiton officials had decided not to participate in the hearing.

“It points to a tendency on the part of BHP to provide less information rather than more,” he said. “If we don’t feel BHP’s heart is really in this -- it is not in the best interests of our coastline. We would hope you would show a regard for the people of California in bringing your projects to the state.”