Texas coastal plan: analysis of a failure.

The development of a coastal zone management plan for Texas was influenced primarily by three public figures. Bob Armstrong, land commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas, coordinated all natural resource agencies in the state to develop a preliminary plan that he submitted to the governor as the Texas Coastal Management Program of 1976. Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, heading objections by the oil and gas industry to the program's activity assessment routine, gave the program little support; he left office in 1979 without transmitting it for federal review and approval. His successor, Governor William Clements, revised the program, with weaker assessment provisions, as the Texas Coastal Plan and then tabled it permanently in 1981. The reasons for the program's failure and the outlook for the future are discussed.