Opinion

SAILORS FIRST, WHALES SECOND

President Bush injected a whale-sized dose of sanity into the environmental regulations governing America’s coastal waters last week – much to the dismay of leftist tree-hugger outfits like the California Coastal Commission and the Iranian navy.

OK, the Iranians may have other reasons to regret Bush’s decision, which exempts the US Navy from a federal law used by environmental groups and state bureaucrats to cripple naval exercises off the southern California coast.

At issue are Navy ships’ mid-frequency active sonar systems – which emit underwater sonic pulses to detect enemy submarines, but which greenie groups say also pose a threat to whales.

The extent of the threat is a matter of dispute, but California environmentalists had nonetheless used the Coastal Zone Management Act – which gives states a say in federal activities off their coasts – to get a judge to impose crippling restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises.

No dice, said President Bush, who declared last Tuesday that the exercises are “essential to national security.”

And he couldn’t be more right.

Active sonar is an old technology, but its efficacy has grown in recent years as more and more countries – including Iran and North Korea – have gotten their hands on extraordinarily quiet subs that elude passive-sonar detection.

Ping they must, in other words.

Needless to say, a submarine that American ships can’t find could wreak substantial havoc, which makes it essential that American sailors have the best active-sonar training possible.

Southern California training is especially important, Navy officials say, because the island channels off its coast resemble the naval conditions in the Straits of Hormuz (where Iranian gunboats confronted US warships two weeks ago).

All the same, US District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper’s dopey restrictions would have made simulating real wartime scenarios next to impossible.

Now she should repeal them.

Nothing against whales or anything, but the lives of American sailors are just that much more important.