Deborah Sivas, director of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic and an expert on environmental policy, said the commission’s willingness to water down the rules reflects something far more insidious.

“It feels like right now there’s kind of this historic convergence of folks who want to try to weaken the coastal commission and pare back the Coastal Act,” she said.

In recent years, Airbnb helped do just that, becoming one of the most influential forces working against the commission, which has historically faced lawsuits and backlash from developers.

“Airbnb has decided it’s hard to stop short-term rental ordinances at the local level because if you’ve got some city along the coast and all their residents are up in arms about short-term rentals, it’s going to be hard for Airbnb to go in there,” Sivas said. “But if (Airbnb) can go after the commission and make the commission the bad guy, then none of their ordinances will get approved because they’ll make the commission scared.”

Sivas said spending that much money lobbying is an effective strategy and “it’s pretty easy” to influence who gets appointed, thereby shifting policy toward regulations that serve Airbnb.