CALIFORNIA’S BUDGET CRISIS : Assembly Defeats Logging Legislation : Forests: The vote is a loss for Gov. Wilson. Conservatives and liberals joined forces to kill the bill.

The California Assembly handed Gov. Pete Wilson a defeat Friday as lawmakers overwhelmingly registered their opposition to a measure that would restructure the state’s forest protection laws.

With a majority of the governor’s own party voting against the bill, the Wilson-backed proposal to control logging on the state’s 7.1 million acres of private timberlands was defeated 47 to 18 and its legislative sponsors held little hope that it could be revived in the final days of the session.

Opposition to the measure came from a politically diverse coalition that included the Legislature’s most conservative Republicans and its most liberal Democrats. And their reasons for opposing the measures were as disparate as their political philosophies.

The conservatives took the floor to argue that the bill would so restrict logging that lumber mills would be forced to close, costing the North Coast of California thousands of jobs. Liberals, echoing arguments put forth by the Sierra Club, insisted that the proposal was not restrictive enough and would still permit overcutting, particularly in the state’s ancient forests on private lands.

But legislation sponsors said philosophical debate may have been outweighed by the political undercurrents that swirled through the Legislature in the final days of the session, which ends Monday.

“Let’s just say there weren’t a lot of people out there listening to the debate,” said Assemblyman Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto), a sponsor of the measure.

Although Wilson lobbied Republicans for their votes, he was not able to draw support from the most conservative legislators, many of whom have never forgiven him for approving tax hikes last year. And many Democrats, who have been embroiled in a bitter stalemate with the governor over the budget, were unwilling to provide key votes giving him a political victory on the timber issue.

Sher said Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), whose opposition six months ago helped kill an earlier version of the governor’s timber plan, promised not to actively work against the measure. Even so, Brown’s distaste for the measure was evident.

“He came in in the middle of the debate and took over the podium. The vibrations are always different when the Speaker is presiding,” Sher said.

The Assembly is expected to vote again on the measure this weekend but Sher said he was not optimistic. The bill would ban clear-cutting in ancient forests and set limits on clear-cutting in other types of forests, provide protections for forest watersheds, restructure the Board of Forestry and require timber owners to maintain a certain percentage of old trees on their timberlands.

Sher called the legislation the “most comprehensive overhaul of the Forest Practice Act in nearly 20 years” and argued that it would place into law specific protections for ancient forests.

But opponents such as Assemblymen Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) contended that its major flaw was that it would permit 68% of those ancient forests to be harvested in 20 years.