Environmental Laws Face Siege in Legislature

Assemblyman Keith Olberg thinks the bald eagle is a majestic creature, deserving of protection. But the Mohave ground squirrel? That’s a critter he can do without.

Both the bird and the rodent are imperiled in California, but in Olberg’s world, not all species are created equal. In this era of dwindling public dollars, he says, saving the squirrel costs more than the animal is worth.

Olberg is second in command of the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee. He is also the torchbearer for a cadre of legislators who believe that human beings have suffered too much for too long under laws safeguarding the California environment.

In a movement mirroring efforts under way in Congress, Olberg and many fellow Republicans are pushing a raft of legislation to bring what they call “common sense” to the state’s approach to environmental protection. Loosely united as champions of property rights and deregulation, they are attacking laws governing everything from recycling to forest preservation, air quality and parks.

“I think this will be a very good year for the taxpayer and people trying to create jobs in California,” predicted Olberg, a Republican from Victorville who was elected in November and worked for the Building Industry Assn. before that.

Accustomed to a friendly climate in the state capital, environmental groups have been considerably rattled by this year’s legislative offensive. At a time when they had hoped to be busy celebrating the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, they are instead waging a furious defensive battle, scrambling to kill or at least blunt legislation they say could seriously erode achievements made over the last 25 years.

“There is a large volume of hostile bills this year,” said Joe Caves, a lobbyist for the Planning & Conservation League. “A lot of these new ideological Republicans are feeling their oats and really going for it.”

Adding to their woes, environmentalists say, is the loss of Gov. Pete Wilson as an ally. During his first term as governor, Wilson courted environmentalists and was considered “pro-green” by groups such as the Sierra Club. He created the California Environmental Protection Agency, appointed a resources secretary with strong ties to the conservation community and signed bills aiming to preserve wildlife habitat, reduce air pollution and broaden the authority of the state Coastal Commission to halt development.

But critics say that in recent years the governor has steadily abandoned his defense of the environment. And this spring they have accused Wilson of outright betrayal, citing as Exhibit A his proposal to overhaul the state Endangered Species Act.

Wilson’s spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the governor still considers himself an environmentalist but wants to reshape the act to help property owners who suffer when an endangered species is found on their land. Wilson also wants to ensure that “sound science” is used to justify placing a plant or animal on the endangered list, Walsh said.

Environmentalists, however, say the changes Wilson seeks would gut protections for species on the brink: “I think whatever sympathy Pete Wilson had for the environment disappeared as he began to focus his sights on the presidency,” said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

As they battle to counter this year’s trend, environmentalists are hindered by two factors. Many conservation groups have been weakened by budget cuts stemming from membership losses; as a result, their corps of lobbyists in Sacramento has thinned and often appears overwhelmed.

Moreover, some conservative lawmakers have flatly refused to meet with environmentalists to discuss their concerns about various bills.

“It’s a very difficult, scary time for us,” said John White, who has worked in the capital for 21 years and now serves as a lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “To use a basketball metaphor, we feel like they’re flooding the lane and we’re down several players.”

National polls consistently document the public’s deep support for laws protecting wildlife and the forests, rivers and other habitats they occupy. But a rising chorus of Americans--standing beneath the banner of the “wise use” movement--are expressing frustration with environmental regulations they say have trampled the rights of property owners.

These activists have been aided in some cases by support from home builders, agricultural interests, manufacturers and oil and timber companies. The recession has played a role as well, nourishing charges that over-regulation and excessive concern for the environment have stifled economic growth.

“A lot of these existing laws are abusive to property owners and need to be repealed,” said Assemblyman Bruce Thompson (R-Fallbrook), another freshman on the Natural Resources Committee. “The environmentalists are trying to stop growth by coming up with all these little critters and saying they’re endangered. It’s ridiculous.”

Olberg agrees. Paraphrasing from an essay by James Madison in 1798, the assemblyman said his legislative mission springs from his belief that “if a man’s property is protected, then every other human liberty is protected. That was the philosophy of the Founding Fathers, and we’ve gotten too far away from that.”

Some of the bills stirring concern among environmentalists seek an outright repeal of laws, such as one that would allow voters to overturn Proposition 117, a 1990 ballot measure that banned sport hunting of mountain lions and earmarked millions in state funds to buy and protect wildlife habitat. Others would prohibit state and local governments from adopting environmental regulations more stringent than those enacted by Congress. And some seek to force the government to pay property owners if their land is devalued because of environmental policies.

Most activists concede that certain environmental laws “could use some tinkering,” as Bill Walker of the League of Conservation Voters put it. What’s distressing, he said, is the extreme reach of much of the legislation--and the dearth of more moderate options.

Olberg has introduced one of the most dramatic proposals--to radically alter the way fragile populations of wildlife are protected. If his bill becomes law, the state Fish and Game Commission will recommend that a species be declared endangered and determine the cost for that protection. A vote of the Legislature would then be required to place the species on the endangered list. That authority now rests solely with the commission.

The goal, Olberg said, is to force lawmakers to set priorities, to decide “whether they want to spend public money building prisons and helping the schools, or whether they want to spend it to protect an animal.” The consequence of this approach, he predicts, would be “that we preserve the mega-species, like the bald eagle,” but decide that “lesser,” more obscure species such as the Mohave ground squirrel or the Tecopa pupfish don’t make the cut.

That approach holds great appeal for Get Government Off Our Backs, a national coalition formed, its leaders say, to shrink government and attack bureaucratic red tape.

“To suggest that progress ought to be held up because of various exotic creatures violates common sense,” said Lew Uhler, the group’s California chairman. “Intelligent, everyday working people do not believe that a salamander or a kangaroo rat or even a spotted owl is as important as their families or their livelihood.”

Uhler--an anti-tax crusader who also has campaigned for term limits--said more than three dozen California lawmakers have endorsed the coalition’s founding principles. He hopes 1995 will mark a shift of power in the Legislature, from those who “dance to the environmentalist piper” to those “who speak for ordinary Americans.”

It is too early to tell whether that will in fact occur. Some lawmakers predict that in today’s starkly divided Legislature, gridlock will stall all controversial measures. That scenario has already led to initial committee defeats for a few bills--including the one that would authorize mountain lion hunting--but their sponsors plan to revive them later this year.

Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto), the veteran chairman of the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee, said that unless lawmakers are willing to shed their partisan allegiances, “we’ll remain at impasse and a lot of these bills will fail.”

In the Senate, the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee predicts that the fight over at least one controversial bill--containing Wilson’s Endangered Species Act revisions--will be “very close.” Another round of committee hearings on bills cutting environmental controls will begin today.

The “new boldness” of such legislation, Chairman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said, is evidence of “a period where enemies of the environment are in ascendancy . . . and the guts of all the major environmental policies of the last 25 years are being ripped out.”

Bills such as Olberg’s attack on the Endangered Species Act, Hayden adds, are astonishing, reflecting an ignorance about the interconnections of species in the ecosystem.

“He wants to save the eagle. But how about what the eagle eats, or where the eagle perches, or the space where the eagle flies? Are we going to debate every year in the Legislature the millions of species that make up the web of life in California?”

The environmental movement, Hayden said, bears much of the blame for the backlash: “It needs immediate and dramatic renewal” to fight those who pursue “exploitation and expansion in the name of Manifest Destiny.”

Environmental groups do not necessarily disagree. But at the moment, they are struggling merely to transmit their message to lawmakers hostile to their cause.

Mark Murray, executive director of the pro-recycling group Californians Against Waste, said one legislator mistook his group for an anti-tax organization, agreed to a meeting and then threw him out of his office after learning his true colors. Another flatly refused to meet and hear his point of view.

Given that posture, Murray is trying a new strategy to sell the few pro-green bills he is pushing this year. Instead of emphasizing litter reduction and other ecological benefits of recycling, he said, “we’re talking about job creation and increased efficiency--the economic argument.”

“For too long, it was easy to persuade our audience that environmental protection was simply the right thing to do,” Murray said. “We’re paying for that now.”

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Endangered Regulations

Here are some of the bills introduced in the state Legislature this year that would ease or change environmental regulations or laws.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

* Declaring a species endangered would take a vote of the Legislature under a bill by Assemblyman Keith Olberg (R-Victorville). The bill also would require the government to pay landowners whose property values decline because of enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

* A bill carried by Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno) for Gov. Pete Wilson would make it more difficult to list new species as endangered and review all species currently listed. Farmers and utilities engaged in “routine” activities would not be prohibited from killing imperiled species.

WILDLIFE

* A bill by Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay) would authorize the state Department of Fish and Game to use sport hunting as a tool to manage mountain lions, pending approval of the voters.

FORESTS

* Legislation by Assemblyman David Knowles (R-Placerville) would exempt timber companies from regulation if logging is done by “thinning” and to reduce the spread and intensity of wildfires.

AIR QUALITY

* A bill by Sen. Dick Monteith (R-Modesto) would abolish all regional air quality management boards and give authority for pollution control to county governments.

REGULATORY CHANGES

* At Wilson’s request, Assembly Republican leader Jim Brulte is proposing a constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass any bill imposing new regulatory costs.

* Owners of property damaged by human-caused or natural disasters could rebuild free of environmental regulation for one year under a bill by Assemblyman Tom Woods (R-Shasta).