Setback for toll road extension

A toll road agency planning to build a highway across San Onofre State Beach would no longer avoid potentially restrictive state laws under a military bill amendment approved by a key congressional committee early Thursday.

Shortly after midnight following hours of discussion, the House Armed Services Committee voted 30 to 27 to repeal legislation related to the Foothill South tollway, a 16-mile turnpike that would pass through southern Orange County.

The amendment by Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) would overturn a 2002 decision by Congress applying federal law to the controversial project if it conflicts with state law, which is often more stringent.

“There is no reason,” Davis said, “why this project should receive special exemptions from the standard process and environmental safeguards, particularly when such unique natural resources are at stake.”

The Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies, which operates toll roads throughout Orange County, had sought the federal preemption to streamline the approval and regulatory process for the Foothill South.

Because San Onofre is a state park and sits on land leased from the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, projects within it would normally be subject to a variety of state and federal laws.

Estimated to cost $875 million, the tollway would begin at Oso Parkway in Rancho Santa Margarita and connect with Interstate 5 at Basilone Road south of San Clemente.

The road would run the length of the northern half of San Onofre State Beach and pass over the Trestles estuary, which is a nature preserve within the park.

“This is very serious. It could jeopardize the project,” said Jennifer Seaton, a spokeswoman for the toll road agency.

Agency officials fear that they might not be able to preempt state law if the Legislature wants to change the tollway’s route or restrict road construction in parks. There have been four unsuccessful attempts to do so since 2000.

“This is a setback for the tollway,” said Brittany McKee, director of Friends of the Foothills, a coalition of environmental groups opposed to the toll road. “The TCA sought all this legislation because of their own lack of confidence in the project’s ability to comply with the law.”

James Birkelund, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a tollway opponent, said the agency would no longer be able to defend lawsuits against the Foothill South project by contending that state courts have no jurisdiction in the matter.

Removal of the federal preemption, Birkelund said, would put the road’s planning and environmental process “on a level playing field.”

Seaton said the agency was relieved that Davis did not proceed with another move that the tollway agency spokeswoman described as “the most threatening” -- an effort to dismantle two other pieces of legislation that benefit the tollway.

Under pressure from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) and other committee members, Davis backed away from opposing the measures: a 1999 military bill rider that gave the Navy power to grant the tollway agency a 340-acre easement inside San Onofre; and a clause in the 2001 military authorization bill freeing the tollway from federal regulations requiring builders to exhaust all “feasible and prudent” alternatives before parkland can be used for a highway.

Rob Thornton, the tollway agency’s general counsel, said the park provision in the federal law has been used by highway opponents to stop or delay needed projects around the country.

The new military authorization bill must be approved by the House and Senate before Davis’ amendment would take effect. Tollway supporters hope to strip the amendment from the bill.

“The project is too important, and too much money has been invested in this thing,” Thornton said. “There are 20 years of planning behind it.”

dan.weikel@latimes.com

david.reyes@latimes.com