Toxic Waste Plan Revised by State

The Deukmejian Administration on Thursday unveiled an overhauled plan for controlling toxic waste, hoping to head off a confrontation with Democrats who control the Legislature.

The latest version of the plan--the second rewrite in two months--proposes that a new department of waste management be given Cabinet-level status rather than being placed within the umbrella Health and Welfare Agency as first recommended.

Although the change will not materially affect the functions of the proposed department, Administration officials saw the move as a way of emphasizing the importance of the toxic waste issue and resolving concerns that the new department might get buried in the health agency’s vast bureaucracy.

Currently, responsibility for the state’s toxic waste cleanup effort is shared by 12 agencies. Both Democrats and the Republican Deukmejian Administration agree on the need to consolidate the effort, but they differ on the best way to do it.

“The (Deukmejian) plan commits to the citizens of California that the problem being addressed will merit the most serious attention at the senior levels of this Administration,” Health and Welfare Secretary David B. Swoap said in releasing the plan.

The new proposal was sent to the Legislature, where it is headed for a confrontation with rival plans being advanced by Democrats, including Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

Aside from the new Cabinet-level status and other changes recommended by the state Little Hoover Commission, the plan remains much like it was when last revised in March. It proposes to eliminate overlap and duplication by concentrating cleanup responsibility in one department.

It would provide for a 13-member California waste commission--up from 11 members in the earlier version--three regional boards and a science advisory panel.

Either house of the Legislature can veto the proposal, but neither can make any changes in it.

Politically, this leaves the Democrats in a precarious position. If they approve the plan as written, they will be endorsing a structure they disagree with while allowing the governor to take credit for an issue that they consider their own. If the Democrats move to defeat the plan, they could be accused by Republicans of putting their own political interests ahead of the public good.

Rival measures by Speaker Brown and Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) would place more authority for toxic waste with the state Water Resources Control Board and combine all toxic and nontoxic waste programs under the Environmental Affairs Agency.

Torres’ plan also would transfer the regulation of pesticides from the Department of Food and Agriculture to the proposed new department. Farm interests bitterly oppose such a move, and it is absent from both the Deukmejian and Brown plans.

Swoap stressed that the revised plan reflects suggestions from the bipartisan Little Hoover Commission, industry representatives and some lawmakers, including Democrats.