Deukmejian’s Toxics Plan Passes Key Test

Gov. George Deukmejian’s plan to create a state agency to regulate the cleanup of hazardous wastes won the unanimous approval of a key Assembly committee Tuesday.

The Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials also agreed to a shortcut in legislative procedure that would allow the measure to be approved before the Legislature adjourns next week, a step that is necessary if the new department is to be put in place by Jan. 1, as Deukmejian would like. The bill now goes to a conference committee made up of three members from both the Senate and Assembly.

The vote, an apparent victory for the Republican Administration, was the climax of weeks of negotiations over numerous amendments to the governor’s plan, his second attempt to reorganize the way hazardous waste is regulated.

The final compromise left the basic elements of the Administration proposal intact: It would consolidate enforcement of the state’s toxics pollution laws in a department of waste management run by a director reporting to the governor and serving in his Cabinet. The enforcement effort is currently divided among several agencies.

The measure would also set up a 13-member California Waste Commission and three nine-member regional commissions to review policy and to serve as appeals boards for any decisions by the department director. The governor would appoint all but eight members of the state and regional boards.

“If the job isn’t done, you can blame the governor,” said former state Sen. Gordon R. Cologne (R-Indio), the co-author of the state’s 1969 Clean Water Act, who was asked by the governor to lobby the Legislature in behalf of the Administration plan.

For months, Deukmejian has made the creation of the new department one of his top legislative priorities. The plan was rewritten after the Assembly defeated the first version in June on a partisan 46-31 vote.

The Administration has opposed a rival proposal by Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena), which would put the new waste management department under a strengthened Environmental Affairs Agency responsible for water, air and land pollution issues.

Torres testified before the committee, opposing what he called a built-in conflict of interest for the statewide and regional waste commissions and pointing out that each of the entities would have members chosen by the governor from the industries to be regulated.

Torres called for a seven-member statewide commission, which would exclude from membership anyone who has earned a substantial amount of income from the regulated industries in the past two years. A similar restriction currently applies to the state Water Resources Control Board, whose powers to enforce clean water standards would be sharply curtailed under the governor’s proposal.

The Torres plan has the backing of a number of environmental and consumer groups, including the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League and the Consumers Union.

However, Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte), who heads the committee, said that while she preferred Torres’ approach, she believed that she and her colleagues were obligated to give the governor the kind of agency he asked for.

“If I were governor, I might want to choose Sen. Torres’ plan, but it happens I am not governor,” she said. “I really feel very strongly it is the governor’s prerogative to reorganize as he sees fit.”

Tanner, who has the backing of the Assembly Democratic leadership, agreed to a short cut in normal legislative procedures by placing the Administration’s 200-page reorganization plan in a related four-page bill that already has passed both houses of the Legislature. The revised bill will go to a Senate-Assembly conference committee, which can make any last-minute adjustments before sending it to both houses for final approval.

At the same time, at Tanner’s suggestion, the committee voted 8 to 3 to approve the Torres measure. The move was intended, she explained, to give Torres an additional chance to negotiate with the Administration and eventually to put his own name on a reorganization plan if he can work out his differences with the Administration.