Governor Blocked on Audit of Toxics Pacts

Gov. George Deukmejian’s request for a legislative audit of state toxic waste contracts was blocked Thursday by a Democratic lawmaker who is seeking to broaden the range of the inquiry.

Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove), a member of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, refused to authorize the audit until the panel can meet in January to determine whether other aspects of the state’s problem-plagued toxics program should also be examined.

“I think the scope, as defined, is too narrow,” Robinson said. “I think the governor’s office should describe in a public hearing exactly what he hopes to achieve.”

Deukmejian called for the audit last month, after it became public that the FBI was investigating the state’s hazardous waste cleanup contracts and a possible state cover-up in the death of a 4-year-old Riverside boy, who lived within a mile of the Stringfellow Acid Pits.

In explaining his unprecedented request, Deukmejian said he wanted to “satisfy the Legislature’s interest in this subject.”

However, such an inquiry conducted by the state auditor general is entirely in the purview of the Legislature and must be authorized by the 14-member Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

Robinson, like any other member of the committee, is entitled to block an audit from proceeding by refusing to authorize the request without a public hearing.

“I must unfortunately object to this audit, unless and until there is a full public hearing, and the committee defines an appropriate scope for the audit and agrees on the potential cost, as well as the time frame of the completion of the audit,” Robinson said in a letter to the committee chairman, Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco).

In an interview, Robinson explained that he would like to see the audit go beyond the question of the state’s cleanup contracts and focus on the entire management of the state’s toxic cleanup program.

The Deukmejian Administration has come under fire for its failure to clean up large hazardous waste sites that threaten the public health and drinking water of neighboring communities.

Although the problem could well become a major issue in Deukmejian’s campaign for reelection next year, Robinson said he was not seeking the hearing as a means to attack Deukmejian on the issue.

“I certainly don’t have a political motivation,” the assemblyman said, noting that the toxics issue had also been a problem that bedeviled Deukmejian’s predecessor, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Up to Legislature

Larry Thomas, Deukmejian’s press secretary, acknowledged that it is up to the Legislature to determine the nature of any audit of the state Health Services Department’s toxics program.

The governor’s office, he said, is willing to cooperate with the hearing requested by Robinson to determine the nature of the inquiry.

“The governor suggested the audit and requested it so that concerns the Legislature might have over news reports could be addressed to their satisfaction by an audit under their control,” Thomas said.

“If the Legislature sees fit to question the wisdom of that procedure or wishes to redefine the scope, then obviously, it is the Legislature’s prerogative to do so.”