Assembly Democrats Approve Bill to Create Waste Management Body

Assembly Democrats, spurred on by a blistering attack by Speaker Willie Brown on Gov. George Deukmejian’s “sorry record,” approved a bill Monday to create a new Department of Waste Management that the governor has promised to veto.

The 44-27 vote to send the bill back to the Senate, where it was approved earlier in a different form, fell strictly along party lines--the Democrats siding with Brown and the Republicans with the governor. Deukmejian is seeking legislative approval of his own proposal for a new toxics agency.

The Assembly-approved measure was then sent by the Senate to a conference committee, where its author, Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena), expressed hope that negotiations with the Deukmejian Administration would occur.

In the Assembly debate, Brown (D-San Francisco) castigated Deukmejian for vetoing a long list of toxic cleanup measures and appropriations. He also attacked what he termed “a sweetheart arrangement” several years ago when Deukmejian, who was then attorney general, approved closed negotiations with Aerojet General Corp. on the cleanup of that company’s toxics waste site in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento. (Those negotiations led to the announcement earlier this month that Aerojet had tentatively agreed to spend up to $82 million for the cleanup.)

In numerous speeches and press conferences, Deukmejian has attacked the Assembly Democrats and Brown in particular for failing last year to approve an Administration-backed compromise that would have established a new Department of Waste Management, a state Waste Commission and three regional waste boards to take over much of the state’s hazardous waste cleanup and regulatory authority.

For the most part, Brown has ignored the governor’s attacks. But he finally responded Monday with a long list of toxics measures signed into law that were initiated by Assembly Democrats, including bills to identify leaking underground storage tanks and toxics pits. In a reference to the governor, he said, “The obstructionist on the subject of toxics is one person and one person only.”

Brown said recent disclosures of investigations of state cleanup contracts by the FBI and auditors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show the need for strong conflict-of-interest provisions that are contained in the Torres bill but were not included in the Deukmejian-backed proposal.

Both the Torres bill and Deukmejian’s proposal would create a Department of Waste Management. Under the governor’s plan, the director of the new toxics agency would report directly to the governor and serve on his Cabinet. The Torres bill would put the new toxics agency under a strengthened Environmental Affairs Agency, along with the boards that regulate the state’s air and water pollution boards.

Each measure also would establish the California Waste Commission. Under the Deukmejian-backed proposal, a 13-member, part-time commission would include broad representation from the regulated industries. Torres’ bill calls for a seven-member, full-time commission, from which anyone who has earned more than 10% of his income from the regulated industries in the previous two years would be excluded. Brown and other Assembly Democrats contend that such a conflict-of-interest provision is vital to an effective cleanup program.