Deukmejian’s Toxic Program Shot Down in the Assembly

Assembly Democrats on Thursday for the second time rejected Gov. George Deukmejian’s program for dealing with toxic wastes and then joined the Senate in sending the governor a rival plan that he promised to veto.

The votes, which followed lengthy and highly emotional debates in both houses, fell chiefly along party lines. The outcome--which represents a major, although expected, setback for the Republican governor--for the time being ended the legislative battle with Deukmejian and left the problem unresolved. But partisan squabbling over the potent voter issue of toxics control is sure to be revived in an election year.

The rejection of Deukmejian’s plan and his vow to veto the alternative shaped by the Democratic-dominated Legislature means that toxic cleanup and control will remain in the hands of overlapping state agencies, rather than concentrated in a new department of waste management that both plans envisioned.

Criticism From EPA

The present unwieldy bureaucratic structure has drawn sharp criticism from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which stripped the state of its authority to issue permits for the handling of hazardous wastes. Critics also contend that the absence of a central toxics control authority played a role in problems that triggered a recent FBI investigation into the awarding of toxic cleanup contracts.

Deukmejian, in an angry response, characterized the Assembly’s rejection of his plan as “disgraceful” and repeated his vow to veto the Democratic alternative.

“They have refused to allow the chief executive of the state to organize the executive branch of government,” Deukmejian said. “They must now be held responsible for hampering the ability of the state to deal with the toxics problem in the most effective manner possible.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), however, held open the possibility of forging a new agreement with the Administration if Deukmejian is willing to compromise.

But in a fiery speech on the Assembly floor, Brown called Deukmejian’s plan a “smoke screen” and said the Administration’s effort amounts to little more than “rearranging the chairs on a disaster ship.”

Enumerating a list of what he said are serious flaws in the governor’s approach, Brown told his colleagues that defeating the plan “will probably be the finest vote you will cast. . . . You will not be praised in most quarters for doing it, but it will be the right and principled and the proper thing to do.”

Deukmejian, in an effort to build support among environmentalists in his bid for a second term, has been citing the standoff on toxics as proof that Assembly Democrats, particularly Brown, are more interested in political power than in a clean environment. Thursday’s action likely will provide more fuel for those attacks.

Democratic leaders hope to blunt such criticism by arguing that they delivered a reasonable alternative, which the governor refuses to accept.

Plan by Art Torres

The Democratic plan, by Sen. Art Torres of South Pasadena, would create a department of waste management and place it alongside departments that deal with air and water quality under a newly created environmental affairs agency.

The governor’s plan is similar except that the director of the new toxics department would serve on his Cabinet. Also, some agencies that regulate air and water quality, for example, would remain outside the new toxics department--a feature that has brought criticism from environmental groups.

Most of the attention, however, has been focused on differences in the makeup of a waste commission that would be created under both plans to arbitrate disputes.

Deukmejian’s plan would have a part-time commission drawn largely from industries involved in toxic wastes. The commission envisioned under the Torres plan would have fewer members serving full time and would bar anyone who earns more than 10% of his or her income from the regulated industries.

Governor Criticized

In a blistering attack on the Administration’s refusal to accept such a conflict-of-interest provision, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) called Deukmejian a “ramrod stiff-neck governor when the public health is involved. He won’t give an inch even when the public health is compromised, even when the polluters shouldn’t sit on the board.”

The governor, in fact, refused to negotiate over that or any other differences between the two plans, contending that Democrats last year had agreed on a compromise and then went back on their word.

“They have broken their word to their colleagues and to me, and they broke faith with the people who depend on government for clean drinking water and safe communities,” Deukmejian said after the votes.

Compromise Version

Assembly Democrats rejected the Administration’s first toxics proposal in June after experts argued that it was seriously flawed. Later the Administration offered a compromise version that Democrats reluctantly supported.

That compromise was approved in the Senate last September but fell apart in the Assembly in a partisan dispute over an unrelated measure.

Nonetheless, the governor’s plan itself stayed alive in another form, called a government reorganization plan. Under provisions of the state’s executive reorganization law, it would have taken effect automatically Sunday unless at least one house of the Legislature voted to kill it. And Assembly Democrats did so Thursday.