Incinerators Fuel Intense Lobbying Effort : Supporters, Critics Spent $250,000 to Influence Waste-to-Energy Bills

As part of its campaign against a proposed trash-to-energy plant near its Irwindale brewery, Miller Brewing Co. hired veteran lobbyist Dennis E. Carpenter to attempt to scuttle the project.

In April, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee heard the first of several Miller-supported measures to block construction of the high-tech incinerator. Carpenter figured his client’s bill might be able to torpedo the project.

Instead, he found the bill under attack from a dozen or so other high-powered lobbyists. The committee rejected the measure.

Support Underestimated

“We did not anticipate how much support these things (the incinerators) had politically,” said Carpenter, a white-haired, former FBI agent who spent nine years in the state Senate representing portions of Orange and San Diego counties.

Legislators also expressed surprise at the intensity of lobbying on the issue, which until last spring had failed to spark much legislative attention.

Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier) cracked that the controversy over the incinerator generated “a full-employment act for lobbyists.” Hill, who carried the Miller-supported measure, recalled recently, “I never saw so many lobbyists” lined up to oppose one of his proposals.

Indeed, supporters and opponents this year reported paying lobbyists at least $250,000 to influence legislation affecting such high-tech incinerators, which generate electricity by burning rubbish.

Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) said lobbying pressure by waste-to-energy firms has increased because “it’s obviously big business. We’re a big population base for them to serve.”

34 Plants Proposed in State

At stake are the ground rules for 34 multimillion-dollar waste-to-energy plants--including the Irwindale facility--that have been proposed around the state. As cities run out of room to dump their trash at landfills, the plants have been regarded by some as reasonable alternatives. Critics urge caution because of potential risks posed by toxic emissions.

Plans are proceeding for plants throughout Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts have completed a plant in the City of Commerce; another is under construction in Long Beach, and facilities are planned in Puente Hills, Pomona and South Gate. The city of Los Angeles has approved a plant in the South-Central area.

In the next year, legislative disputes are expected to revolve around building the multimillion-dollar plants in such heavily polluted areas as the San Gabriel Valley, air quality standards for smokestack emissions and easing current requirements that the plants acquire signed contracts for trash before they receive state approval.

The clash between Miller and Pacific Waste Management Corp., which has proposed the Irwindale incinerator, sparked much of the capital debate on waste-to-energy issues and prompted several of the dozen or so bills on the subject introduced in the last session.

Pacific Waste is seeking permission from the state Energy Commission to build a plant that could eventually burn 3,000 tons of trash a day and produce 80 megawatts of electricity.

Business Interests Split

According to one environmental lobbyist, the waste-to-energy dispute differs from other lobbying battles because the business community, which is usually unified, is split. Manufacturers, engineering firms, union members and others who may benefit from construction of the plants are arrayed on one side of the issue. On the other, Miller Brewing has retained environmental consultants, lawyers and Carpenter’s lobbying firm to fight the Irwindale trash-to-energy plant.

“Miller’s intense and early opposition” to the Irwindale plant triggered criticism of incinerators by grass roots groups and lawmakers, the environmental lobbyist said. “Miller kind of lit the fuse.”

To short-circuit the opposition, Pacific Waste hired James D. Garibaldi, dean of the lobbying corps, and the lobbying firm of Paul Priolo, a former Republican Assembly minority leader from Santa Monica.

‘Lobbied Extensively’

Garibaldi said that in the last session the dispute over waste-to-energy turned into “one of the main issues that were lobbied extensively.” He expects “a whole new group of bills next year.”

Carpenter and Garibaldi are among a select group of lobbyists known around the capital as “heavy hitters,” whose mere presence at a hearing sometimes is believed by legislative staffers to change committee votes.

On many issues, lobbyists can get their point across to legislators over lunch or drinks at local watering holes. But lobbyists say they have had to change their tactics on the waste-to-energy issue.

Technology Is Complicated

Carpenter, one of the key lobbyists on the issue, said that waste-to-energy technology is so complicated it must be discussed in detail with lawmakers, often with technical consultants in tow. “You don’t go in with a wink and a handshake and get a vote,” Carpenter said. “You have to educate people.”

The education campaign began in 1985 when waste-to-energy firms and their opponents began to establish a presence in Sacramento, shelling out at least $120,000 to lobbyists, according to reports filed with the secretary of state’s office.

In the first nine months of 1986, waste-to-energy firms and their critics dramatically increased their presence, paying at least $250,000 to lobbyists to influence legislation, according to a review of lobbying reports.

Excluded from that figure are some large firms--such as Westinghouse Electric Corp.--which have a stake in building waste-to-energy plants but which hire lobbyists to oversee a variety of interests.

Among the firms with lobbyists working purely on waste-to-energy questions, Carpenter’s firm, Carpenter, Zenovich & Associates, tops the list for fees, having received $90,000 from Miller Brewing since Jan. 1. Carpenter’s partner in the firm is former state Sen. George Zenovich (D-Fresno). Last year, Carpenter, Zenovich was the highest-paid lobbying firm in the capital, reporting a total of $957,166 received from its clients. Of that, Miller reported paying the firm $60,000 to influence waste-to-energy legislation.

Lobbying Costs Listed

Just behind Miller in lobbying costs is Pacific Waste, which so far this year has paid two of Sacramento’s top lobbyists a total of more than $78,000. Since Jan. 1, Pacific Waste has reported paying $48,500 to Priolo’s firm. In 1985, the firm was paid nearly $28,500.

In 1986, Pacific Waste also retained Garibaldi. Through September, Garibaldi’s lobbying reports show he was compensated $30,000 by Pacific Waste.

Among other firms that have hired lobbyists is Ogden Martin Systems Inc. of Paramus, N.J., which would build the Pacific Waste plant and the Lancer project in South-Central Los Angeles and is currently constructing one in Modesto. Ogden Martin so far this year has paid the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson nearly $40,000 to represent the company on waste-to-energy issues.

David Sokol, president of Ogden Martin, said his firm has built plants throughout the nation. “What is different in the state of California,” he said, “is the political climate: a very environmentally conscious society that deals with the issues very carefully.”

The Sanitation Districts have paid $16,000 to lobbyist Albert A. Marino to keep track of legislation this year, and other firms have reported paying lobbyists at least another $29,000 to follow waste-to-energy issues.

Coalition Formed

Early this year, Pacific Waste’s lobbyists helped mobilize a coalition of groups interested in building the plants. The coalition has included waste-to-energy firms; the California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers, whose union members expect to build and operate the plants; and the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, a pro-business umbrella group that tries to reconcile the interests of business, labor and environmentalists.

Coalition members urged defeat of Hill’s bill and, in a key turning point last June, successfully lobbied against a measure by Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte) that would have prevented construction of incinerators in areas that have heavy air pollution.

Tanner’s measure was approved by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee last May. But when the bill was sent to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Tanner was able to muster only three votes for it. Lobbyists for the waste-to-energy industry credit Ron Wood, lobbyist for the California-Nevada Operating Engineers, with killing Tanner’s bill by working behind the scenes.

Wood acknowledges that he vigorously argued against Tanner’s measure and other bills that sought to place a lid on the construction of incinerators. He said his union members support waste-to-energy technology because they expect to build the plants. Further, he said that “from an environmental point of view” the plants are better than landfills. “You can’t continue to bury (trash) or truck it out to the desert.”

Shy of Public Recognition

A source close to the waste-to-energy coalition said that other lobbyists also actively opposed the bill, but speculated that they do not want public recognition of their role because they do not want to alienate Tanner. As chairwoman of the Assembly Toxics Committee, she is in a position to influence the outcome of other legislation sought by the companies.

About the time the measure ran into trouble in the Ways and Means Committee, lobbyists on both sides said, many waste-to-energy firms embraced a compromise bill by Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto) to show legislators that they were not opposed to environmental controls, just to legislation that would curb construction.

Miller Brewing also supported Sher’s bill, which requires tough environmental controls but does not prohibit construction of the incinerators. Sher, chairman of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, speculated that his measure, which passed and was signed into law, drew support from waste-to-energy firms because “there were more extreme moratorium bills” that made his “look moderate.”

As the lobbying battle continues, legislators like Sher have received campaign contributions from firms seeking access to lawmakers. For instance, Pacific Waste last March contributed $1,000 to Sher’s campaign committee.

However, lobbyists on both sides discount the importance of campaign contributions in the waste-to-energy battle.

Brewer’s Contributions

Miller Brewing has poured $48,000 into legislative campaigns in the past two years. But Cliff Amos, Miller’s manager of community relations, said the brewery does not make contributions on the basis of any single issue.

In 1986, Miller contributed $1,000 to Assemblyman Hill’s reelection drive, $1,000 to Assemblywoman Tanner’s campaign committee and $500 to Montoya’s committee, according to Legi-Tech, a computerized information service.

The Operating Engineers’ political action committee, too, has a variety of interests prompting it to contribute more than $12,000 to legislative campaigns in 1985 and 1986, according to Legi-Tech. Among those who have received contributions are Tanner, $1,000; Montoya, $500; and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), $2,500.

Besides the contribution to Sher, Pacific Waste has contributed at least another $3,500 to local and state campaigns, according to reports filed with the secretary of state’s office.

The firm also gave Montoya a $1,000 honorarium for discussing waste-to-energy issues at a Nevada symposium. But Montoya, who carried Sher’s compromise bill in the Senate, said, “My attitude about the issue is not predicated on the money I get from these groups.”

Result Was a Standoff

Despite the intense lobbying, Carpenter said, the past legislative year was “a standoff in terms of either side getting a piece of legislation that would have given them a victory for or against the construction of a plant.”

And neither side seems to have changed its point of view.

Miller has contended that emissions from Pacific Waste’s proposed incinerator would add to the San Gabriel Valley’s already smoggy air. Miller’s Amos said the brewer recognizes that there is a crisis in finding room to dispose of garbage, but “we just don’t think that a garbage burner is the kind of neighbor we want.”

Mark White, a Sacramento-based vice president of Pacific Waste, termed efforts to limit incinerator construction “misdirected.”

“Without thinking about the future . . . they were going to install moratoriums on technology that’s been proven in Europe,” White said.

One legislative staffer, who asked to not be identified because he deals with both supporters and opponents on the issue, said that this year there were a number of “meat ax” bills that sought to kill projects in the San Gabriel Valley and elsewhere.

‘Fair Share’ Plan

Next year, Tanner and her supporters say they plan to refine their concepts. Since the Legislature ended its session in September, Tanner has organized a new offensive by courting lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who represent smoggy areas east of Los Angeles, from the San Gabriel Valley to Riverside and San Bernardino.

Tanner said she plans to introduce legislation that would, among other things, establish a “fair share” plan that would divide Los Angeles County into five areas responsible for handling their own trash. The aim of the bill is to disperse trash disposal throughout the county and not concentrate it in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than half of the county’s municipal waste is now dumped.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), concerned about the Lancer facility in South-Central Los Angeles, last Wednesday introduced legislation that would require air pollution authorities to consider the cumulative impact of trash-burning plants.

Other bills under discussion could seek to limit a requirement that the plants must have contracts for trash before they are approved, enable agencies to reject permits for the incinerators because the electricity they generate is not needed or transfer jurisdiction for approving large plants from the Energy Commission to the state Waste Management Board.

Political Dynamics

Despite mounting legislative interest and increasing pressure from lobbyists, many lawmakers believe it will be a long time before the Legislature finally resolves the issue. For now, Assemblyman Hill said he doubts “the political dynamics are there to either push through the facilities or slow one down.”

Supporters of waste-to-energy technology say legislators should allow Assemblyman Sher’s bill, which becomes law Jan. 1, time to take effect. It requires tough anti-pollution controls but still allows construction of the plants.

A member of the Energy Commission remarked recently that because Sher heads the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, which reviews waste-to-energy bills, he will continue to be “in the catbird’s seat.” Sher’s compromise bill was the only major waste-to-energy measure to pass the Legislature this year.

Sher acknowledges that the fight in the new session may be just as heated as last year’s.

Still, Sher said, he does not believe the Legislature should block the waste-to-energy “option” for disposing of trash. At the same time, he said, “I don’t think you can give a blank check to developers to build whatever they want.”