Desert Bill Dies; Cranston and Wilson Blame Each Other

Election-year negotiations over a bill to create a vast wilderness preserve in the Mojave Desert have collapsed in political quicksand as California’s two senators admitted Thursday that the legislation is at least temporarily dead and blamed each other for its demise.

Republican Sen. Pete Wilson, stung by the charge that he was stalling the bill to death, replied that his accuser, Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston, proposed unacceptably restrictive legislation and then set an unrealistic deadline for reaching an agreement on the bill.

The back and forth between the two senators went on as Wilson’s Democratic opponent in this year’s Senate race, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, sought to discredit Wilson’s claim that he has been a champion of the California environment.

Last week, the Sierra Club announced its endorsement of McCarthy, a supporter of the desert bill, and indicated that Wilson’s reservations about the bill were a significant factor in the club’s decision not to back him. In 1984, club officials had praised Wilson for joining Cranston in sponsoring a wilderness bill that extended protection to more than 1 million acres of Northern California timberland.

As recently as April, it appeared that Cranston and Wilson were on the verge of collaborating on Cranston’s latest wilderness bill, a far more ambitious one, that would grant protection to nearly 9 million acres of desert.

But last week, on the eve of the Sierra Club endorsement, Cranston said he failed to get needed cooperation on the desert bill from Wilson and, as a result, he did not think the bill had much chance of passage this year. Cranston said that his staff’s efforts to present Wilson with a compromise bill had gotten nowhere.

Thursday, Wilson offered a similarly pessimistic opinion about the bill’s chances, although he attributed the impasse largely to Cranston’s approach to desert protection.

“S 7 proposes to save the desert from the people of California. I propose to save the desert for the people of California,” Wilson said in a letter to Cranston.

The comment reflects Wilson’s view that the bill would unfairly deny access to campers, rock collectors and other visitors. The bill is opposed by a coalition of groups, ranging from the recreational vehicle industry to miners and ranchers.

In his letter to Cranston, Wilson made it clear that Cranston’s suggested compromises did not go far enough toward ensuring access.

”. . . The 192 boundary adjustments you would make to allow roads to penetrate short distances . . . falls far short. In an area that is larger than the state of Maryland, you are, in effect, proposing to provide access by about 300 miles . . . as a painfully inadequate substitute for the loss of between 7,000 and 10,000 existing routes.”

Cranston replied that “Wilson’s long-delayed decision not to support, or propose specific ways to revise, the California Desert Protection Act in time for committee action is a major disappointment. . . . I tried for 2 1/2 years, long before we got into an election year, to get Sen. Wilson on board.”

McCarthy reiterated his support for the desert bill and said he regretted that the desert “will remain unprotected” for at least another year because of Wilson.

The Sierra Club endorsement was not the only piece of good news that McCarthy has received recently.

This week he got a written pledge of $1.9 million in financial assistance from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--the maximum amount the committee can offer a candidate for Senate. A spokesmen for the committee, which must spread its funds among 33 Democrats running for the Senate this year, said the committee sees McCarthy as one of the party’s most competitive candidates.

An official of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee said that Wilson will also receive the maximum amount.