Sweeping Ecology Initiative Promised by Van de Kamp

John Van de Kamp pledged Thursday that a cornerstone of his campaign for governor will be to present voters with one of the most sweeping environmental ballot propositions in state history--a measure to protect the coast from oil spills, food from pesticides and the atmosphere from ozone-gobbling chemicals.

It was the second give-’em-hell ballot initiative that the 1990 Democratic candidate for governor has proposed this summer, both part of a novel and emerging strategy designed to give Californians the opportunity to vote for his platform, not his promises. The first measure dealt with ethics in government and terms of offices.

Favorite Targets

At news conferences around the state on Thursday, Van de Kamp said he hoped his new initiative would rally environmentalists to join together and take on some of their favorite targets: oil companies, pesticide manufacturers and those who produce chemicals that break down ozone.

He borrowed from many diverse sources for elements of the plan--everyone from liberal Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) to the Bush Administration:

Major provisions that were outlined only in general terms:

- Establishment of a $500-million trust fund for oil spill prevention and cleanup. Van de Kamp said there was a 94% probability of Southern California enduring a “Valdez-class oil spill” in the next 30 years. The fund would be established over a five-year period through a 25-cent-per-barrel “fee” on oil moving through the state.

- Strict but thus-far unspecified “regulations to stop the discharge of dangerous toxins into the ocean.”

- A crash effort to make California the first state in the nation to formally commit to the goal set internationally at a Helsinki conference earlier this year--the phasing out of all use of chemicals which destroy ozone by the year 2000.

- The phasing out of “the use of those pesticides that we already know to cause cancer,” and “more stringent regulation of pesticides in general.”

- Institution of a new requirement for planting trees in conjunction with all future development, and a $200-million bond issue for forest planting and preservation.

Environment Issue

Van de Kamp said the precise language of each provision would be drafted by his campaign in consultation with environmental groups during the weeks ahead. The measure will be submitted for signature gathering this fall and is aimed for the November, 1990, general election ballot.

“The environment of this state has suffered tremendous damage during a decade in which extraordinary growth has been accompanied by extraordinary neglect at the highest levels in Washington and Sacramento,” he said.

As an indicator of the power of the environment as an issue, Van de Kamp’s leading Republican rival in the far-off governor’s race, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, did not object to the tax on oil and creation of a trust fund. Rather, Wilson said Van de Kamp was being too modest.

“The Alaska spill has already cost $800 million. His fund would have been depleted,” said Wilson, who currently is backing $1-billion federal trust fund legislation in the Senate.

Wilson went further and grumped about Van de Kamp’s timing--which indeed was known to have been rushed. “He must have some pretty good intelligence about what I’m up to,” the senator said.

More critical was the campaign of Democratic rival Dianne Feinstein, former mayor of San Francisco. Feinstein spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers noted that Van de Kamp has spent more than a full week denouncing still another initiative because of what the attorney general said is a two-word flaw. She was referring to the “Speedy Trials Initiative” sponsored by Wilson, which Van de Kamp says contains a two-word constitutional change regarding privacy rights that could inadvertently jeopardize a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion.

“All we’ve seen of Van de Kamp’s two initiatives are slick press releases fashioned after public opinion polls. How do we know that his initiatives when they are drafted won’t contain the same kind of flaws?” she demanded.

But politicians are in an awkward spot in challenging ideas that have already received wide discussion and support. Take another would-be candidate in the field, for instance, Democratic state Controller Gray Davis. Davis is the originator of the idea for the $500-million oil-spill trust fund. Van de Kamp credited him for the proposal but did not consult with him.

Davis said he was “pleased” that Van de Kamp endorsed the idea, but said he hoped the Legislature would enact the fund first.

As for the other elements? “I don’t think the attorney general thought up any of them. They represent the best thoughts of many groups,” Davis said. Then Davis added his own endorsement, “I support all of those individual concepts. And I would be willing to support them as a package.”

Van de Kamp said he had little faith that the Legislature could tackle such a major reform as this. It was the same argument he used with his proposal last month to limit terms of office for state officials and impose new ethics standards. There is no choice because the Legislature is “paralyzed” by special-interest money.

The merits of the two proposals aside, Van de Kamp’s initiatives--and his pro-abortion attack on rival Wilson’s initiative--have accomplished two goals that his campaign believes essential:

First, it has given Van de Kamp, the Establishment politician with the patrician name and genteel breeding, a slight Populist cast. The initiatives are supposed to say, Van de Kamp will fight against them for you.

Secondly, he has quieted those doubters, including friendly doubters, who believed Van de Kamp deep in his bones is too cautious and pale for the challenge. “For the first time this year, Van de Kamp has begun to engage Wilson in a debate,” said one Democrat who has been quietly critical of the attorney general’s campaign. “But these last couple of weeks give us encouragement and dispel the myth that Wilson is the inevitable victor.”