Van de Kamp, Wilson Target Environment

A Republican candidate for governor is bound to propose an executive approach to California environmental issues. A Democrat can be expected to call for new laws.

And that is exactly what Republican Sen. Pete Wilson and Democratic Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp did Saturday as each addressed Heal the Bay, a group dedicated to cleaning up Santa Monica Bay.

Wilson promised to create a state Environmental Protection Agency that would get tough on polluters, bar offshore oil drilling and take the regulation of pesticides away from the Department of Food and Agriculture.

Van de Kamp touted his ballot initiative, which would enact sweeping changes in the law to protect the environment, and once again called on Wilson to endorse the measure.

But Wilson, who spoke earlier, had already told the group that he thought Van de Kamp’s initiative was too broad and that he especially objects to its creation of an environmental advocate who would have the power to buck the governor.

“As governor, I will be the environmental czar; you don’t need another one,” Wilson told the 300 conferees at Mount Saint Mary’s College in Brentwood.

Wilson reminded those attending the Heal the Bay conference that his environmental record goes back to his role in creating the state Coastal Commission when he was a freshman state assemblyman 20 years ago.

As a U.S. senator, Wilson continued, he has challenged the Ronald Reagan and George Bush administrations’ desire to drill for oil off the California coast. And, perhaps most familiar to those present Saturday, Wilson was a leader of the bipartisan effort that in 1988 defeated Occidental Petroleum’s plan to drill for oil near the Pacific Palisades shoreline.

Wilson’s speech drew strong applause at the end, but interviews with some of those present indicated that Wilson did not allay the long-held suspicions that some environmental activists have for Republican politicians.

“It was a good speech as far as it went, but he’s got this problem: He’s a Republican,” said Cydney Mandel, who works with a group called Not Yet Miami, a reference to its desire to stop the building of big hotels on Los Angeles beaches.

“Our biggest problem is finding Republicans to join our groups,” said Lu Haas, an environmentalist who has been an adviser to two California governors.

But, as it always is in politics, there was the smell of money behind Wilson and Van de Kamp’s different positions Saturday.

Wilson has always raised much of his money from corporate and large agricultural concerns, so he is not likely to support Van de Kamp’s call for sweeping changes in the law. Business groups say they have seen too many examples of regulation hurting existing businesses and discouraging new ones from locating in the state.

Van de Kamp, on the other hand, has the kind of liberal Democratic pedigree that is not likely to attract huge contributions from agribusiness, or from some other corporations.

For his campaign money in the governor’s race, Van de Kamp must depend in part on the well-heeled residents of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles neighborhoods who often make the environment their No. 1 priority. So his remarks Saturday probably got more than applause--they no doubt got him votes as well as potential campaign contributions.