SACRAMENTO : This Much Is Clear-Cut: Timber Measures Will Crowd Ballot : Environment: Voters could face as many as five initiatives in November on restricting old-growth timber cutting in Northern California.

In 1988, the tiff over skyrocketing auto insurance rates spawned a record number of ballot initiatives on a single issue. This year, a bitter battle over the amount of old-growth timber cutting in Northern California has erupted into a similar political slugfest.

If an assortment of interest groups get their way, as many as five competing measures that regulate the cutting of trees will appear on the November election ballot.

The first to be readied for signatures was Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s “Big Green” measure, which includes a ban on clear-cutting older redwoods and provides for a $200-million kitty to buy forest land.

The Environmental Protection Information Center launched a petition drive to qualify its “Forest Forever” measure. The Northern California environmental group is calling for a ban on clear-cutting of older redwoods and a plan to issue $742 million in general-obligation bonds to buy up old-growth timber acreage.

The timber industry is working to qualify a counter-initiative dubbed the “Global Warming” measure, which has more modest rules against clear-cutting and authorizes $300 million for reforestation.

Sen. Barry Keene (D-Vallejo) is the latest entrant in the timber fracas. He has introduced SB 2201 as a compromise to bring the rival camps together. Itincludes elements from the other measures.

“It’s our goal to keep the mills open without losing the last of the old redwoods,” said Keene’s spokesman Ed Matovcik.

However, neither environmentalists nor the timber industry has stepped forward to embrace Keene’s bill. One reason is that they are too busy pushing their own ballot measures.

Although none of the initiatives have yet to qualify for the ballot, the mudslinging has begun. For instance, environmentalists have already dubbed the industry ballot measure the “Big Stump.”

Roberti Bill Targets Pollution’s Sources in Production Processes

Sen. David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) is huddling with environmentalists and industry representatives to work out the next chapter in his legislative drive to regulate pollution at its source.

Last year, Roberti pushed through SB 14, which requires companies that produce hazardous waste to begin “pollution-prevention planning.” Instead of regulating companies only through how much waste is generated, treated or cleaned up, the bill requires businesses to reduce pollution by changing how their products are produced.

For example, a chemical company might substitute chemicals in the production process to reduce the amount of hazardous materials. Or it might alter its mixing procedure to lessen the pollutants. The rules do not replace existing rules on waste treatment.

Moving beyond hazardous materials, Roberti has introduced AB 1816 to tackle air pollution and AB 1817 to reduce toxic water discharges--using the same “source reduction” strategy. The bills are being prepared for policy committee.

If the two measures are approved, companies would be required to prepare plans for how they can reduce pollution “at the beginning of the (production) pipe before the problem starts,” says Roberti’s legislative consultant Donne Brownsey.

Beginning in October of 1992, the plans would be submitted to regional Air Quality Management Districts and Air Pollution Control Boards. These agencies would approve the plans and monitor compliance.

“This is cutting-edge environmental policy,” says lobbyist Lenny Goldberg, who represents the California Public Interest Research Group, which has been pushing for tough source-reduction legislation.

On general terms, industry agrees. “Source reduction pays by reducing long-term liability and saving millions of dollars in waste treatment costs,” says Dow Chemical spokesman Bryant Fischback.

But when the two sides get down to the details, the love fest ends.

“One concern is that the voluntary process of plans and audits will be too loose,” Goldberg says. And Fischback worries that demands to reduce the use of specific hazardous materials during production could be a roadblock to reaching an accord on the two bills.

It took three years for a consensus to be reached on SB 14, and everyone involved is expecting a lengthy debate on the latest bills.

Keeping Legislators Very Well Lobbied

If the private sector doesn’t feel as though it gets a fair shake in the legislature, it’s not because industry isn’t well represented by lobbyists.

For each member of the state Senate and Assembly, at least eight business organizations or companies have registered lobbyists.

Of the 1,000-plus companies and business associations listed in the 1990 Secretary of State’s “Directory of Lobbyists,” many have in-house staff. But the vast majority contract with one of the 260 lobbying firms that peddle legislative services in Sacramento.

Entertainment businesses have more registered lobbyists (48) than the state Senate has members (40). This group includes seven horse-racing companies, the San Diego Padres, Knott’s Berry Farm and the Bohemian Club, a controversial all-male club in San Francisco.

The fishing and agricultural industries have plenty of Sacramento presence. More than 60 companies and groups are registered, including the California Fisheries and Shrimp Institute, California Agriculture Aircraft Assn. and the California Iceberg Lettuce Commission.

Missing from the 1990 directory is Gulf Shrimp Fisheries, the bogus company set up by the FBI for its investigation into corruption in the state Capitol.