CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: GOVERNOR : Conservationists Toughen Demands on Two Candidates

California’s key environmental political action organization is dangling its endorsement before Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Pete Wilson by demanding still stronger commitments from the gubernatorial candidates.

The 32,000-member League of Conservation Voters, which describes itself as the political arm of the environmental community, also has asked Feinstein and Wilson to devote a televised debate to the environment and to further explain their positions on a variety of issues.

“The candidates will undoubtedly tell you that we ask too much,” said Lucy Blake, league president. In fact, neither campaign wished to risk offending the league publicly. But privately, the organization’s new requests elicited frustration within both camps.

With opinion polls showing strong interest in environmental protection, the league’s official support could give either candidate a boost with an important bloc of voters.

California voters have never been presented with two major party nominees for governor who boast such strong records and campaign positions on the environment. But in appearances in opposite ends of the state last week, each candidate ran into the potential pitfalls that come with pleasing both environmentalists and other potential supporters.

Feinstein was received with stony silence by state water developers in La Jolla on Thursday when she unequivocally opposed any construction that would expedite the flow of Northern California water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California.

Even without a Peripheral Canal or through-delta channels, a Feinstein Administration would not allow additional water exports to the South until strong standards for protection of water quality in the delta and San Francisco Bay are established, she told the California Water Resources Assn.

Feinstein said California could make up a growing, chronic deficit through more efficient use of water, the cleanup of polluted aquifers, the encouragement of water transfers from farming interests to urban areas, the reclamation of treated effluent and the construction of off-stream or underground reservoirs for storage of runoff in wet years.

She offered a sweeping vision of a California 50 years from now in which “we still have free-flowing rivers . . . we will have new river parkways . . . fisheries will have been restored . . . and (Lake) Tahoe will still be blue.” Farms, homes and industry will operate on the most efficient and modern of water supplies, she said.

But Carl Boronkay of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, described Feinstein’s rejection of any new delta water transfer facility as “a real bomb.”

On the same day in Redding, Wilson walked a tightrope between his record as an environmentalist and threats to the economy of Northern California in an address to Rotary clubs, whose membership includes many timber industry officials. Timber interests are outraged over a federal decision that threatens to ban tree cutting in vast tracts of national forest land in order to protect the habitat of the Northern spotted owl.

“I am not a biologist,” Wilson said. “I have no idea whether the findings are sound. There obviously is a need for the kind of balancing” between environmental protection and a healthy state economy.

Wilson has asked federal officials to study whether the threat to the spotted owl may be less serious in California than in Oregon and Washington because of differences in geography and climate. If so, Wilson could argue for less-extensive forest protection and, perhaps, soothe the timber industry.

Some timber officials said privately that they wished they could bend Wilson more to their view, but there was no public criticism.

The new League of Conservation Voters requests were made Friday as Blake released a 12-page statement examining the environmental campaign commitments made by Feinstein and Wilson so far.

While the league did not attempt to rank the candidates, an earlier report gave Wilson stronger marks on more subjects. But Feinstein has vigorously wooed the environmental community by endorsing Proposition 128, the sweeping environmental measure that is the league’s top priority. She has also promised in recent weeks to support most of the environmentalists’ agenda.

Wilson has declined to back Proposition 128, primarily on the grounds that it would establish the statewide elected office of environmental advocate. Because of that opposition, most observers believe Wilson has little or no chance of getting the endorsement.

But Blake said that was not necessarily so. “Literally every option is open,” Blake said, including the possibility of no endorsement.

The new league assessment credited both candidates with strong positions on coastal protection and air quality. However, it called on them to give more specific statements on growth management, energy policy, logging and pesticide controls.

In sum, the league gives Wilson the edge on past records and Feinstein the advantage on pledges of actions she would take if elected. Blake said the most important factor is a candidate’s willingness and ability to stand up to the strong interests that profit from the exploitation of natural resources.

“They’ve got a 24-year record of performance on the environment, a detailed platform,” said Otto Bos, Wilson’s campaign director.

Dee Dee Myers, Feinstein’s press secretary, said the league’s report “reflects that Dianne’s position is obviously more developed in their minds now.” She said the Feinstein campaign would attempt to answer any further questions the league has.