CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS PROPOSITION 128 : Deukmejian Says ‘Big Green’ Will Jeopardize Jobs

Gov. George Deukmejian, echoing the campaign of the chemical industry and business leaders, attacked Proposition 128 on Saturday as a threat to the state’s economy that could cost some voters their jobs.

The Republican governor also charged that environmentalists and celebrities who support the sweeping environmental initiative are trying to trick the public into approving a costly measure that would create “new government bureaucracy.”

“You may have heard the expression, ‘it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,’ ” Deukmejian said. “But these so-called supporters of Mother Nature are trying to fool you.”

Proposition 128, dubbed the “Big Green” by its backers, would ban cancer-causing chemicals in food, tax oil companies to pay for the cleanup of offshore oil spills, preserve ancient redwood forests and try to slow the destruction of the ozone layer.

Carl Pope, conservation director of the Sierra Club and a co-sponsor of Proposition 128, countered Deukmejian’s charges, saying that the governor’s refusal to sign stricter environmental laws had made it necessary for environmentalists to go the ballot.

“George Deukmejian is more responsible for Big Green than anyone else,” Pope said. “It has been his lack of leadership, his veto of good environmental legislation and his refusal to implement environmental laws that forced us to put Big Green on the ballot.”

The governor’s charge that environmentalists were seeking to fool the voters, he added, is part of a “big lie campaign” by the industry to mislead voters into defeating the initiative.

“There’s a well-worn track record of who’s trying to fool people,” Pope said. “It’s not the environmental community. It’s the people who have tried to destroy the environment.”

Deukmejian’s assault on the initiative, his first formal opposition to the ballot proposal, comes as the opposition, financed primarily by chemical companies and other corporations, gears up its campaign to defeat the measure in the Nov. 6 election.

Industry radio commercials aired throughout the state have been attacking Proposition 128 as “the Hayden Initiative” because Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), a onetime anti-war radical, is a leading co-sponsor of the measure. The ads also charge that the initiative tries to do too much and will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars.

In his Saturday radio address, Deukmejian picked up the same themes, saying that “the Hayden Initiative” will cause “tornado-like changes” in California’s “favorable business climate.”

“This measure would force California’s farmers and businesses to comply with hundreds of new regulations,” the governor said. “It also would create a new government bureaucracy that would immediately spend 40 million of your tax dollars each year. And according to the Legislative Analyst, the long-term price tag of the measure could reach nearly $3 billion.”

During nearly eight years as governor, Deukmejian has often been at odds with the environmental community, resisting major environmental laws and opposing such landmark measures as Proposition 65, the anti-toxics initiative overwhelmingly approved by the voters in 1986.

But in his speech, the governor cast himself as a supporter of the environment saying: “Protecting the environment is important to all of us.” He argued that the state already has enough laws to protect the state’s coast, forests, air, water and food supply.

“California already has the toughest environmental safeguards in the nation, if not the entire world,” the governor said. “We should allow those laws to do their job rather than pile on layer upon layer of new regulations which will have marginal impact on the environment, but could have a drastic impact on your jobs and livelihood.”

Pope of the Sierra Club noted that Deukmejian made the same kind of speech four years ago when he charged that Proposition 65 would damage the state’s economy. Instead, Pope said, California has created more jobs than in any other four-year period in the state’s history.

Proposition 128 has drawn much of its support from the entertainment community, with dozens of celebrities--ranging from Jack Lemmon to Jane Fonda to Sylvester Stallone--helping to raise money and promote the measure.

Deukmejian sought to counter their appeal, saying: “These individuals are entitled to their opinions and the right to express them. But voters should remember that, for the most part, these stars are not considering the kinds of policies we need to keep our people working.”

The governor said it was important to strike a balance between the environment and the economy.