CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : Rivals Advocate Similar Energy Policies

Using the tense standoff in the Middle East as a backdrop, Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson pressed Monday for a stiffer state resolve in conserving energy and enforcing the use of alternative fuels.

In statements to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Energy Regulation and the Environment, the candidates signaled that whoever wins their race for governor will push for federal legislation to allow California to set higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks than those currently set by the U.S. government. Both candidates also said they would support the use of tax incentives to encourage homeowners to install energy-efficient devices in their homes.

Feinstein said she would seek to order oil companies to set up a separate “West Coast petroleum reserve” to cover the needs of Californians should another gas shortage hit.

The reserve, she said, would ensure that in an emergency, “Californians are not waiting in endless gas lines to share rationed fuels.”

“We’ve got the market. We’ve got the consumers. We’ve got 30 million people,” she said. “This market must speak out and say what its demands are.”

Feinstein spoke directly to the committee, meeting at the State Building in downtown Los Angeles, and Wilson prepared a speech that was read to the assembled legislators.

In addition to espousing similar goals in some policy areas, the two gubernatorial candidates took a similar tack in criticizing energy-conservation efforts undertaken by the current governor, Republican George Deukmejian.

Feinstein took on Deukmejian directly, accusing him of turning a blind eye to price hikes in the wake of Middle East turbulence.

“The current Administration’s blind faith in market forces has kept it from taking action in the face of profiteering,” said Feinstein, vowing to “rapidly investigate” oil company actions if she becomes governor.

Feinstein also reaffirmed her opposition to offshore oil drilling. Proponents of drilling off the California shoreline, including Deukmejian, have cited the Middle East crisis as a rationale for exploring future drilling.

“Drilling off the coast of California will not solve our energy problems, nor will it protect our environment,” she said. “All the oil we could recover off our coast, at a tremendous risk of environmental catastrophe, would only amount to a few weeks’ supply.”

Wilson, though he did not mention it in his prepared remarks, also has continued to oppose offshore drilling in the two months since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait disrupted world oil supplies.

The Republican senator, who disagrees with Deukmejian on a number of policy fronts, also indirectly criticized the governor by saying that there had been “little accountability” in the state’s effort to cut its own energy usage. Wilson said he would “require” enforcement of energy-saving goals and vowed revenge on the budgets of the state departments that do not cut back.

Both candidates cited the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as evidence of the tenuousness of America’s hold on oil supplies. And they looked to the automobile as providing the greatest opportunity for changing California’s oil-splurging habits.

Feinstein told the legislators that she would require that all new state-owned cars be powered by alternative fuels by 1998, with the entire fleet converted by the year 2000. Wilson’s timetable was even shorter--the senator pledged that the conversion would be completed by 1995.

Wilson and Feinstein took differing approaches to the dilemma of enforcing energy efficiency on homes, many of which were built well before energy conservation came into vogue.

The former San Francisco mayor said she would require that homes be retrofitted with devices such as low-flow shower heads and water heater insulation before they are sold. She estimated the cost to homeowners would be $300 to $500.

Wilson, in contrast, said he would encourage banks and savings and loans to offer breaks to residents buying energy-efficient homes, and said he favored grants to enable low-income residents to boost the efficiency of their homes.