Pass More Laws, Set More Limits? How I’d Help the Environment : Put decision-making in hands of local citizens, but within a framework of statewide concerns and priorities.

We are fast approaching an environmental crisis in California. A decade of environmental neglect has led to mounting problems. According to:

* The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 2 billion gallons of sewage are dumped off California’s coast each day.

* A study at the University of Southern California, children growing up in the Los Angeles Basin suffer a 20% reduced lung capacity.

* The state Department of Food and Agriculture, 600 million pounds of pesticides were sold for use in California in 1987--20 pounds for every man, woman and child in this state in a single year.

* A recent health study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, between 5,000 and 6,000 children who are preschoolers today may get cancer as a result of their exposure before six years of age to pesticides commonly found in fruits and vegetables.

* The U.S. Department of the Interior, there is a 94% chance of a major Valdez-size spill off the California coast in the next 30 years. A spill of that size could cover the shoreline from Mendocino to San Diego.

California is already home to 30 million people. We are the largest and the fastest-growing state in the nation. And we are expected to grow by another one-third over the next 20 years.

Everywhere I go throughout the state, I see evidence of our unmanaged growth. Freeways are in gridlock. Two weeks ago, the beaches were closed because of sewage pollution in Santa Monica Bay. The air we breathe and the water we drink is increasingly contaminated. And all of this is due, in large part, to our tremendous population growth and the fact that we have no way of managing it.

Everywhere I go, people are putting growth-control measures on the ballot. Most pass. But growth can be stopped in one community only to overflow into another. Our schools are still overcrowded, our sewers are still overburdened and our air gets worse. Piecemeal measures don’t work.

In this campaign, we have proposed a bold growth management program that will seek as its goal not only a jobs/housing balance, but also the infrastructure necessary to sustain growth. This program will integrate air quality, water quality, transportation and business concerns into a comprehensive statewide planning policy.

While this plan will leave most decision-making in the hands of local citizens, these decisions will be made within a framework of statewide concerns and priorities. Basically, the plan has four parts:

Propose a California Growth Management Commission to prepare for legislative adoption a statement of statewide policies aimed at creating a balance between jobs and housing to reduce commute times, encouraging public transit, ensuring adequate recreation areas and providing sufficient infrastructure to support any new development.

Give regional governments the responsibility to formulate growth management plans for their districts, including the ability to establish greenbelts, protect recreation areas, protect agricultural land and decide which areas have the necessary infrastructure to support new growth.

Offer those regions whose plans comply with state policies a package of infrastructure benefits and other fiscal incentives.

Lastly, give regional bodies the teeth they need to enforce their growth management plans.

In developing this growth management plan, we consulted with organizations such as LA 2000 and Bay Vision 2020. There is a regional government bill pending in the Legislature that could be the vehicle for this growth-management proposal.

There are other steps we must take to protect ourselves against environmental disaster. Californians can’t sit back and wait for Washington to solve our environmental problems.

The most important thing we can do to protect our air and water quality is to elect an activist governor who cares about protecting our environment and is tough enough to do it.

We have put forward a water policy for the state, a plan that emphasizes water quality and conservation, water banking and reclamation. We have pledged to quadruple the number of toxic waste Superfund sites that are cleaned up. We have offered an energy policy that will increase our energy independence and protect our environment. And we have suggested needed steps to protect air quality, by tightening automobile mileage standards, promoting clean fuel alternatives and improving our transportation system.

I am very proud to be the only candidate in this race who supports Proposition 128--Big Green--the environmental initiative sponsored by the Sierra Club and every other major environmental organization in the state of California.

Big Green takes some very simple, long-overdue steps. It phases out the use of 20 cancer-causing pesticides on our food in five to eight years and replaces them with safer alternatives. It sets up additional oil-spill prevention measures and would prohibit dumping of improperly treated sewage into our oceans. It would phase out the use of chemicals that are depleting our ozone layer and replace them with alternatives that don’t contribute to global warming. And it would help save the remaining 5% of our ancient stands of old-growth redwoods.

Clearly, California can’t afford another decade of environmental drift. We need to act now--by passing the Big Green initiative and electing a governor who will make growth management a top priority--to ensure that the environmental legacy we pass on to our children is one of a healthy, clean and safe California.