CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : Bush Opposes ‘Big Green’ Proposition : Campaign: President says environmental initiative is not needed. EPA chief calls goals ‘laudable’ but says measure is ‘not essential.’

Even as he sought to wrap himself in the mantle of the state’s environmental movement, President Bush announced Saturday that he is opposed to Proposition 128, the “Big Green” environmental proposition on the California ballot.

Moments after the President said at a rally for Sen. Pete Wilson’s gubernatorial campaign that the initiative was not needed to protect the environment, his chief environmental adviser sidestepped an opportunity to join Bush in opposing the measure. While voicing some criticisms, William K. Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said he found its goals “laudable.”

The President delivered a speech offering unqualified, if unspecific, support for environmental issues, during an invitation-only tree planting ceremony on the California Lutheran University campus. Afterward, at a public political rally on the campus, with Wilson at his side, he said that “to keep our environment green, we don’t have to be Big Green.”

Bush had not previously expressed himself on the statewide measure.

Proposition 128 is an initiative backed by a variety of environmental groups. It would phase out a number of cancer-causing chemicals used in pesticides and products that harm the ozone, limit the discharge of toxic chemicals into the ocean, require safeguards for oil tankers, and streamline enforcement of anti-pollution laws.

On a day of both political and environmental symbolism, Bush hailed the passage of the first federal clean air bill in 13 years, describing the measure recently completed by Congress as “the most significant air pollution legislation in the history of this country.” He said he would sign it, as expected, within a few days.

“We are on the verge of a new era for clean air,” he said as he took the symbolic step of turning over a spadeful of loose soil at the base of an already planted oak tree on the campus of the 31-year-old private college.

To deliver the message of environmental protection and lend his presidential coattails to Wilson three days before the election, Bush went considerably out of his way. He flew into Southern California aboard Air Force One on Friday night after a campaign appearance in Sioux Falls, Iowa. Immediately after the appearance with Wilson, he headed to Albuquerque, N.M., and Houston.

Reilly joined the Bush Administration after a career in the mainstream of the environmental protection movement. When asked about Proposition 128, he found himself caught between the President’s opposition and the support the measure has received among environmental activists.

Apparently trying to politely leave some space between his position and Bush’s, Reilly said he had taken no position on the proposition.

“Many of the goals are laudable,” he told reporters after attending the campus rally. He also said that it had not been scientifically proven that Proposition 128’s limits on pesticides were necessary and that its regulations would only be established at “substantial economic cost.”

“It will have a tremendous influence on the rest of the country,” he said, referring to the impact California initiatives, including those limiting taxation, have had on national politics.

“If Big Green does pass, we will work with it, trying to ensure it is integrated into our national laws,” Reilly said.

But, he said, the measure is “not essential.”

On Saturday, Gov. George Deukmejian in his weekly radio broadcast also urged voters to oppose Proposition 128 as well as Proposition 134, the so-called nickel-a-drink alcohol tax measure.

The environmental issues arose on a sparkling autumn morning--picture-perfect for Bush’s focus on the environment and the symbolic planting of a sapling beside a grove of eucalyptus trees.

The clean air bill that Bush said he would soon sign is considered one of the major pieces of legislation to come out of the 101st Congress. It makes changes in a 13-year-old air pollution measure, at a cost to industry and individuals that has been estimated at between $25 billion and $35 billion annually.

Bush said it would remove 56 billion pounds of pollution from the air each year.

The measure was approved only after compromises were hammered out between environmentalists and those fearful of its impact on the economy, as well as those concerned that it would too strictly limit the automobile industry.

The President said it would “cut in half the emissions that cause acid rain,” the tree-killing pollution caused when airborne pollutants mix with moisture in the skies.

“It will cut the emissions that cause smog in our cities, so that by the end of this century more than 100 major U.S. cities will have cleaner, healthier air,” he said.

He praised its encouragement of the use of “alternative fuels,” such as those derived from agricultural products rather than from the world’s limited and polluting fossil fuels.

“The time is right, the people are ready, and industry is responding,” Bush said of the development of alternative fuels.