City Uneasy in Oil-Dominated Wetlands Lobby : Environment: Some officials say the Washington group wants weaker habitat protection and Los Angeles should not continue as a member.

The city of Los Angeles is having second thoughts about its membership in an industry-dominated lobbying organization that environmentalists and government officials say is dedicated to weakening federal protection of wetlands.

On the advice of Eric P. Bock, a Washington lobbyist for the city, Los Angeles became one of the founding members of the National Wetlands Coalition in September, 1989. But some members of the city’s Water and Power Commission now want it out of the coalition.

The Washington-based coalition styles itself as a compromise organization seeking to present a broad spectrum of ideas on wetlands issues, but it is widely regarded as an instrument of pipeline firms and oil and gas producers, which make up much of its membership.

Commissioner Dorothy Green said she “hit the roof” when she learned recently that the city has been part of the coalition. Green said she brought it to the attention of city officials, and the city is now in the process of “extricating ourselves” from the group.

An official of the Environmental Protection Agency, who asked that he not be identified, said agency leaders consider the coalition “part of the backlash against the intent of the wetlands program.”

Wetlands expert Steve Moyer of the National Wildlife Federation calls the coalition’s pro-environmental rhetoric and its official logo, which portrays a duck on the wing over marshland, as “a sham.”

“For the city of Los Angeles to be associated with this group is an outrage,” Moyer said.

“It is not a middle-of-the-road organization. It has been actively working in support of measures which would leave millions of acres of wetlands unprotected, and leave even very high-value wetlands without adequate protection.”

Protection of the nation’s fast-disappearing wetlands has become the most furiously debated environmental issue in the Bush Administration, with the President committed to a policy of “no-net-loss” and the EPA caught in a struggle between environmentalists and developers.

The city’s interest in the issue stems not only from its ownership of wetlands in the Owens Valley and Mono Basin, but from its responsibility for the Venice canals and expansion and management of the Los Angeles Harbor.

Bock, who plans to leave his job soon as a Washington lobbyist for the city, said Los Angeles became one of the founding members of the coalition after getting the approval from the office of the chief legislative analyst.

“When the President made no-net-loss of wetlands a priority,” he said, “the city looked around to see who had the best finger on wetlands issues. We got together with others and decided to start a coalition that would include developers, government agencies and others, creating a centrist group.”

The organization was launched with Leighton Stewart of the Louisiana Land & Development Co. as chairman and Bock as vice chairman, with 19 founding members, including Tenneco Gas Co., the Kerr-McGee Corp., ARCO Alaska, and the Southern Co., a giant utility conglomerate.

Bock said his role was to bring more governmental representation into the coalition, but that he stopped after the city’s chief legislative analyst became “uneasy” about such recruiting.

Nevertheless, Bock said, New Orleans and Denver both have joined since then, and Chicago and Anchorage may soon follow.

While disputing the characterization of the coalition as a pro-development lobby, Bock conceded that the questions being raised about the city’s membership are “understandable.”

“People will be less concerned when they learn how the coalition took place,” he said, “but if the city finds that it is not responsive to its needs, then it ought to withdraw.”

J. P. Ellman of the legislative analyst’s office said the city’s membership in the coalition has been “a productive relationship from an information-gathering standpoint”--particularly in helping the city develop a formal wetlands policy.

“The city is a member of a lot of different organizations, and we don’t always agree with various positions that they take,” Ellman said. Nevertheless, she admitted, “We’re evaluating whether or not to stay in it.”

The intensity of the debate over the wetlands policy has escalated, not only because of legislation before Congress, but as a result of a new interagency effort within the federal government to revise the official manual defining wetlands.

One of the EPA’s top wetlands ecologists has resigned from the project, and several scientists in agency field offices have protested that prospective changes would result in the withdrawal of protection from innumerable tracts of ecologically valuable areas.

But Administration sources said EPA Administrator William K. Reilly regards the updating of the manual as a way to neutralize pressure for even greater relaxation of wetlands protection.

“Reilly is well-intentioned,” said the National Wildlife Federation’s Moyer, “but he feels that the whole weight of the issue rests on his shoulders, and he is making a serious political mistake.”

The revised manual is being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget before being offered for public comment.

EPA’s wetlands-management responsibilities are largely contained in the Clean Water Act, which is slated for congressional renewal this year, but Congress also has several specific wetlands bills under consideration.

One of them, popular among members of the National Wetlands Coalition, would effectively remove the EPA from wetlands issues. Environmentalists say it would potentially exempt millions of acres of wetlands from protection.

Staff writer Maura Dolan in Los Angeles contributed to this story.