Stop Nibbling and Get It Done : New state environmental agency needs a quick birth, not prolonged agony

The California Legislature can still do itself and Gov. Pete Wilson a major environmental favor, no matter how much grumbling it may hear.

On substance, Wilson’s environmental record so far is as sound as most Californians could ask. He’s done the right things on water, said the right things on forests and put the right people in charge.

But he is being challenged on form by the usual old warriors because the path he has chosen for consolidating environmental programs makes it impossible for them to use the plan to scuttle substance they don’t like.

The way Wilson decided to create the California Environmental Protection Agency was through an executive reorganization. Under the law, the Legislature can approve or reject such a plan but it cannot amend it.

Its grumbling appears to be more an effort to let Wilson know that interest groups are still at each other’s throats on specific issues than serious opposition to his umbrella environmental agency, something California genuinely needs.

For example, if Wilson had asked for the agency through the normal legislative process, industry would still be fighting to cut the powers of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Environmentalists would still be debating the wisdom of putting into the agency a unit that assesses the health risks associated with toxic chemicals. Farmers would still be struggling to keep pesticide regulation in the hands of the Department of Food and Agriculture rather than in the new environmental agency. In fact, interest groups might have thrown in so many pet peeves and proposals that the subject of what Sacramento would even name the new Cal-EPA might never have come up for legislative debate at all.

California’s water, toxic chemical, coastal pollution and other environmental problems cover a broad field. The state needs an agency with broad powers to make sure that no problem is overlooked but also that there aren’t two agencies working on every problem. The Wilson proposal--as with almost any first cut at solving a problem--undoubtedly has flaws, but none seem crucial. There is always legislative remedy when and if parts of the plan look different in practice from what they did in theory. The Legislature should recognize that Wilson’s approach shields them from a brutal battle that legislation would have touched off. It should show a little classy form of its own and stick with the governor on substance.