Logging Measure Approved by Senate : Legislature: The compromise bill is aimed at protecting both the ailing timber industry and vanishing forests. But a battle is predicted in the Assembly.

A newly negotiated compromise forged by Gov. Pete Wilson and aimed at protecting both the ailing lumber industry and vanishing forests survived a critical vote in the Senate on Thursday but struck an environmental roadblock in the Assembly.

Supporters of the compromise hailed the Senate vote, but a key Assembly author of the proposal warned a “bloody, bloody” battle would ensue next week when an attempt is expected to insert what he called extremist amendments into the package.

The proposal would outlaw clear-cutting in ancient redwood and old-growth forests on private lands and limit the controversial harvest method in thousands of square miles of other private forest, almost all in Northern California.

The agreement is supported by major lumber companies and most mainstream environmental protection organizations. For different reasons, it is opposed by other logging companies and the influential Sierra Club.

Fashioned in November after Wilson vetoed a similar bill, the compromise legislation was seen by all sides of the forestry issue as a way to head off a repeat of the multimillion-dollar 1990 campaign fight over competing timber protection plans. Voters rejected both measures.

The Sierra Club at first declared itself neutral on Wilson’s compromise, but on Thursday announced its opposition by asserting, in part, that loopholes would allow logging of 30,000 acres of old-growth trees.

On Thursday, Senate opponents of the compromise, led by Sen. Daniel Boatwright (D-Concord), first tried to send two of the bills to committee--often a fatal move--but they failed. Then they sought to block the compromise package on procedural grounds but again failed.

Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), a proponent of the package who represents much of the North Coast redwoods region, warned the Senate against caving in to influential opponents--the Sierra Club and its longtime adversaries, the Louisana-Pacific and Simpson lumber companies.

“If we allow each special interest to come in here . . . and say ‘I object,’ ” Keene said, “. . . we deserve to be faced with initiatives. We deserve to be emasculated as a legislative body.”

However, Boatwright said the bill failed to provide as much protection to old-growth and ancient forests as did the earlier proposal that Wilson vetoed. He noted that the new package did not conserve ancient trees but contained schedules for cutting them down, warning that “once they are lost they are gone forever.”

In the Assembly, meanwhile, environmentalists won a round when their supporters succeeded in sending the package to the conservationist Natural Resources Committee, where its fate is uncertain. The committee plans to consider the bills Monday, the same day the Senate is expected to take final floor action on its timber bills.

“This means there will be a bloody, bloody battle in committee,” warned Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata), who also represents the North Coast and supports what Wilson calls the “grand accord” to protect jobs and trees.

But Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), in urging committee examination of the proposal, told the lower house that it “will not save our ancient redwoods as the governor said he wanted to do last night (in his State of the State speech).”

Hauser had opposed sending the package to committee--which could delay a floor vote--asserting that in one form or another the contents of the compromise had already been thoroughly studied by the Legislature last year.

He said that in committee the proposal would be subject to amendments from both opposition environmentalists and lumber companies.