Bush to Seek $100 Million Extra for Border Cleanup

President Bush plans to propose today that an additional $100 million be spent for environmental cleanup along the Mexican border, providing a centerpiece for a wider initiative aimed at demonstrating his commitment to the environment, Administration officials said Wednesday.

The increase, which would double the amount of money available for the environmental effort at the border, is part of a federal “action plan” directed largely at California. If approved by Congress as part of the overall budget proposal, it would provide new funding for a Tijuana-San Diego sewage plant, a new channel for the Mexicali River and efforts to improve air quality along a pollution-tainted frontier.

A senior Administration official said the proposed surge in spending is part of a larger effort “to woo environmentalists” toward embracing the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, which would add to commerce along the crowded border.

Among other major environmental initiatives affecting California, knowledgeable sources said, the new federal budget being prepared by the White House signals that the last remaining offshore areas open to new oil drilling will be put off limits for the foreseeable future.

The apparent decision affects 87 tracts in the Santa Barbara Channel off San Luis Obispo that could have been open for oil exploration beginning in 1996. For the first time, the 1993 budget no longer will count on revenues from those sites--an indication that “this is pretty much permanently on hold,” one source said.

In a related move, sources said, Bush also has decided to embrace the widest possible boundaries for a marine sanctuary off Monterey, providing permanent protection for a 4,000-square-mile stretch of the Pacific that is the site of rich fisheries and a breeding ground for marine mammals.

The move would establish a sanctuary nearly twice as big as Bush originally proposed, granting a major victory for Gov. Pete Wilson and other California politicians who have contended that a smaller sanctuary would not have protected water quality or sensitive marine life adequately.

Bush is expected to unveil the plan for border cleanup and other details of his environmental agenda in a statement issued from the Oval Office this morning after a meeting with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly.

As part of a renewed effort to portray himself as “the environmental President,” Bush is expected to announce budget increases of at least 15% for the EPA and for land acquisition in the nation’s federal parks as part of the Administration’s “America the Beautiful” program.

Although some details of the plan are to remain secret until the budget is released next week, Administration officials who outlined projects aimed at California said the close attention to the state reflects White House recognition that it will be a crucial battleground in this year’s presidential elections.

Among other spending aimed at California, they said, Bush has decided to renew major grants of $55 million to Los Angeles and $40 million to San Diego, including the two cities among six in the nation to receive federal incentives to bring their sewage treatment plants up to Clean Water Act standards.

His budget also provides $14 million for acquisition of land for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, making the parkland once again the single largest recipient of such federal funds. Another $4 million from the budget is designated for land acquisition in the Channel Islands National Monument.

But California’s biggest beneficiaries from the new Bush budget will be its environmental projects along the southern border. The Tijuana sewage plant alone would receive a grant of $80 million, up from $49 million a year ago; the new Mexicali River project would get $10 million, and additional spending would be devoted to waste-water treatment and improved air quality.

“The problems along the border are certainly serious,” Reilly said in an interview Wednesday night. But he vowed that the Administration, while continuing to press for the free trade agreement, would seek “good growth, clean growth, environmentally sound growth.”

In San Diego, city leaders reacted enthusiastically to news of the impending grants. They have waged a protracted battle with federal officials over financial responsibility for the Tijuana plant and the city’s own secondary treatment upgrade.

“This is fantastic news for San Diego,” said Paul Downey, Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s press secretary. “After all the wrangling with Washington over helping to pay for this . . . maybe this is the breakthrough we’ve been hoping for.”

The $80-million grant for the border sewage plant would represent a major part of the estimated $190-million construction cost for that facility, which is to be built on a site just 100 yards north of the international border.

Scheduled to be operational by late 1994 or early 1995, the Tijuana-San Diego plant would treat up to 25 million gallons of Tijuana sewage daily. Until San Diego began treating Tijuana sewage last year, spills caused by the Mexican city’s inadequate, antiquated system caused raw sewage to flow north across the border. The problem has fouled San Diego beaches and coastal property occasionally for half a century.

Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who has worked for months with the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget to gain support for the border sewage project, said he is “quite pleased” that the funding will be included in Bush’s budget.

“The good news is that an environmental problem plaguing San Diego for six decades is being addressed,” Lowery said in a telephone interview from San Diego.

Of the offshore drilling proposals, Administration officials cautioned that the San Luis Obispo tracts have not yet been added to the remaining 99% of the coastline that Bush has already placed off limits to new drilling until the end of the century.

But, while a final decision is pending, the officials said, a consensus within the Administration now opposes oil development in the area.

The officials also said it is unclear whether Bush would formally designate the Monterey sanctuary in next week’s State of the Union address or wait until a trip to California tentatively planned for early next month.

The boundaries being adopted by Bush would create the nation’s 11th and by far the largest marine sanctuary, extending from San Simeon on the central coast to the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary off San Francisco in the north.

Seven different boundaries had been under consideration. More limited versions of the sanctuary would have excluded lease sale 119, the area of Central California’s outer continental shelf where oil companies have long wanted to drill.

Championed by Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), and other members of the state’s congressional delegation, the Monterey Bay site was authorized for designation as a sanctuary by Congress in 1988.

Since then, conservationists and environmentalists have pressured the Administration to move ahead with the designation. After three years of delay, Panetta recently threatened to push legislation declaring the area a sanctuary.

Wilson, Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and John Seymour (R-Calif.) and Reps. Tom Campbell (R-Palo Alto) and Panetta joined in nonpartisan opposition to a more limited sanctuary endorsed by Administration officials.

In a joint letter to then-Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher, they called for the wider boundaries providing “the fullest protection of the resources in the Monterey Bay” and prohibiting “offshore oil and gas activities throughout the sanctuary.”

Times staff writers James Bornemeier in Washington and Barry Horstman in San Diego contributed to this story.