Brown Pledges New Effort on Timber Protection Bills

Four days after playing a pivotal role in the defeat of timber bills backed by Gov. Pete Wilson, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown pledged Monday to lead a new effort to restructure the state’s forest protection laws.

Flanked by Sierra Club officials, Brown told a news conference that the downfall last Thursday of legislation supported by the governor had paved the way for the Legislature to seize the initiative and set its terms for a new round of negotiations to govern logging on private land.

“Timber reform absolutely is not dead,” Brown said to applause from the Sierra Club members.

But an unbowed Wilson immediately called his own news conference in Sacramento to announce that backers of his proposal were not ready to concede to Brown and would attempt in the next few weeks to revive the original legislation.

“Those who insist on having it all their own way must not be allowed to kill what is an environmentally sound and economically sensible compromise,” Wilson said.

Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata), one of the sponsors of the Wilson-backed plan, said his side would try to fold the unsuccessful four-bill package into one piece of legislation before attempting to pass it on the Assembly floor. Two of the four bills were defeated last Thursday when they failed to get the 41 votes needed for passage in the Assembly.

This time, Hauser said Democrats would try to get additional support from members who were absent for last week’s vote, while Wilson would try to win over Republicans who had abstained.

The legislation, negotiated by representatives of some environmental groups and timber companies, sets limits on the size of clear-cuts in most forests, provides protections for forest watersheds, establishes restrictions on other types of harvesting and restructures the Board of Forestry.

Brown and the Sierra Club maintain that these protections are insufficient to stop over-logging on California’s 7.1 million acres of private forest land.

Wilson’s announcement that he would continue to push for his timber plan appeared to torpedo a peacemaking attempt by the Sierra Club. Officials of the group urged their fellow environmentalists who had sided with Wilson--the National Audubon Society and the Planning and Conservation League--to join them in fashioning a new, stronger forest protection package. But within hours, Audubon and Conservation League officials were standing at the podium with Wilson, backing his efforts to resurrect the legislation.

Gail Lucas, an environmentalist who helped negotiate the Wilson plan, said the Sierra Club was setting goals for the new legislation that “may not be obtainable” in a Legislature where many members are heavily influenced by the timber industry.

Environmentalists and timber industry officials alike say it will be as difficult for Brown to mold a coalition behind timber reform as it was for Wilson.

Sierra Club officials argued that the plan favored by the governor was unacceptable because it allowed too much harvesting in ancient forests.