Wilson’s Conservation Plan Under New Attack : Environment: Two national groups urge state Senate panel to reject funding for program because it has failed in goal to protect gnatcatcher habitat.

Two national environmental groups on Tuesday urged a key state Senate committee to reject funding for the Wilson Administration’s embattled conservation program because it has failed to achieve its goal of protecting the habitat of the California gnatcatcher.

The Senate’s natural resources committee is expected to decide the fate of the program’s $1.75-million budget request on Thursday.

At a hearing Tuesday in Sacramento, Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) said he is inclined to send the issue to a conference committee of the Senate and the Assembly because he has serious concerns about the program’s effectiveness.

The governor’s conservation planning program, initiated last fall, has been under fire in recent weeks for failing to protect land inhabited by the gnatcatcher, a small Southern California songbird.

The program’s main goal is to get Southern California landowners to voluntarily agree to set aside coastal sage scrub habitat for the gnatcatcher as well as other rare animals and plants. The mix of sagebrush and other shrubs is found in Orange and San Diego counties, Palos Verdes and western parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The Wilson Administration urged the state Fish and Game Commission last August to deny listing the bird as an endangered species because of the new voluntary program.

Federal wildlife officials say a significant amount of gnatcatcher habitat, about 1,000 acres, has been graded since the governor’s program was initiated last fall. Wilson Administration officials dispute that estimate, pegging the loss at closer to 150 acres.

Officials from the National Audubon Society and the Planning and Conservation League told the committee Tuesday that the program, while good in concept, should not be funded until its problems are worked out. They say the program is now jeopardizing the survival of the gnatcatcher.

“We continue to believe money must be appropriated for such a habitat-oriented process but request that a final decision be postponed until problems with (this) program are resolved or a new process is put in place,” said Glenn Olson, regional vice president of the National Audubon Society.

Secretary of Resources Douglas Wheeler defended his agency’s program at the hearing, saying that it has made progress, although not as much as his Resources Agency hoped. He said it is premature to judge it and urged the committee to approve the funding.

Wheeler has requested $1.75 million for the conservation program for the 1992-93 fiscal year. The Assembly has cut that to $1.3 million. But McCorquodale said during Tuesday’s hearing that he is inclined to cut deeper, which would trigger a conference committee of the two houses, probably in about a month.

McCorquodale, the committee’s chairman, said he plans to insert some provisions in the budget bill requiring temporary controls that protect the bird’s habitat.

The Resources Agency promised in August that within a few months it would forge temporary agreements with developers and local governments, monitor habitat loss and improve the state’s wildlife-protection laws. None of those milestones, however, has been achieved.

Undersecretary of Resources Michael Mantell vowed that if the effort fails to be successful by early May, he will urge the state Fish and Game Commission to declare the gnatcatcher an endangered species, which Southern California builders vehemently oppose.