State Health Director Belatedly Confirmed

Molly J. Coye, whose confirmation as director of health services got snagged in controversy over a proposed nuclear waste dump and the diversion of anti-smoking funds to other programs, was unanimously approved by the Senate on Thursday.

The qualifications of Coye, a physician who speaks fluent Spanish and Mandarin and served as commissioner of public health of New Jersey, were applauded and never challenged during her drawn-out two-month confirmation.

However, opponents of a proposed low-level radioactive waste depository in the Mojave Desert near Needles prolonged the confirmation vote to extract from Gov. Pete Wilson an agreement to hold a quasi-judicial public hearing on the matter. The hearing will be to examine their concerns that toxic residues might leach into the drinking water supply of Southern Californians.

The 31-0 endorsement of Coye came one day before the confirmation deadline. Otherwise, Coye would have had to leave the powerful $95,000-a-year post for lack of Senate approval.

Additionally, Coye drew criticism for the shifting of $30 million in tobacco taxes from anti-smoking education initiatives to health programs for expectant and new mothers, which faced heavy budget cuts. A court has ruled against the diversion and ordered the restoration of the anti-smoking campaign.

The Democratic-dominated Rules Committee voted to approve her May 7, but held off a confirmation vote by the full Senate until ground rules of the hearing were finalized, an action that Wilson’s office denounced as “political extortion.” Virtually the same scenario was played out earlier during the confirmation of Coye’s boss, Health and Welfare Secretary Russell Gould.

But Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) defended the delay, insisting that health and safety concerns about the disposal site were critically important because “these radioactive wastes are toxic for tens of thousands of generations.”

The Administration had argued that more than 30 hearings of various kinds already had been held and that the law does not also require a quasi-judicial hearing, a claim disputed by the Legislature’s lawyer. Such a hearing was demanded by a Southern California-based group called the Committee to Bridge the Gap, which opposes Ward Valley as the site for depositing low-level nuclear wastes generated by hospitals, medical research labs and other producers.

“We were not tying their confirmation to anything other than their compliance with the law,” Roberti said. However, he called Coye an excellent appointee and voted for her confirmation.

Early this month, Senate GOP leader Ken Maddy of Fresno formally asked the newly created Senate Ethics Committee to write a “standard of conduct” for senators involved in the confirmation process. “It is unseemly to have confirmations delayed until some outrageous demand is met or a back-room deal is closed,” he said.

But on Thursday, Sen. Nicholas Petris (D-Oakland), who had challenged the shifting of the anti-smoking funds, assailed any suggestion that his questioning of Wilson’s nominees was improper.

He said Republicans never objected when he challenged appointees of former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. But, he told Republicans, “Now that we raise legitimate questions in the Rules Committee, it’s not permitted, it’s not ethical. Pretty soon, you’ll want to put us in jail for raising some questions.”