Ban on Offshore Drilling Widened : Legislation: Wilson also signs bills to create boot camp-style prison and end quake insurance program.

Bills broadening the state ban on new offshore oil drilling to include virtually the entire California coast and creating a boot camp-style prison for nonviolent criminals were signed Wednesday by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Wilson also signed, as expected, a controversial measure to abolish the state’s short-lived earthquake insurance program for homeowners, effective Jan. 1.

In doing so, the Republican governor took a political swipe at Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, a potential Democratic rival for governor in 1994, who like Wilson had favored junking the state’s first venture into prepaid disaster relief.

Wilson claimed that in addition to containing irreparable structural defects, the earthquake damage compensation program was “poorly administered” by Garamendi.

The governor later fired a second shot by vetoing Garamendi’s bill that would have created a commission to draft legislation providing “universal” health insurance for about 6 million Californians who are not covered.

Wilson said the payroll deductions to finance the insurance would amount to a new tax on employers that would “worsen the state’s jobs climate.” Garamendi countered that the veto represented a “callous indifference” to the health care needs of uninsured workers and their families.

Pressing against a midnight deadline for acting on the last batch of bills, from among approximately 1,100 measures sent to him in the final days of the legislative session last month, Wilson said the offshore drilling prohibition will protect the fragile coastal fishing and tourism industries from potential oil spills.

Similar legislation to protect the coast from drilling had been vetoed by Wilson’s predecessor, Gov. George Deukmejian. Long a foe of offshore drilling, Wilson said the new state legislation will ensure protection of the scenic coast for future generations.

In addition, he said, various examinations have shown that “further offshore development would not currently contribute significantly to national energy supplies.”

The state controls coastal waters three miles out from shore. Federal regulations take over for the next nine miles out. President Bush recently declared a large tract off the central coast as the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, where drilling is prohibited.

The bills, by Democratic Assemblymen Dan Hauser of Arcata and Ted Lempert of San Mateo, will prohibit new sales in state waters, virtually from the boundary with Mexico to the Oregon state line. The Hauser measure fills several gaps in the state sanctuary between the Farallon Islands off San Francisco and Oregon. The Lempert bill does the same from the Farallons south to San Simeon. From San Simeon to San Diego, protections already exist.

The boot camp-style prison for selected first-time, nonviolent offenders convicted of such crimes as car theft, petty theft and drug possession is aimed at penalizing “the lightest of the lightweight” criminals, said Craig Brown, undersecretary of youth and adult corrections.

The bill, carried for Wilson by Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside), will set aside a dormitory at San Quentin Prison for the experiment, where 500 inmates a year will be given military-style discipline, study and work for 16 hours a day for four months. If they “graduate,” they will be released on intensive parole for six months.

Brown noted that the San Quentin boot camp is aimed at easing the fiscal and crowding pressures of the state prison system and was patterned after a program operated by Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and programs in other states.

In repealing the earthquake insurance law, Wilson said the concept of prepaid disaster relief to help compensate homeowners for damages is “sound.” But he said the California program was “irreparably flawed” and “badly executed” by Garamendi.

Garamendi asserted that in spite of the defects contained in legislation that created the program, it had been “ably administered” and “everyone has received the promised benefits.”

So far, the program has paid or intends to pay $55.5 million in compensation to Californians whose homes were damaged by the Desert Hot Springs and Petrolia temblors in April and the Landers and Big Bear shakers in June.

Enacted shortly after the devastating 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area, it was intended to help homeowners pay for repairing the first $15,000 worth of damage to their residences. Starting last January, homeowners began paying a $12 to $60 surcharge on their homeowner insurance premiums to finance the program. They must continue to do so in order to receive coverage until Jan. 1, when the undertaking will go out of business.

However, the severely underfinanced compensation fund teeters near bankruptcy. Critics maintain that in case of a major earthquake, the general taxpayer would be called on to provide an incalculable bailout because the fund was insolvent.

Wilson said he applauded those who “came together to repeal a program that could have exposed the state to potentially massive unfunded liability.” The bill by Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento) narrowly passed over the objections of both rural and urban lawmakers who represent districts where substantial quakes have occurred.

As expected, Wilson vetoed legislation by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City) requiring Los Angeles County transportation agencies to give preferential treatment to transit equipment suppliers who create permanent local jobs.

Katz, a possible candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, has pursued such legislation since cancellation last January of a controversial $121.8-million order for Japan-based Sumitomo Corp. to build Metro line rail cars.

Since then, however, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission has agreed to rebid the project without directly requiring the creation of local jobs.

In his veto message, Wilson said the motivation for the bill was “understandable,” but denounced it as a protectionist action that would “invite foreign retaliation against California exporters.”