CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : U.S. SENATE : Relocation of 800 Air Force Jobs Takes Seymour by Surprise

Republican Sen. John Seymour, whose election campaign platform focuses on stopping the hemorrhaging of jobs from California, acknowledged Friday that he learned about an Air Force decision to move 800 high-level positions out of California “this morning when I read the news.”

In some of the toughest questioning of his campaign, reporters asked Seymour why the Air Force or the White House did not tell him of the plan since the election is less than three weeks away and the economy is such a politically sensitive issue. “How do I know?” he retorted.

Seymour twice cited the Air Force’s proposed relocation of its spy satellite design headquarters from El Segundo to Washington as another example of the effects of California’s high taxes and strict environmental regulation, although the Air Force pays no state taxes and does not always have to comply with the same environmental regulations as businesses.

Military and congressional sources have told The Times that the move was the result of reorganization forced by federal budget cuts.

Opposition to environmental regulation, which he says will cost jobs, has been a key theme of Seymour’s campaign for the two-year U.S. Senate seat against Democrat Dianne Feinstein. He often couples that theme with his demand that the federal government get “out of my face, off my back and out of my pocketbook.”

During questioning Friday, Seymour also misstated the manner in which state and federal Clean Air Act rules are implemented in California by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the potential impact of a federal Central Valley Project water reform bill he bitterly opposes.

When challenged to explain what the relocation of Air Force jobs had to say about his influence over federal actions in keeping jobs in California, Seymour said: “Let me be specific about how many jobs I saved, huh? I can talk about that.”

Seymour cited a number of military facilities in California that he fought successfully to exempt from Congress’ recent base-closing actions.

The White House traditionally advises senators or congressmen in advance when bases are being closed or jobs cut back in their areas so they can be prepared to defend the action or at least not be surprised by it.

The discussion came during a breakfast meeting with Southern California political reporters after a 7 a.m. appearance on an interview and talk show on radio station KGIL, where the first question from a listener dealt with the Air Force satellite facility.

“I’m just here shaking my head,” Seymour told the caller. “There goes another company, there goes some more jobs. And the reason, Pat, in my opinion is because business in California has become overtaxed and overregulated.”

Seymour acknowledged that California needs special state air quality standards because of the severity of smog problems, particularly in the Los Angeles Basin. But he said the two-tiered state-federal regulation is too rigid.

In fact, Bill Sessa of the California Air Resources Board said, “There’s actually very little federal permitting in California because our standards are so stringent. The EPA plays a far greater role in issuing permits for facilities in other states than in California.”

In discussing the Central Valley Project legislation, designed in part to let farmers sell some of their water to urban areas, Seymour said the CVP has only 4.5 million acre-feet of water to distribute a year.

Seymour denied that the 4.5-million acre-feet figure represented the amount in severe drought years and that in normal years, the CVP distributes up to 7 million acre-feet of water. “You check history and find out when’s the last time they got 7 million acre-feet of water,” he said.

A Bureau of Reclamation official in Sacramento said the Central Valley Project distributed 7.1 million acre-feet in 1982, 7.4 million in 1984 and 6.4 million as late as the mid-drought drought year of 1989.