Wilson Succeeds in Easing Environmental Safeguards

While the Republican campaign to relax environmental laws has stalled in Washington, Gov. Pete Wilson has been steadily chipping away at California’s arsenal of air, water, toxic waste and land use protections.

Most recently, the Wilson administration eliminated more than 4,000 regulations that it called outdated or redundant. It was part of a drive to streamline and in some cases weaken environmental safeguards that have traditionally provided more protection in California than required by federal law.

So far, the administration has eased toxic cleanup requirements under the state Superfund law, reinterpreted the state’s endangered species law so that destruction of natural habitat is no longer clearly illegal, backed away from the mandate for mass-producing electric cars by 1998, relaxed requirements on the cleanup of underground fuel leaks, and urged the continued use of methyl bromide despite a looming international ban on the pesticide.

In a number of speeches, Wilson has made it clear that he wants to make environmental compliance cheaper and easier for California businesses. The elimination of thousands of regulations would benefit a number of industries--ranging from metal finishers and gas stations to public utilities and aerospace firms.

But while state officials insist that they are not compromising environmental quality, some supporters of the deregulation campaign say that the policies reflect a new willingness to tolerate higher levels of risk.

“It’s finally being accepted by a pretty broad segment of policymakers that you can’t have zero risk, that you really can’t get much bang for the buck trying to clean up the last fraction of a percent of pollution,” said Vic Weisser, president of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, a lobbying group that represents the energy industry.

Environmental activists contend that Wilson’s campaign is determined to unravel a host of important protections meticulously enacted over two decades. It’s like death by a thousand cuts, said Jerry Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League.

“We are being inundated with massive changes in regulations all at once,” Meral said. “The public doesn’t have a clue, and the environmental community isn’t equipped to respond to such a wide-ranging restructuring.”

And with a feisty Republican majority in charge of the Assembly, environmentalists fear that the worst is yet to come. “Fasten your seat belts,” said John White, a Sacramento-based lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “They [the Republicans] are throwing caution to the winds.”

At the same time, Meral and White said environmentalists must accept some blame for the current anti-regulatory zeal in Sacramento. “A lot of us have been guilty of being a little extreme,” he said. “Business guys were being driven crazy trying to implement state and federal laws that in some cases were overlapping or contradictory.”

Both sides in the environmental debate are paying close attention to a sweeping campaign by the administration’s Department of Toxic Substances Control to ease the state’s toughest-in-the-nation requirements for disposal of hazardous waste.

The main purpose is to waive expensive special handling rules for materials that only California regards as hazardous. The list ranges from oily rags, aerosol cans, used motor oil and spent fluorescent lights to certain types of mine tailings, pesticide residue, chemical sludge and industrial ash.

Like many California rules, the hazardous waste regulations are tougher than federal requirements. The state regulations were adopted during the 1970s and ‘80s when it was discovered that many California landfills were leaking hazardous materials.

Unlike the federal law, which concentrates on protecting ground water, California’s requirements were meant to guard people against the ill effects of touching or breathing toxic residue.

Underlying the Wilson administration’s campaign to reform the state’s approach to the environment is the wish to challenge the notion that California’s extraordinary natural assets and unparalleled pollution call for a special set of laws and rules.

“We have the most comprehensive system for managing potential pollutants, probably, in the world,” said Ted Rauh, deputy director of the state Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous waste management program. “What we’re doing is expensive, time-consuming and, many believe, no longer necessary. Some would clearly like us to dismantle the whole system.”

Like the Republicans in Congress, the Wilson administration contends that many environmental protection laws are out of touch with the latest science and with the progress that industry has made in minimizing environmental risks.

But California Republicans enjoy distinct advantages. With a member of their own party in the governor’s office, they have no veto threat to contend with. And Wilson has shown that he is adept at accomplishing his goals administratively, away from the legislative limelight and out of reach of the Democrat-controlled state Senate.

Wilson has aided his cause with controversial appointments to the state’s Air Resources Board, Fish and Game Commission, Board of Forestry and Department of Conservation. Many of the appointees held jobs in industries regulated by the offices that they now preside over.

Wilson also has been able to count on the help of influential Senate Democrats on occasion, when pushing for controversial legislation. His collaboration with Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) led to a bill that eased requirements under the state Superfund law for cleaning up 30 polluted industrial sites.

The legislation is spurring the redevelopment of four so-called “brown fields” in the Los Angeles area that would have remained abandoned for years as experts studied what to do about tons of contaminated soil and ground water. Under the old rules, the sites would have to be cleaned up enough to allow people to live there.

Now, if a site is planned for industrial or commercial use, the new law allows developers to seal off toxic pollution rather than treat or remove it. The law also allows development to proceed before cleanup is completed in some cases, such as in Carson where a 157-acre hazardous waste landfill is being transformed into a $250-million shopping mall.

Proponents of deregulation say they are trying to inject a little common sense into the business of protecting California’s environment.

They like to cite the Legislature’s repeal last year of a law requiring that household staples such as salt, vinegar and some deodorants be treated as hazardous waste. Environmentalists said that law and others made sense to ensure that household chemicals did not accumulate in public dumps without monitoring.

Even some state officials responsible for environmental regulation have mixed feelings about what is going on.

“I am in complete agreement that our system of regulation is too complex and burdensome,” said Jon Marshak, the senior environmental specialist assigned to the state’s Central Valley water quality control board. “But I would hate to lose some of the more stringent aspects of the state system.”

James Strock, who heads the California EPA, argues that simplifying the regulatory process will allow his agency to concentrate on the most serious environmental problems. Streamlining the cleanup of contamination at old industrial sites, he said, also encourages inner-city redevelopment and slows the trend toward industrializing valuable open spaces.

The Wilson administration takes credit for expanding the state’s protected wetlands by 17% and for a substantial increase in the parks and recreation budget.

On the other hand, the administration has narrowed its definition of activities that violate the state’s endangered species act. Under the new interpretation, hunting, capturing or killing certain animals and plants is still outlawed. But destruction of vital habitat is no longer explicitly prohibited.

The new interpretation marks a significant departure from federal law that, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently affirmed, does ban habitat destruction.

Chopping down trees, plowing up fields or filling in a marsh may not lead directly to the death of individual plants and animals. But environmentalists argue that such activities contribute to the long-term decline of many species.

Wilson also sought to exempt certain emergency-related construction projects--such as flood or earthquake repairs--from the state’s endangered species act. But a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled in January that the governor had exceeded his authority.

For some Republicans, the governor has not moved far enough or fast enough. Awaiting action in the Legislature are several bills that would pick up the pace of environmental rollbacks.

Pending bills would exempt much of the aerospace industry from all California air pollution control requirements; substitute federal drinking water guidelines for California’s stricter standards, and immunize businesses that violate environmental laws from civil or criminal penalties, providing that they come forward and admit that they have caused a problem.

Several bills, backed by the logging industry, would exempt broad categories of private timberland from laws that require advance disclosure of any ill effects logging might have on wildlife, water quality or neighboring land.

Industry representatives are not overly optimistic, fearful that many bills will founder in the Democrat-dominated Senate.

“Issues we have been raising for 10 or 15 years are finally getting a sympathetic audience,” said Weisser of the Council for Environmental and Economic Balance. “But I don’t see a groundswell in Sacramento to deregulate everything.”