In Desert War, Feinstein: 1 Lewis: 0

When the White House and Congress finally shook hands on a budget deal Wednesday, it was like two old prizefighters saying enough’s enough.

For two savvy California politicians, the agreement also signaled a halt to a bruising legislative battle, in which each had landed blows and absorbed counterpunches.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who guided the California Desert Protection Act into law in the previous Congress, can be proud that millions of acres of fragile desert lands will forever be protected from development.

Her implacable adversary, Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican from Redlands, can take satisfaction from his opposition to the legislation, which is unpopular with many of his desert-dwelling constituents.

For the moment, Feinstein is savoring a victory.

Lewis’ attempt to curtail the National Park Service’s role in managing a new park in the East Mojave desert was bargained away by Republican negotiators at the last minute.

He had inserted language that directed the park service to manage the Mojave National Preserve with looser rules about recreational and commercial uses--much to the consternation of Feinstein, the administration and environmentalists.

The good news for Lewis is that the language remained in the omnibus spending bill. The bad news is that President Clinton has the right to waive its implementation.

Game, Feinstein.

“I am very satisfied with the outcome,” the senator said Thursday. “The administration said they would waive the restrictions, which means the National Park Service will prevail. This is clearly what the intention of the law was--there’s no question about that.”

For Lewis, it was a bitter defeat:

“The Republicans and Democrats [decided] my desert would be one of the pieces sacrificed to the president’s political objective as it relates to the environment. Sadly, the concerns of the East Mojave have now been obscured by this year’s presidential campaign.”

But don’t bet on a Lewis retreat in the desert war. The latest setback seems only to have whetted his appetite for more combat.

The administration Thursday released the names of a 15-member advisory board for the East Mojave Preserve--and Lewis jumped all over it.

First, he ridiculed Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi, former state insurance commissioner, for making the announcement in San Bernardino, about 70 miles from the East Mojave Preserve.

“Garamendi has once again demonstrated that Clinton administration officials are afraid of setting foot in the desert,” Lewis fumed.

Then he demanded that Norbert Riedy, a policy analyst for the Wilderness Society, be expelled from the advisory group.

“How can [Interior] Secretary [Bruce] Babbitt ever justify including a paid environmental lobbyist from San Francisco on a Mojave desert panel? It’s outrageous,” Lewis said.

Over the years Lewis rarely missed an opportunity to slow down, revise and generally frustrate the progress of the massive land-use bill.

When the Feinstein bill was signed by Clinton on Oct. 31, 1994, the moment was heralded by environmentalists as a major accomplishment.

But after the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress only days later, the tables quickly turned. Feinstein found herself in the minority, and Lewis became a “cardinal,” one of 13 chairmen of the influential House appropriations subcommittees.

With his newly enhanced clout, Lewis was able to orchestrate a surprise transfer of park service funds to the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that he prefers run the 1.5-million-acre East Mojave Preserve.

Feinstein and environmentalists decried the maneuver as undermining the spirit of the Desert Protection Act and felt that Lewis’ tactic smacked of sour grapes.

“The vote [for the bill] was overwhelming. The public support is very strong,” Feinstein said. “I know that Lewis is very powerful on the Appropriations Committee, and I commend him for that.

“But it’s a different thing when you contravene the will of Congress, which is what this was doing.”

Lewis was able to keep up the pressure for months.

The House went along with the Lewis rider in the Interior appropriations bill, but Feinstein was able to get it dropped in the Senate.

It sprang back to life in a House-Senate conference committee and hung around until Clinton vetoed the appropriations bill last fall.

In the intervening months, amid a series of government shutdowns and stopgap spending plans, the Mojave issue emerged as one of several environmental issues that seemed to defy compromise.

On Wednesday, the White House and Feinstein walked away winners.