Assembly Defeats Measure to Relax Laws Used to Prosecute Polluters

The Assembly on Wednesday defeated one of the most fought-over environmental bills of the year, a measure that would have relaxed laws used to prosecute polluters of California waterways.

But the bill’s author, state Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), vowed to continue the fight and predicted that he could turn around the vote before the session ends next week.

“Partisan testing went on today,” Costa said after the bill, (SB 649), only mustered 37 of the 41 votes needed for approval. Thirty-two votes were lodged against the measure, mostly by Democrats. Nine members did not vote.

Proponents said they were seeking modest relief from overzealous prosecutors over, for example, an accidental oil spill.

Subject to widely differing interpretations, the bill was characterized by the environmental group Planning and Conservation League as the “most destructive attack on public health and the environment” of the year.

Presenting Costa’s bill on the Assembly floor, Assemblyman Keith Olberg (R-Victorville) said the bill “makes sense” because it would have allowed affected industries a better chance to defend themselves in court.

The measure would have exempted from criminal prosecution an oil company spill as long as the firm promptly reported the accident to the state, cleaned up the mess and stopped it before it reached state waters or a connecting storm drain.

The full force of criminal penalties would still apply if any of those conditions were not met, Costa’s aides said. Environmentalists said that the bill contained a loophole for companies with discharge permits from local water agencies.

The measure also would have provided judges with new discretion before granting a prosecutor’s request to force a company to stop work after a spill or other accident.

But Assemblywoman Martha M. Escutia (D-Huntington Park) said she opposed any effort to reduce liability for spills.

“I have 30 oil pipelines running under the streets of my district,” she said.

Other opponents said the measure concealed a wholesale sellout to industries that would permit firms to relax vigilance against harming streams, rivers and oceans.

The Planning and Conservation League said the measure would have stripped enforcement powers from district attorneys and from the state Fish and Game Department and gutted a 120-year-old environmental law.

Don Fields, an environmental lobbyist, said the Costa bill would have “decriminalized the most outrageous cases of water pollution,” allowing “open-ended exemptions to the criminal provisions” of state fish and game laws.

In reply, Lance Hastings, an aide to Olberg, said “things are released in the streams and rivers every day. If the discharge is negligent and willfully criminal, it is still prosecutable” under the Costa bill.