State’s Environmental Chief to Resign

After serving six years as Gov. Pete Wilson’s first environmental czar, James M. Strock announced Friday that he is resigning effective June 1 and plans to pursue a career in private enterprise.

Strock, who as secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency serves on Wilson’s Cabinet, said he is leaving government but has no immediate job plans. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, he decided not to begin job hunting until after announcing his resignation, he said.

Strock has had a controversial tenure heading Cal/EPA since it was created by Wilson in 1991 as the umbrella agency overseeing the state’s agencies that handle pollution issues. Critics have questioned whether the agency has effectively weakened the state’s environmental policies, rather than creating a unified strong approach.

“I’ve had the good fortune of working at this job six years, and that’s the longest I’ve spent an any job in my career. The governor has a good number of accomplishments in this field, so it’s a good time for other people to have a chance to make their contribution,” Strock said in an interview Friday.

In his resignation letter to Wilson, Strock called his decision “unavoidably difficult,” but added that it is “made easier by the fact that your administration’s environmental policies are on a strong course, implemented by an experienced management team.”

Sean Walsh, Wilson’s deputy chief of staff, said the governor has known about Strock’s pending resignation for about a month. He said an effort is already underway to replace Strock and that he expected an announcement soon.

Strock’s announcement continued a series of resignations from the governor’s office that have underscored Wilson’s status as a lame duck.

Since November, four other high-ranking members of Wilson’s administration have announced their resignations. The biggest surprise was Bob White, who has served as Wilson’s chief of staff for more than 29 years.

At least some observers, however, questioned whether Strock’s departure might signal more than just his own desire to move to the private sector.

Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) called Strock’s resignation “a bolt out of the blue.”

“It may be a reflection of the problems I see over there at Cal/EPA or maybe not. But in my view, it’s clearly an agency that, if not in disarray, certainly has a lot of problems,” Sher said.

Saying that Cal/EPA has left many promises unfulfilled, Sher, who heads the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality, said it is time for the Legislature to reexamine whether creating Cal/EPA and the secretary post was a good move for environmental protection.

To many observers and insiders, the creation of Cal/EPA usurped some of the authority of the individual agencies and gave the governor’s office more clout over controversial programs. Included are the California Air Resource Board’s efforts to combat smog, the state water board’s cleanup of underground fuel tank contamination, and regulation of pesticides.

“A Cabinet-level secretary who is a voice for the environment, that rings nice, but if you look at the record of this administration since we had a Cal/EPA . . . that has not led you to believe this voice at the governor level has done any good,” Sher said.

In recent months, some scientists and environmentalists have criticized the agency, saying that one of its divisions, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, has delayed or watered down investigations of public health threats posed by pesticides and other toxic substances.

Strock said his resignation had nothing to do with the controversy. Sources in the governor’s office agreed.

“Absolutely not. If I were to wait until there was no controversy about environmental issues, I could never leave,” Strock said.

Wilson, in a statement Friday, said he accepted Strock’s resignation with regret. “He had made California a leader in environmental technology, and has been tireless in protecting the state’s environment and its citizens as head of Cal/EPA,” Wilson said.

One of Cal/EPA’s main missions in recent years has been streamlining environmental regulations, easing the red tape and making the process easier on businesses.

Strock, who has been fairly low-key in recent years, was perhaps most forceful in 1994 when he took on the Clinton administration over a plan by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to take authority over smog control in California. The federal plan, mandated by a court order, was abandoned when the state Air Resources Board adopted its own strategy for achieving healthful air--a historic step for California.

An attorney who headed law enforcement at the federal EPA under President George Bush, Strock has spent nearly all his career in government. He has focused much of his tenure under Wilson on marketing California internationally as a source of environmental technology.