Bill Could Limit EPA’s Review of Foothill Toll Road

Federal environmental review of a controversial South County toll road might be limited under a little-noticed rider attached to a budget bill that goes before the U.S. Senate today.

The provision, crafted by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) specifically for the Orange County project, would restrict federal agencies to reviewing only toll road routes already proposed by local planners. Federal law typically requires regulators to review all possible alternatives.

Packard’s proposal also would restrict federal regulators to commenting on subjects “over which the agency has direct jurisdiction.”

The rider comes after Environmental Protection Agency officials raised fundamental questions about whether the road was needed.

Environmentalists accuse toll road supporters of slipping language into a gargantuan spending package in an effort to speed the road’s approval and construction.

“This is no way to make public policy, and some very bad policy is being made, like this rider,” said Debbie Sease, legislative director of the national Sierra Club.

Said David Carlson, scientist at the EPA regional office in San Francisco: “It is precedent-setting. It doesn’t bode well for the public to have an opportunity to look at a full range of alternatives, to look at a problem that hasn’t been fully identified yet.”

The county’s toll-road builders strongly denied that Packard’s proposal would curb the upcoming environmental review of the proposed $644-million Foothill South, which would connect Oso Parkway with Interstate 5.

“In our opinion, the legislation helps define the planning process that this project could proceed with. It helps bring definition to the process,” said Steve Letterly, director of environmental management at Transportation Corridor Agencies.

The proposed Foothill South road has stirred a widening debate in South County, with environmentalists and some government officials saying it would run through some of the most pristine wild lands remaining in coastal Southern California, containing one of the largest concentrations of endangered plants and animals in the state. The route preferred by a number of Orange County officials would affect San Onofre State Beach.

In fact, both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA last spring questioned if the road is even needed, though those positions have been modified in recent months. Documents from EPA headquarters in Washington describe “extraordinary environmental damage which would result from project construction,” stating it would “fragment some of Southern California’s last and most scenic open space.”

But the toll road agency, which would build the four-lane road, says traffic projections show a need for improvements. Packard’s office agrees a road is needed, leading in turn to language tucked into a transportation spending bill in July and then to this week’s rider.

“Anyone who lives in Orange County knows there’s a need for a greater capacity for traffic there,” said Packard spokesman Adam Schwartz. “This provision simply moves the process along and allows the planning process to go forward.”

The language, strenuously opposed by the EPA, was attached to the omnibus spending bill. The bill was being discussed by the House on Tuesday night and is scheduled for a vote in the Senate today.

“There’s no question that this rider is going to grease the skids for this project,” said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes construction of the road.

Toll road opponents gathered Tuesday night at the Ole Hanson Beach Club in San Clemente to talk strategy.

Most questioned whether the road is even necessary.

Martin Schlageter, conservation coordinator for the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, said, “What is the need for this new freeway? This is something we can debate.”

Said Ted Dudzinski, a Mission Viejo resident, “If people care to drive up and look at the wild places, they would reconsider building” through the undeveloped area of South County.

Three candidates for San Clemente City Council--Michelle K. Gillen, Ray L. Benedicktus and G. Wayne Eggleston--also denounced the proposal.

“Once history is destroyed or a natural resource wasted, it is gone forever,” Gillen said.

Packard’s proposal has been opposed by some leaders on Capitol Hill, including Sen. John H. Chafee (R-Rhode Island), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), the committee’s ranking member. They wrote congressional leaders that “the effect of this language would be to prohibit EPA from undertaking the comprehensive environmental review that it is directed to do” under federal environmental laws.

Jeffrey A. Lindley, California division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said Tuesday that he had not seen the final language of the proposal. He said it’s rare for Congress to get involved in the environmental review of highways.

Federal environmental law normally directs federal agencies to look at a full range of alternatives to such projects, Carlson and others said.

But toll road officials Tuesday denied that the Packard rider would limit environmental review, saying local planners have already identified dozens of proposed routes that federal officials can scrutinize.

“There’s probably been a minimum of 100 different alignments of a roadway that have been looked at,” Letterly said. “Every reasonable alternative has been looked at through the 15-year planning process.”

The Transportation Corridor Agencies supported the Packard rider because officials believe the federal agencies “have been looking at issues that go beyond reasonable consideration for this process,” Letterly said.

Several federal agencies have spent months attempting to agree on a “purpose and need” statement for the road, part of a process laid out in a 1994 memorandum of understanding for transportation projects. That process was intended to coordinate federal reviews of such projects.

But relations grew increasingly tense last spring when officials at the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publicly questioned if the road was needed--a required step in federal environmental reviews. While the Corps has softened its stance, EPA has continued to question aspects of the road, including traffic projections and the highway’s potential effects on wetlands and six endangered plants and animals in the area.

“EPA has raised issues with local land-use decisions. They do not have any jurisdiction over any land-use matters,” Letterly said.

Times staff writer Steve Ball contributed to this report.

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Road Review

Congress could pass a bill today that critics say would restrict the actions of federal agencies during the review process for both proposed Foothill South toll road paths.