LegAlert End-of-Season Update

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Enviros Take the Offense in 1997 Legislative Season
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After spending the last few years defending California's environment
against legislative assaults, the Sierra Club and other environmental
groups were finally able to move to the offensive this year and introduce
many proactive bills to protect and restore the state's resources. Though
we were not able to pass all the measures we wanted, we still have a
number of bills pending as two-year bills (meaning they can be
reconsidered when the Legislature convenes in January) and we were
still able to fend off the worst anti-green attacks.

The following is a summary of the final status of our priority bills this
year. Many of these were discussed in more detail in previous
LegAlerts, as noted.

** CHILDREN'S HEALTH **
The environmental, public health, and children's advocacy communities
were dealt a substantial blow after midnight on the last night of the
session when the Assembly refused to concur in Senate amendments on
AB 278 (Escutia). AB 278, the Children's Environmental Health
Protection Act, was Sierra Club California's top legislative priority for
the year (LegAlerts #97-8, 16), and the major industry groups sought to
kill it with a well-funded opposition campaign. Despite this opposition,
the bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate, earning bipartisan
support in the Assembly. When AB 278 returned to the Assembly for
concurrence, though, all the Republicans and two Central Valley
Democrats who originally supported the bill, refused to vote for it. The
Governor pressured legislators to stop the bill before it reached his desk
(so he would not be known as the person who vetoed Children's
Health), and he was successful. AB 278 failed to pass by two votes. It
will be reconsidered in January.

** COAST **
Of the 38 coastal flotilla bills sponsored by a coalition of environmental,
fishing, and citizen groups, over half made it through the Legislature:
two have been signed into law and twenty are moving towards the
Governor's desk, while fourteen became two-year bills and two were
killed entirely. Of the Sierra Club's priority coastal bills (LegAlerts #97-
7,8), the following passed the Legislature: AB 241 (Lempert), AB 411
(Wayne), AB 1022 (Lempert), AB 1429 (Shelley), AB 1464 (Strom-
Martin), AB 1479 (Sweeney), SB 499 (Alpert), SB 673 (Karnette), and
SB 1006 (Hayden). The coast suffered a blow when the Governor
made a power play during budget negotiations that resulted in huge cuts
in funding dedicated for the coast (LegAlert #97-12). We hope he will
remember his promise to protect the coast when deciding the fate of the
twenty bills that now sit on his desk.

** AIR QUALITY **
In a shift from previous years, there were few attacks directed at air
district programs and budgets, and we were successful in defeating
those attempts early in the session. Air quality legislation this year
included several complex and controversial issues which were
extensively negotiated. The Sierra Club achieved substantial
improvements to all the negotiated legislation, and was able to support
several of the major bills that emerged.

In 1993, the Legislature created an enhanced motor vehicle inspection
and maintenance program (Smog Check II) in order to comply with
federal air quality standards. The program was scheduled to begin this
year, but its implementation has been very controversial, with the most
important issues being equity between geographic areas, low-income
assistance, and exemptions for new vehicles. We supported AB 57
(Escutia) and AB 208 (Migden) to establish a low-income assistance
program, and opposed SB 42 (Kopp) and SB 999 (Thompson) which
would establish program exemptions. All these bills are now on the
Governor's desk.

Another contentious issue emerged over methyl tertiary butyl ether
(MTBE), a chemical compound used in reformulated gasoline. An
effort was made early in the season to ban MTBE, due to its appearance
in drinking water wells and complaints about its health effects. Because
MTBE has clear air quality benefits, the environmental community did
not support an immediate ban, but rather urged state reforms to prevent
leakage of gasoline constituents into groundwater and recommended
further study of MTBE and alternative oxygenates. Three MTBE-
related bills ultimately passed the Legislature, one which requires a
study on the health risks and benefits of MTBE and its alternatives, and
two Sierra Club-supported bills, SB 1189 (Hayden) and AB 592
(Kuehl), which include provisions to protect drinking water from
contamination.

Finally, the Sierra Club was involved in negotiating a revision to the
1991 rice straw burning phaseout. Rice farmers argued that the original
law posed too great a burden on them, and that they needed to continue
burning rice straw in order to prevent disease and dispose of their
excess rice straw. Negotiations involved setting the level and timing of
rice straw burning that would be allowed and establishing funding for
the development of technologies that use rice straw. While the Sierra
Club was not able to achieve all the burning reductions that we wanted,
our presence was influential in reducing fall burning, when air quality
impacts are the worst, and ensuring funds for the development of
alternatives to burning in the final compromise.

AB 968 (Knox) and SB 1306 (Sher), both supported by the Sierra Club
and now waiting for the Governor's signature, would make significant
progress in particulate monitoring and control.

AB 1368 (Villaraigosa), a high priority Sierra Club-sponsored bill to
substanially reduce toxic emissions from on- and off-road diesel trucks
and buses (LegAlert #97-1), was not passed by the Senate
Transportation Committee, and is now a two-year bill. However,
Senator Kopp has committed to hold an interim hearing to review AB
1368 and diesel air quality impacts. Reducing toxic diesel emissions will
be a major Sierra Club priority in 1998.

** ENDANGERED SPECIES **
The environmental community was successful in fighting off efforts to
gut all or part of the California Endangered Species Act. Once the
worst assaults were defeated, the pressing issue became the issuance of
"incidental take" permits for projects which affect endangered species.

Two bills passed the Legislature which dealt with the issue of incidental
take, and there were environmental groups positioned on both sides of
each of these bills. The Sierra Club opposed SB 231 (Costa), which
addresses take during routine and ongoing agricultural activities. The
bill creates a program to encourage the creation of habitat on farms and
ranches, a goal which we support, but it also permits "accidental take"
of listed species, therefore creating an unacceptable new category of
take.

SB 879 (Johnston) establishes the criteria by which the Department of
Fish and Game can grant incidental take permits. The Sierra Club was
heavily involved in negotiating this bill (LegAlert #97-9, 14), and in its
final form it included many of the principles which were important for
the Club. We ultimately took a position of "Support if Amended,"
insisting that landowners ought to be responsible for helping to recover
the species which they impact in their take. Both bills passed easily
through both houses.

A much lower priority bill for the Sierra Club, AB 363 (Goldsmith),
could have negatively impacted endangered species by legalizing the
ownership of ferrets in California (LegAlert #97-5). Due to the
opposition of committee chair Senator Patrick Johnston, the bill was
held in the Senate Appropriations Committee and became a two-year
bill.

** TRANSPORTATION **
The most important transportation issue of the year, the seismic retrofit
of California's bridges, was decided by a conference committee chaired
by Senator Kopp. The key issue for the committee was the source of
funding for retrofitting the Bay Bridge, and environmental concerns
were a very low priority for the committee. By the time the committee
held a hearing on its bill, SB 60 (Kopp), the bill was essentially set in
stone. The Sierra Club took a position of "Oppose Unless Amended,"
urging amendments to encourage bike lanes and light rail capacity in the
final Bay Bridge design and to implement congestion pricing. Kopp was
inflexible, and the bill has since become law.

The Sierra Club supported AB 595 (Brown), which has the double
advantage of potentially imposing a gas tax and increasing local control
of transportation (LegAlert #97-4). It passed the Legislature and now
sits on the Governor's desk.

SB 1320 (Hurtt), which later became SB 731 (Hurtt), would have
repealed California's parking cash-out law, which requires employers of
50 persons or more in nonattainment areas who provide parking
subsidies for their employees to also offer a parking cash-out program.
Though the program has not been adequately enforced, it has the
potential to substantially reduce drive-alone commutes, and the Sierra
Club opposed its repeal. This bill had several lives this year, and was
finally defeated by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on the
last day of the season.

** ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE **
Two environmental justice bills made it to the Governor's desk, and we
hope that Governor Wilson breaks his pattern of vetoing every bill that
attempts to deal with this important issue. SB 451 (Watson) addresses
environmental equity using the land use elements of local general plans,
while SB 1113 (Solis) would establish guidelines for considering
environmental justice under the California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA) (LegAlert #97-10).

In sum, the 1997 legislative season allowed environmentalists to sponsor
and support a wide array of proactive bills for the first time in several
years. Not all these bills were successful, but many did pass and many
others are still alive for further consideration next year. At the same
time, the worst attacks on California's environment were fought off;
despite many attempts, no CEQA weakening bills passed, other than SB
181 (Kopp), which created an exemption for San Francisco's new
ballpark.

The above is not a complete report of all bills which Sierra Club
California worked on this year. Water quality, forestry, pesticides,
recycling, and public information bills have been omitted, as well as
various other measures. For a complete list or for more details on the
above bills, please contact <megan.mullin@sierraclub.org>.

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