Will GOP Gov. Have a Green Agenda?

As Arnold Schwarzenegger interviews candidates for key positions in his administration, both conservatives and liberals are eagerly watching for clues to his stands on environmental policy, seeing those issues as early indicators of what sort of Republican the governor-elect truly is.

Some conservatives, who have long complained about the stringency of California’s environmental protections, fear Schwarzenegger may be overly influenced by liberal advisors and could add to a tangle of regulations that they already consider suffocating for business.

But many liberal environmental activists, whose organizations mostly supported Gov. Gray Davis in the recall campaign, are no less concerned about Schwarzenegger. Many activists fear the new administration will hew to Bush administration environmental policies they oppose.

“We’re going to find out whether Gov. Schwarzenegger is the guy who put out the progressive position paper on environmental issues, or the guy who hinted at eliminating the Cal/EPA and who bragged about helping to bring the Hummer into prominence,” said Bill Magavern, a California lobbyist for the Sierra Club.

The jitters on both sides illustrate how little is known about the next governor’s actual beliefs on one of the signature issues of California politics.

Conservatives point worried fingers at such advisors as Bonnie Reiss, who ran Schwarzenegger’s Inner City Games Foundation and is one of his closest aides. Reiss founded the Earth Communications Office, a Los Angeles-based group that helped place environmental messages in television shows in the early 1990s -- notably in an episode of “Designing Women” that dealt with cloth diapers.

During the recall campaign, the conservative magazine California Political Review published a story deriding the presence of Reiss, a “Hollywood green activist,” in the Schwarzenegger camp, calling her a “red flag” for conservative Republicans. Despite the criticism, the governor-elect named Reiss to his transition team.

Environmental activists, on the other side, point to U.S. Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), the head of Schwarzenegger’s transition team. Dreier received a 5% grade from the League of Conservation Voters for his environmental record in the 2001-02 session of Congress.

Progressive Republican?

Standing between the two sides is a core of Republican environmentalists who believe Schwarzenegger possesses a combination of fiscal conservatism and environmental sensitivity that could provide a golden opportunity for their party in California.

“So many Republicans find it frustrating that the party has not been more progressive on environmental issues,” said Robert Grady, who oversaw environmental policy as a White House official under the first President Bush and who now serves on the Schwarzenegger transition team.

“Most people, especially here in California, want strong environmental protections. I have always believed, and obviously Gov.-elect Schwarzenegger believes, that this is the majority view.”

Grady and another moderate Republican member of the transition team, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly, were among the architects of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. The changes introduced a “cap and trade” pollution credit system to reduce acid rain that has proved effective, but that was widely criticized by some environmentalists at the time.

“Our membership is really high on Mr. Schwarzenegger,” said Jim DiPeso, policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, a national group that has been critical of the current Bush administration.

“It was a good sign that he put Bill Reilly on his transition team,” DiPeso added. “Reilly is way up there as far as we are concerned in terms of being a Republican environmentalist.”

The acid rain program was only one example of how environmental policymakers in the first Bush administration experimented with a mix of regulations and market-based tools, such as the trading of pollution credits, to clean the country’s air and water. Similar incentive-laden approaches could be a centerpiece of Schwarzenegger’s environmental policy, according to some of the advisors and environmentalists assisting the governor-elect.

Early efforts, they suggested, could aim to coax farmers to become willing partners in land conservation and to persuade businesses to invest in renewable energy technologies, such as solar and hydrogen power.

As he ponders ways to bridge the state’s gargantuan budget gap, Schwarzenegger could also increase fees on dirty industries to help finance state regulatory programs, some advisors suggested. That sort of “polluter pays” concept is strongly endorsed by environmental organizations.

Schwarzenegger may also look to change the composition of the state Air Resources Board to address a recent worsening of air quality problems in Los Angeles and a steadily mounting pollution problem in the Central Valley.

The current board members, several of whom were appointed by former Gov. Pete Wilson, serve at the discretion of the governor; some Schwarzenegger advisors suggested it might be time for some new blood.

Environmental politics matter more to voters in California than to those in the nation as a whole, polls have shown. Pushing for strong protections could help Schwarzenegger maintain the support of some voters who might otherwise go to the Democrats, particularly college-educated and upper-income voters among whom environmental protection is a high priority. Wilson successfully made a similar play for the so-called coastal Republican vote during his first run for governor and in his first term.

But pushing too hard on environmental issues could cost Schwarzenegger political capital with conservatives -- notably, members of his own party in the California Legislature. The Legislature’s Republican members mostly represent constituencies that are skeptical of environmental claims and sensitive to the argument that regulations cost jobs. Last year, for example, GOP legislators advocated abolishing the California Coastal Commission, and called the panel, which was created by a voter initiative, an overzealous bureaucracy.

Advocacy of environmental protection also could bring Schwarzenegger into conflict with the current president. Environmental organizations, which have generally criticized Bush’s positions, hope to see such a conflict. When Bush met with Schwarzenegger in California last week, for instance, the Sierra Club released a list that contrasted the environmental positions of the two men and described the governor-elect’s willingness to do battle with the president as a major test of his leadership.

Since Schwarzenegger’s resounding victory, many of the environmental groups that opposed him have sought to mend fences or at least publicly take his pro-environment promises at face value.

Terry Tamminen, executive director of the Santa Monica-based group Environment Now and one of the conservationists who helped Schwarzenegger craft his environmental platform during the campaign, said his phone began to ring days before the election, as fellow environmentalists began to realize that the candidate would probably win. They were worried, he said, whether they would have a seat at the table in the new administration.

Tamminen recently held meetings with environmental advocates in Sacramento and Southern California, and sought to convey the message that they should now step forward with ideas for new programs, names for appointments and even budget proposals, because their views would be taken seriously regardless of whether they had backed Schwarzenegger.

“Let’s be honest -- no one is too sad to see Davis go. He did a lot of good things for the environment, but he also did a lot of things that upset my colleagues in the environmental community,” Tamminen said. “I’ve been trying to convey to everyone that they are going to have a role in shaping the policies of this administration if they want it.”

Collaboration Offered

Environmentalists, he added “are willing to roll up their sleeves and help.”

“Clearly, there is a feeling that some cost-cutting will be in order,” said V. John White, a Sacramento air lobbyist and director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. “But the possibility exists that there could also be some restructuring and streamlining, and there are those among us that think that may not be a bad idea.”

However, several environmental advocates who attended the meetings said they still had reservations about Schwarzenegger.

They worry that he will cut California’s environmental programs as he restructures government to bridge the budget deficit. They also worry that, despite assurances that he will govern from the political center, Schwarzenegger will succumb to pressure from business lobbyists and the more conservative wing of the Republican Party, both of which also have a substantial presence on his big-tent transition team. And they are concerned that he will shrink from contradicting Bush on key issues such as global warming, now that he has publicly pledged to secure more money from Washington to help survive the state’s budget crunch.

“I don’t think he wants to pick a fight with environmentalists. I do think that Arnold is a true moderate, and that he wants to have a good record on these issues,” said Pete Price, a Sacramento lobbyist for the California League of Conservation Voters, the Trust for Public Land, and other environmental groups.

But citing Schwarzenegger’s more conservative advisors, Price quickly added, “These folks are true believers. He is going to be facing pressure to do a lot of things to the environment, and our fear is that a lot of it will be under the radar.”