Most of the action concerning state forestry reform this year has centered around a four-bill package of legislation which seems to be near the end of running its course as of this writing.
This four-bill package has gone by many names during its evolution over the summer. The initial version was called "The Arbit Committee Proposal" here at the MEC because the negotiators both from industry and from the environmental movement were all hand picked by Hal Arbit. Hal Arbit, as you may recall, is the millionaire financier of last year's infamous Prop. 130, better known as the Forests Forever Initiative. Prop. 130 was ahead in the poles by a margin of about 80% to 20%, but ended up losing in the election, largely due to the inept campaign put on by Arbit's hand picked campaign team. Hal Arbit, you see, has a hard time taking advice from grass roots folks or ordinary people and prefers, instead, to get most of his advice from other millionaires, or at least from serious millionaire wannabees.
But I digress. The newspapers called the initial version of this year's legislation "The Sierra Accord" as the main negotiators were from Sierra Pacific Lumber Company and the Sierra Club. As this four-bill package wound its way through the legislature, its content was changed dramatically by the additions of hundreds of amendments, many from the timber industry and as many more from the Governor's office.
At this point, the mess was called the "Wilson Accord" around here, but the newspapers and the Governor preferred that it be called "The California Accord". And that is just as well, because in the final few days of the process, Governor Wilson abandoned the California Accord and came out with a brand new package which really was the Wilson Accord.
Only hours after it was born, this new Wilson Accord died a swift and quiet death and the legislature, in its wisdom, passed the Sierra Accord, or whatever it was called. So, you ask, was the vote split between environmental and timber company sympathizers? Was the legislature divided over timber harvesting requirements which were too strict, or too lenient? Were the legislators wrestling with any serious issues involving the ecology or the economy at all? Nope, to all of the above.
In the end, surprise! The vote was split along party lines and the Democrats pulled off an audacious display of power by rejecting the newborn Wilson Accord and passing the Sierra Accord. This, of course, did not sit well with Republican Governor Wilson and he has vowed to do to others what was done to him, and veto the Accord. We hope he does, too, but he hasn't done it yet.
Anyway, through the course of the summer, this four-bill package came to be known around here as the "Four-Headed Monster". Perhaps the name simply reflected the fact that the package did consist of four separate bills which were somehow linked together so that if one of them died, all of them died. But one cannot overlook the fact that there was, for some, a certain sadistic glee derived from associating the monster's heads with the four sponsoring legislators: Keene, Hauser, Sher and Mc Corquedale.
And there was also a certain appeal to some few very intelligent and well informed beings who were want to change the names of the heads to reflect different realities the monster reflected as it passed through various stages of degeneration inside the bowels of the legislative process.
Even today, now that the thing has been passed by the legislature, there lingers in the air, like a scent that won't go away, a feeling that the heads would have been more aptly named: Lucas, Chabot, Widert and Pachl. But I Digress.
In the MEC's analysis, sparing you the gory details, the Four-Headed Monster legislation was a bad piece of work to start with and it only got worse as the legislature, the Governor and the timber companies continued to change it. As Hans Burkhardt said, it "is a conglomerate of good basic principles of sound corrective forest management, destructive special interest group requests and outright processes of corruption." We hope the Governor will not keep us waiting long for the final blow, the veto. But as soon as that happens, we may have to deal with yet another Hal Arbit surprise. Or, maybe not.
You see, Hal Arbit and his chosen one, Gail Lucas, have also whipped up a ballot initiative timber reform measure which even now is gathering signatures to qualify for the June '92 ballot. We shall call this piece of work the "Arbit Initiative," though others will surely call it something else. The Arbit Initiative is a much better creation than the Four-Headed Monster, but it was hastily thrown together and displays some ill-conceived parts.
For example, the Arbit Initiative would basically limit the amount of lumber that can be cut per year to 2.2% of the harvestable inventory. This might work out fine for many Northern California forests, as the average growth in these forests may be greater than 2.2% in a year. But in the Southern Sierra forests, the average growth rate is well under 2.2%. So, while the Arbit Initiative may halt depletion of the Northern forests, it may mandate it for the Southern.
But, HEY! Stopping depletion of any California forest is a very big deal. If the Arbit Initiative actually makes it onto the ballot, the temptation of an immediate political reality which would stop Northern forest destruction would be very hard to pass up, no matter what else it did.
But it may not make it to the ballot. After all, Arbit only created the thing in the first place to scare the legislature and the Governor into making law out of the Four-Headed Monster. The Governor may still do that. Or, he may veto. If he vetos, Arbit will have to decide if he is willing to finance the Arbit Initiative all the way, or admit that the whole thing was a bluff and save his money. We'll see.
Looking outside the Arbit camp, there are brighter things happening. Mendocino County's Forest Advisory Committee is about to present something to the Board of Supervisors which may result in the County getting its own special timber harvesting rules. Good rules at that. Rules which would stop the depletion, start the regeneration and do so without devastating the timber dependent economy. That's if the industry hacks, the RPFs and intellectuals from the UC Berkeley Forestry Department don't scuttle the works before the Supes get to see it.
Last, but certainly not least, the old Forests Forever crowd is at it again, but this time with an even bigger and much better idea than last time. They're working on a general bill which would stop ecosystem destruction - any kind of ecosystem. It would protect the state's water and of course, the state's forests.
And best of all, it won't cost the taxpayers a single penny to do it. The current Forests Forever initiative is long on brains and great ideas that will work.
But its rather short, right now, in financial reality. Its going to have to be a grass roots campaign this time around, since the divorce with Hal Arbit last year things just haven't been the same. I doubt the man is willing to pay child support, so . . . Donations can be sent to Forests Forever care of the MEC. We're hoping to get $1.00 from every person who voted for last year's Prop. 130. That would do it. And that's it for now.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited