Schwarzenegger's Environmental Crossroads

By Amanda Griscom Little, Grist.org. Posted September 12, 2004.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's exuberant speech at the Republican National Convention suggested that the Governator may be less the moderate Republican than advertised. Hailed by some during the convention as the Obama of the right, the California governor came across as a devout, rock-ribbed Bush lover.

Just days after Schwarzenegger's speech, more evidence emerged to indicate that this compassionate conservative may be borrowing not-so-compassionate tricks from the Bush-Cheney playbook: An Associated Press story last Friday revealed that a sweeping reform proposal for California state government commissioned by Schwarzenegger was "influenced significantly" by industry interests – in particular, ChevronTexaco, the largest publicly traded company in California and the fifth largest energy company in the world.

"Many corporations and interest groups participated in the governor's reform plan," wrote the AP's Tom Chorneau, "but state records and interviews with the participants show Chevron enjoyed immense success in influencing the report through its array of lobbyists, attorneys, and trade organizations." The report repeatedly references ChevronTexaco input in footnotes, and its acknowledgements page names at least five lawyers and lobbyists associated with the company.

Last February, some three months after assuming office, Schwarzenegger commissioned a team of 275 state employees to assemble recommendations for the California Performance Review, an analysis of the efficacy of state government. (The report is referred to as the CPR – apropos for a state that currently has a faint economic heartbeat.)

Last month, the team unveiled a catalog of recommendations so colossal – coming in at a staggering 2,500 pages – that only the likes of Arnold himself could lift it single-handedly. The proposals could significantly enhance the power of the governor to expedite the legislative process and affect everything from the levying of taxes to the procedures for siting oil refineries.

"This is the biggest government restructuring proposal California has seen in years," said Bill Magavern, senior legislative representative of the Sierra Club's California branch and one of the few environmental advocates who got the chance to offer suggestions on the report during its drafting.

"I know of only a few other environmentalists who were asked for input," Magavern said. "In my case I got a call to attend one two-hour meeting, but I was never asked for feedback on the most important proposals, and very few of our recommendations were reflected in the report." Magavern said he knew little about industry's behind-the-scenes influence on CPR because everyone who worked on it was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement that prohibits discussions about the proceedings: "It was a rigorously secretive process."

Dozens of enviro groups and public-interest organizations say they were shut out of the process entirely. As Ann Notthoff, California legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, explained it, "While the industry interests were able to deploy huge lobbying forces and resources to shoulder their way into the drafting process, public-interest groups simply didn't have the manpower required to outgun industry at the front end."

NRDC and other environmental groups have been invited to air their concerns about the report's recommendations during the formal public comment period, which will last through September, but even here activists are at a disadvantage: "I've talked to leaders of community groups in low-income neighborhoods in parts of L.A. who live near industrial sites and are concerned about rollbacks in pollution and siting regulations, but they simply don't have the time or resources to make a dent in this massive and complex report," said Notthoff.

Chevron spokesperson Stan Luckoski said that by appointing a team of lobbyists and lawyers to contribute to the drafting of the CPR, the company was "just participating in the democratic process." He said, "As a major California-based company, [it's perfectly reasonable] that we participated to make recommendations on how to improve the performance of the California economy."

And the participation didn't stop there. Chevron donated $100,000 to a political fund directly tied to Schwarzenegger just weeks after the report's release, according to AP. The company also helped foot the bill for the governor and his staff to attend the GOP convention, and last week Schwarzenegger held a closed-door meeting for officials from Chevron and the other companies that sponsored his travel.

Amanda Griscom writes the Muckraker column for Grist Magazine.

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