Schwarzenegger Far More 'Green' than Campbell

Who says a pro-business government can't be cutting edge green? When B.C.'s Liberals revisit their playbook for the next election, they may want to rewrite that page.

For encouragement, they need only cast an eye south, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's California. There, the Governator has a bold agenda to improve air, water and quality of life to keep the Golden State's work force vital in a competitive global economy.

Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor of California didn't inspire high hopes on the environmental front. He talked about taking out the high occupancy vehicle lane through major cities, reasoning that more highway equals less congestion. Why does California need its own Environmental Protection Agency, he asked, when the federal government runs one?

Then there was his own vehicle, the gas-guzzling Hummer which seemed to confirm his persona as the Governator, running over anything in his way. The San Francisco-based Sierra Club, which publishes a website lampooning the environmental abuses of the Hummer, opposed the recall of Dem. Governor Gray Davis and bemoaned the pending destruction. One could only imagine the hammer that a Hummer-driver would take to California's clean-air policies, the greenest in the country.

But soon after his October election, Arnold confounded his critics by keeping Alan Lloyd on as chairman of the Air Resources Board, a branch of the California EPA. Lloyd was known as a strong leader with a proven record on air quality protection.

An even stronger message was Schwarzenegger's choice of Terry Tamminen as secretary of the EPA. Most recently, Tamminen was executive director of Environment Now, a foundation aimed at protecting California's environment and natural resources. The appointment surprised environmental activists, some saying the move would be bold even for a liberal Democrat.

Arnold's green ambitions

Once in office, Schwarzenegger's transition team produced a position paper laying out ambitious commitments to clean air and water. It includes the following promises:

. cut air pollution statewide by up to 50 per cent. protect California's coastline and waterways, including a permanent ban on offshore drilling. to solve the state's electrical energy crisis, with a goal to derive 33 per cent of its power from renewable sources by 2020. protect and restore California's parks, specifically mentioning the Sierra Nevada which had been eyed by the Bush administration for an expansion of logging. restore cities, including improvements to mass transit; and to enforce laws protecting the environment. Trying to practise a bit of what he preached, Schwarzenegger even promised to convert one of his Hummers to run on hydrogen.

All this, as Schwarzenegger inherited a battered California economy with unemployment rates well above the national average, and a projected $8 billion state budget shortfall. California had the highest workers compensation costs in the country and a reputation for too much red tape.

Charged with jump starting that business climate, what could a Republican governor, albeit one married to a Kennedy, be thinking? Could it be true, as Schwarzenegger kept insisting, that "Jobs versus the environment is a false choice"? His ambitious Action Plan for California's Environment goes further, explaining that clean air and water would make for a more productive workforce and a healthier economy.

Study in contrast: B.C.

Here in British Columbia, the government has followed a sharply contrasting path. While Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed a well-known environmentalist as his guardian of the trees, water and earth, back in 2001 Premier Campbell terminated the watchdog office of Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability before the post could be filled.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has publicly promised several times that he will fight expected challenges to cleaner air laws, specifically one passed last year that would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. Campbell's Liberals, however, have weakened a network of environmental protection laws put in place over a series of decades.

In his February, 2004 Throne Speech, Premier Campbell promised half of new electricity produced by BC Hydro would come from clean, renewable sources. The year before, Campbell pledged "an environmental framework that sets an example not just for our country but for the world," adding that "environmental sustainability and public policy is a critical part of our social and economic future in British Columbia."

But around the same time, a coalition of environmental groups in B.C. gave the Liberal government a failing grade for its "environmental stewardship."

Within B.C.'s own Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, most workers see standards eroding, according to a newly revealed internal review. Only 27 percent of employees surveyed said they believe that their ministry uses good science to support policy decisions, according to George Heyman, president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union, which obtained and made public the review ordered by the B.C. government. Seventy percent of Environmental Protection branch workers think their department has poor capacity to deal with environmental crises.

"The provincial Liberal government is like termites," says environmental lawyer David Boyd. "They're chewing away at the foundation of B.C.'s environmental protection regime, and the damage isn't visible to the naked eye but at some point down the road we're going to pay a heavy price for the structural damage they've caused."

Boyd points in particular to changes made to forestry rules and regulations and to the Significant Projects Streamlining Act which takes projects out of local control. In October 2003, the B.C. government designated about 45 million hectares of public land as "working forest," removing most barriers to privatization of B.C.'s public forest lands. Whereas B.C. once had Canada's strongest Environmental Assessment Act, Boyd says, we now have its weakest.

Schwarzenegger has given strong signals that he will protect environmental protection measures in California that serve as a model for the rest of the U.S. Because California's clean-air policies predate those of the federal government, the state has the right to maintain its more stringent standards. Other states can also choose to follow California's regulations rather than Washington's.

Just days into his term, Gov. Schwarzenegger stood up against a Senate move that would have curbed California's right to regulate emissions, in this case from lawnmowers and other small engines. Thanks in part to his lobbying efforts, the measure was quashed.

A conservative against offshore drilling

"It was the kind of thing that very few governors would do," explains Hal Harvey, who worked on Schwarzenegger's transition team as a consultanton greenhouse gases and energy issues. "When Schwarzenegger calls up a Republican Senator, they have to listen to him. So having him stand up for environmental issues certainly changes the dynamic altogether."

Another one of Schwarzenegger's pet policies is renewable energy. His agenda sets an ambitious goal of 33 per cent of the state's energy to be derived from renewable sources by 2020. His administration, he promises, will direct the California Energy Commission to define incentives and implement strategies that will aim to meet the 20 per cent mark by 2010.

That's a marked contrast to British Columbia, where the government cleared the way for coal-burning power plants. The province's new energy policy officially recognized coal as a potential power source, and BC Hydro has been given permission to buy electricity from independent producers, including coal-fired power producers. Two generating plants are currently in the works, one in Campbell River and one in Elk Valley.

Supporters of the plants, which promise hundreds of jobs, argue that new technology has made coal-burning a much cleaner process. The B.C. government set new guidelines to regulate certain emissions, but did not address mercury or greenhouse gasses. The technology to remove mercury from coal-burning emissions is not yet available.

Perhaps the most striking example of how B.C.'s priorities differ from those of the Golden State is offshore oil exploration. The Liberals have pushed the federal government to lift the moratorium which has stood since the early 1970s. The Royal Society of Canada, the first of three scientific panels commissioned to look at the issue of allowing further exploration by oil and gas companies, turned in a report earlier thisyear that recommended lifting the moratorium. Criticized by several environmental groups including the David Suzuki Foundation, the report concluded there are no overriding scientific reasons why the industry cannot proceed. The report stressed that a strict regulatory regime, numerous studies and native land claim settlements need to be in place before seismic testing and drilling would begin in the waters off the B.C.'s coast.

In California, however, the issue is such a hot button that Schwarzenegger wants to end it for good. His environment plan says he will fight for a permanent ban on all oil drilling in coastal waters, and that he will pressure the Bush administration to buy up remaining offshore oil leases. There is a precedent for such a move: the president made a similar deal to buy leases off the coast of Florida, where his brother Jeb isgoverning. Californians have made it clear that they want to keep their beaches pristine, without the threat of a disaster similar to the oil-well blowout that happened in 1969 off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Don't call him The Environator yet

Some environment-watchers are holding judgment on Schwarzenegger just yet, waiting to see whether the movie star can actually act on his many promises. Being against "off-shore oil drilling here is like kissing babies and supporting mom's apple pie," says Bill Magavern, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club. "You really can't go wrong with that position."

Magavern was less impressed with Schwarzenegger's much-publicized Hydrogen Highways plan, which calls for a statewide network of 200 hydrogenfilling stations by the end of the decade. The proposal is part of an effort to promote hydrogen fuels, which emit few or no air polutants. The technology, Magavern pointed out, is still far from being commercially viable.

"Most of the hydrogen would be coming from fossil fuels and nuclear power, so it would actually increase pollution compared to using hybrid vehicles," he says. "So we're in favour of doing more research into hydrogen in hopes of getting those breakthroughs, but we are much more supportive of emphasizing hybrid technologies rather than hydrogen."

Tamminen, for one, argued that Hydrogen Highways is not a pie in the sky. California can afford the plan because companies have agreed to help build some of the fueling stations.

"The car companies fought the whole electric vehicle mandate tooth and nail, and invested close to nothing," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Hydrogen is different. They are investing in this technology, and believe it can work."

Agreeing that much in Schwarzenegger's platform is only good intention so far, Harvey is willing to give the Governator the benefit of the doubt. "We'll be disappointed somewhere down the line, we always are, but overall I'm optimistic."

Marcie Good [email protected] is a Vancouver journalist whose work has appeared in Vancouver magazine and other publications.