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Poizner, Whitman environmental positions have changed Steve Poizner in 2004 vowed to pursue a ban on offshore oil drilling and wanted to reduce greenhouse gases. He boasted about signing up to buy a hybrid car. Meg Whitman in 2008 joined an elite group of leaders on a global warming tour of Norwegian Arctic waters. She launched an initiative to reduce electronic waste as head of eBay and donated $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund. Both Republican gubernatorial candidates have supported environmental causes before. But in their appeal to conservative voters this year, they have made environmental concerns subordinate to the state's struggling economy. Poizner, now state insurance commissioner, has moved farthest from his environmental past in an all-out effort to win conservative votes. Whitman has issued more nuanced views – leaving herself room to win general election votes in environmentally minded California. The winner of the GOP primary must face Democrat Jerry Brown, the attorney general and former governor whom environmentalists say has a solid record on their issues. As a 2004 Assembly candidate in a Democratic-leaning Bay Area district, Poizner not only advocated a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling in California but said the federal government should buy back existing oil leases to preserve the ecosystem. He now supports more oil drilling from existing offshore platforms. "With each passing year, California and the United States as a whole become increasingly dependent on foreign oil," said Poizner spokeswoman Bettina Inclán in a statement Friday. "The last several years have also seen additional advances in technology and safety, which make offshore oil drilling a viable component of a comprehensive plan to solve our nation's energy crisis." Environmentalists criticized Poizner's position, especially in light of a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "He should consider the long-term impacts of oil drilling on the animals in our ocean and the reduced dollars from tourism and other economies on our coast," said Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California. In 2004, Poizner called for a reduction in greenhouse gases and backed a law allowing California to regulate carbon emissions in vehicles. He now supports a proposed November initiative to halt greenhouse gas limits in Assembly Bill 32 until the state's unemployment rate dips to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. He says AB 32 has made the state less competitive. AB 32 support declines Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, said her conservative group once had concerns about Poizner. But CRA endorsed him for governor this year after being convinced he has changed his views. "You know, we all learn every day and we are all entitled to change our positions once we have educated ourselves, and I believe that he has," Greig said. "He has been smart enough to learn about the fiscal impact (AB 32) will have on the state of California and that oil drilling is best for everyone because we will be less dependent on foreign oil." Whitman supports suspending AB 32 for one year, using a provision that allows a governor to do so when facing a "threat of significant economic harm." She stops short of endorsing the ballot initiative, which includes a more stringent suspension. "While Meg believes California should be a green-tech leader and expand that sector of our economy, we need a timeout to talk about AB 32's impact on jobs," said Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei. Environmentalists say that position is short-sighted, because they believe the law will spur jobs as the alternative energy field expands. But business groups have lauded both candidates for advocating a slowdown in the greenhouse-gas law. "California has some of the strictest environmental laws in the country even without AB 32," said Gino DiCaro of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, which has endorsed the November initiative. "It's about time the rest of the country picks up the slack on greenhouse gases before we tank our own economy here in California." Whitman opposes new offshore drilling unless technological advances can minimize risks. Pompei defined the threshold as "next to a zero chance of an environmental impact." Whitman has suggested, however, that slant drilling may be safe enough. Del Chiaro of Environment California called Whitman's position an improvement over Poizner's, though she believes that no technology can satisfy the next-to-zero criteria. Positions called vague Rafe Pomerance, former president of Clean Air-Cool Planet, which coordinated the trip, said organizers looked for leaders with an interest in global warming. "You had to believe in it; we didn't try to bring along people who were utterly dug-in skeptics," he said. "We were trying to get people who could contribute positively to the climate change debate." Whitman got in brief trouble on the campaign trail last year for saying she was a "huge fan" of Van Jones, an environmental activist she met on the trip. Jones had to resign as President Barack Obama's green jobs "czar" after he ran afoul of conservatives for harsh criticism of Republicans and having signed a controversial letter about the origin of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Whitman later told the Weekly Standard it would be "ridiculous" to suggest she agreed with his controversial views. Whitman has laid out her green platform in a policy paper titled "Protecting the Environment." She supports efforts by Schwarzenegger and Democrats to require that California obtain 33 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Many of her environmental positions provide leeway should she win office, said Bill Magavern of Sierra Club California. "A lot of them are couched in vague language that sounds good," Magavern said. "She says she'll modernize the California Environmental Quality Act, but that could be a way to tell developers that she'll make it easier to build projects." Poizner, in contrast, does not have a separate environmental section on his campaign website and accused Whitman of practicing "environmental extremism" in a new television ad. Whitman and her husband, Griffith R. Harsh IV, contributed $300,000 in 2007 and 2008 to the Environmental Defense Fund's Center for Rivers and Deltas, which supports water conservation and preservation of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. EDF has supported court decisions that protect endangered species such as the Delta smelt. But Whitman last year described the situation as a "humanitarian crisis" and told the Press-Enterprise of Riverside that "we have to come down on the side of people." Source: Sacramento Bee |
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