Wilson ally says plan inadequate

Tahoe Daily Tribune

July 27, 1997
By Patrick McCartney
Tribune Senior Staff Writer

The Clinton administration focused an unprecedented amount of national attention on Lake Tahoe Saturday at the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum.

But a senior environmental official for Gov. Pete Wilson of California suggested afterward that the federal commitment of $26 million in new spending over two years came up short.

"It was a two-year response to a 10-year challenge," said Douglas Wheeler, secretary of the California Resources Agency. "It was a day late and a dollar short." Wheeler said the president's commitment was far less than the $296.8 million in federal funds the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency said is needed in the next 10 years to restore Lake Tahoe's ailing environment. The figure was part of the agency's Environmental Improvement Program, an encyclopedic list of more than 400 projects needed to improve nine standards of the basin's environmental health.

Wheeler's remarks came less than a week after Wilson signed an agreement with Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada to support the TRPA's improvement plan. California's share of the $906.8 million program, $274.6 million, would be nearly as large as the federal investment.

After Clinton's announcement, Wheeler said California might reassess its own commitment.

"We cannot proceed with the TRPA plan if all the partners are not at the table," Wheeler said. "The state will not commit to its fair share unless we see a more significant effort."

Wheeler's comments were a fly in the ointment at an event where collaboration between competing interests was a prominent theme. Wilson was conspicuously absent from the event, sending word that he was too wrapped up in California's stalemated budget talks to attend the forum.

Democratic allies of Clinton criticized Wheeler's remarks, saying it showed Republican Wilson's political rivalry with the president.

"Wilson wanted to sabotage this forum form the very beginning," said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who invited Clinton to Lake Tahoe and lobbied him until he accepted.

U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., called Wheeler's remarks political posturing. "Unfortunately, Gov. Wilson chose partisan politics rather than bipartisan cooperation," Bryan said.

White House political operatives quickly pointed out that the amount committed to - $26.6 million - would be followed by an effort to secure additional funding in future years, but that additional aid would require the cooperation of a Republican-led Congress.