Jerry Brown's crystal ball

OCRegister.com

The attorney general wants compliance with regulations before they're written.

Hyperbole in Sacramento is distorting an entirely reasonable argument. Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, believes the government shouldn't be allowed to sue to force compliance with rules that don't yet exist.

After all, how can anyone comply with rules that don't exist? How would anyone know whether he or she is breaking the law?

Nevertheless, Attorney General Jerry Brown is on a Kafkaesque mission. He already has sued the county of San Bernardino, hinted at doing the same to several other local government agencies and has succeeded in inhibiting two Northern California refineries from moving ahead with expansion plans. Brown's quest is to enforce last year's Global Warming Solutions Act, and its mandate that greenhouse gas emissions in the state be reduced to 1990's level by 2020.

The problem is, the state hasn't yet adopted any regulations for counties, cities or developers to conform to, and the rules won't exist for several more years. That hasn't stopped Mr. Brown, who told the Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub that all he is doing is enforcing the state's existing California Environmental Quality Act, which requires local agencies to consider potential environmental impacts of new development and reasonably reduce those effects.

We find Mr. Brown's explanation disingenuous. We also find Democrat Senate Pro Tem Don Perata's complaints to be overblown. "I'm not going to sell out CEQA and let somebody blackmail me into a change that eviscerates environmental protections," Mr. Perata said of Sen. Dutton's reasonable request that the attorney general be restrained from enforcing regulations until they exist.

Sen. Dutton and fellow Republicans want legislation to limit lawsuits over greenhouse gas compliance until there exists something to comply with. That's only reasonable. They have tied this request to the ongoing budget squabble, which gives them leverage they wouldn't normally have. Two Republican senators' votes are needed to approve the budget, and as yet only one has defected.

Contrary to Mr. Perata and other complainers, Republicans don't seek to "eviscerate" CEQA. But Republicans do understand that if the attorney general is free to sue for compliance with nonexistent regulations, it would open the door to similar lawsuits filed by environmental extremists to block development.

"Allowing the attorney general or any other group to sue under the CEQA for standards that have not yet been established could likely shut down all development in this state," Mr. Dutton says. That includes $43 billion in public infrastructure improvements approved by voters.

Even in light of Mr. Brown's left-wing, anti-development history, we find his eagerness to bring lawsuits prior to adoption of regulations more political theater than ideologically driven. In 2001 when mayor of Oakland, Mr. Brown sought an exemption from the CEQA requirements for his city because the regulations slowed redevelopment. It seems Mr. Brown is in favor of waiving the rules when it suits him, but for enforcing them when they don't even exist. He earned the nickname Gov. Moonbeam as governor in the 1970s and early 1980s. Perhaps Attorney General Self-serving is an appropriate moniker these days.