Off Roaders Defeat Clinton Roadless Bill in the State Legislature (AB715)

In the final hours of the state legislative session for this year, AB 715 by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D- Los Angeles) was defeated in the Assembly by a vote of 35 ayes to 39 noes with 5 abstentions after heavy lobbying by off-road recreation and off-road business lobbyists Pete Conaty, Dana Nichol and Terry McHale. Other groups opposed to AB 715 such as the California Forestry Association, the California Chamber of Commerce, the California State Association of Counties, the Regional Council of Rural Counties, and the California Licensed Foresters Association also sent letters and visited legislators, but your off-road lobbyists did the heavy lobbying.

If passed into law, AB 715 would have prohibited any state agency from spending any funds on federal-state roadless cooperation in California’s U.S. Forest Service lands. The Clinton 2001 Roadless rules locked up over 4,400,000 acres of California’s forest land permanently by designating them as roadless areas. The 2001 Clinton Roadless rules have been overturned by numerous Federal courts in the western United States, including a permanent injunction against them in Wyoming. The Bush Administration reversed the 2001 rules and gave the final decisions on roadless status to the individual states. AB 715 would have removed California from the decision process thereby ensuring that California would be stuck with Clinton’s roadless rule. 4,400,000 acres.

Environmental extremists, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment California pushed AB 715 through the Legislature until the final day. However in the end, common sense prevailed in the State Assembly thanks to all Republican legislators and key votes by moderate and Latino Democrats. Earlier, the bill had passed the State Senate by a 22-15 vote, with 22 Democrats voting aye and 14 Republicans and 1 Democrat voting no. 1 Republican and 2 Democrats abstained (an abstention is in effect a no vote – but it is not counted in the vote total).

After a long day of lobbying on Thursday, September 8, which began with a special hearing on AB 715 in the Assembly Natural Resources committee to late at night, your off-road lobbyists waged a fierce battle to keep AB 715 from going to the Governor.

When AB 715 was first put up for a vote on the Assembly floor at 8:15 p.m., it fell short of the 41 votes needed by a vote of 36 ayes to 36 noes and 7 abstentions. Because the vote total is not final until the daily session is over, those on both sides of AB 715 continued to lobby intensely to change the vote. Proponents and the author (who had the advantage of being on the Assembly Floor with his colleagues), tried to add votes, while we lobbied our legislative supporters to hold fast and urged some of the “aye” votes to switch to “no”. Because of our lobbying efforts, we had three legislators go from “aye” to “no”, while two legislators went from “no” to “aye”, so the supporters of AB 715 suffered a net loss of 1 vote. When the final vote was taken at 11:15 p.m., the bill failed on a vote of “ayes” 35 with 44 “noes” and abstentions. The off-road recreation friendly legislators who either voted no or abstained included all 32 Republican Assembly members and 12 Democrats in the Assembly.

However, because this defeat of AB 715 occurred on the last day of the first year of a two year legislative session, the author will be able to bring AB 715 up for one last vote on the bill anytime between January and the end of the two-year legislative session in August. We will no doubt have to re-fight this bill again sometime next year.

The Democrats who crossed party lines and voted against or abstained on AB 715 are Senators Denise Moreno Ducheny of San Diego and Imperial Counties, Dean Florez of Fresno and Bakersfield and Kevin Murray of Los Angeles as well as the following Assembly members.

Joe Canciamilla, Martinez
Juan Arambula, Fresno
Simon Salinas, Salinas
Ronald Calderon, Los Angeles
Rudy Bermudez, Los Angeles
Nicole Parra, Bakersfield
Barbara Matthews, Modesto
Juan Vargas, San Diego
Joe Coto, San Jose
Gloria Negrete-McLeod, San Bernardino
Joe Baca, San Bernardino
Lois Wolk, Davis

If these Democrats are from your area, please send them a thank you letter for voting to keep California open to off-roading. Needless to say, also thank all the Republicans for their help as well. Without the staunch support of the Republican legislators, off-road recreation in California would be in serious trouble.

The defeat of this bill is an important psychological victory for off roaders over the environmental extremists, (especially after they were successful bottling up the OHV Program extension in the Legislature). As we head into 2006, we must deal with the Off-Road Program extension as well as dealing with the results of the audit of the Off-Road Program. The fight for the future of the California Off-Road Recreation Program will be won or lost in Sacramento at the Legislature and with the Schwarzenegger Administration. The heavy lifting will be done by those off-road organizations that have lobbyists at the State Capitol. This will be a battle unlike anything off-road organizations have ever seen before. However, all off-road groups need to begin preparing now for an extensive grass-roots lobbying effort, directed at their local legislators as we move forward.