Brown's Countdown, Day 13: Steinberg says Dems will back governor's budget-cutting goal

By Susan Ferriss
sferriss@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A

California Senate Democrats will back Gov. Jerry Brown's goal of chopping $12.5 billion out of the state budget as part of a deal in which voters get a crack at a tax-hike extension measure in June, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told The Bee in an an interview Friday.

Steinberg, D-Sacramento, also said he wants to help businesses create jobs faster by pursuing emergency legislation to force state agencies to look for duplicative regulations that could be shed.

Steinberg said lawmakers could act on the recommendations over the next six months, perhaps expunging some rules from the 5,000-page California Code of Regulations as part of the state budget negotiations.

The cuts Steinberg discussed are one part of Brown's plan for closing a $25.4 billion state deficit. Republicans so far are resisting another key part of the proposal, putting tax extensions on the ballot in June.

"We are prepared to step up as Democrats and meet the target of $12.5 billion," Steinberg said. "Not because we want to, but because we have to if we are going to be serious about putting the crisis behind us."

"What we want in return," he said, "is to give the people the choice as to whether or not they want to double those cuts or whether they're willing to live with extending the taxes for another five years."

Steinberg said Senate Democrats will use their "prerogative" to reshape the $12.5 billion in cuts. Brown's proposal includes provisions for permanent tightening of eligibility rules for in-home care, welfare and other social services.

The Senate Democratic leader made no assurances about what might happen in the state Assembly, which is also controlled by Democrats.

Steinberg said some Republican legislators are also concerned about the depth of budget cuts to come.

"A dirty secret is some of their members don't like these cuts either," he said.

Fresh from a Senate Democratic Caucus retreat earlier this week with business figures, Steinberg acknowledged that he would like businesses to support the tax measure idea, along with some Republican legislators.

He acknowledged that the bid to cut regulations might help that effort.

"I always thinks that good policy makes for good politics," he said. "I didn't put this out there primarily as a strategy to induce Republicans to cast the necessary votes to extend the taxes. The primary purpose is to make it clear to the people of California that we get it, and that we aim to do things differently."

The GOP's minority Senate leader, Sen. Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga, reacted favorably to Steinberg's idea for a regulatory overhaul.

"I would like to thank Senate Pro Tem Steinberg for his decision today to introduce urgency legislation to review all of California's thousands of regulations that have contributed to the loss of private-sector jobs over the past several years," Dutton said in a statement Friday.

He said he and other GOP legislators have long proposed regulatory reforms that have been met with defeat.

The California Chamber of Commerce reserved judgment.

"We would love to comment after we see the details of the actual proposal when it is introduced," said Denise Davis, a chamber spokeswoman.

Steinberg said the regulatory review idea is not meant to "weaken or undermine public health, environmental or worker safety protections," but rather to get rid of "archaic" regulations and duplication that delay investment.

But he said there's room to go beyond sheer duplication. He said that he knows of businesses, for example, that want to store biofuels but are foiled because while air quality officials favor it, a specific water quality concern makes it "impossible."

He'd like to see that conflict resolved in favor of biofuels.

Sierra Club California director Bill Magavern said, "We agree with the goal" of getting rid of duplication in regulations, but he wasn't ready to agree with Steinberg's biofuels example.

Steinberg also told The Bee that he wants urgency legislation that allows businesses to request a "consolidated and coordinated" state review process to obtain permits.

"We need to do a whole lot better in providing a friendlier business climate," Steinberg said.

Asked why California didn't streamline regulations under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steinberg said the Republican governor "probably tried to do too much at one time, and poked a lot of people prematurely without doing the foundational work to build some consensus."

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