Posted 5/12/00.

Jan. 26, 2000, saw a landmark victory for Forests Forever when the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill (A.B.) 717 on a 44-29 vote.

Now headed to the state Senate, A.B. 717 is the most far-reaching California forestry reform legislation since passage of the Forest Practice Act in 1973.

A.B. 717 would rewrite the state's logging regulations to require timber companies to measure and be accountable for the impacts of their activities on wildlife and water quality, using scientifically valid data. Currently the timber companies are required only to make subjective, unquantified assumptions about logging impacts.

THE FULL STORY:

In 1999, for the first time in its history (not counting initiative campaigns),Forests Forever facilitated the introduction of a bill in the state legislature.

Unlike the introduction of the federal Endangered Species Recovery Act (HR 2351), in which we played a key role in 1997, A.B. 717 began as a bill we drafted.

In pursuing the campaign for A.B. 717 we began to establish close working relationships with Sacramento insiders - conservationists as well as legislative staffers. Until last year Forests Forever had pursued strictly an "outside game" - that of grassroots organizing in communities.

Last year, for the first time, we put together the basics of a tandem approach that includes an inside perspective. With the A.B. 717 campaign Forests Forever achieved a more-visible presence than in most of our past campaigns and a more-measurable impact on the effort's outcome.

Far and away our biggest accomplishment in 1999 was the passage of A.B. 717 and its companion bill A.B. 748 (dealing with fees for timber harvesting permits) through much of the legislative process. A.B. 717 went from emergency rule language to becoming the toughest, most-controversial forestry legislation in the year's session.

The bills' sails were filled with the constant breeze of constituent pressure generated by Forests Forever's powerful grassroots organizing programs.

Strategically Forests Forever became a key player in the coalition backing the Keeley bills.

The campaign really got rolling on Feb. 3 when as expected the Board of Forestry (BoF) unanimously voted down our emergency rule proposal. We had launched a petition on this Nov. 30, 1998, and had collected 2,294 signatures by Jan. 1, 1999.

At the seven-hour hearing we presented BoF with a rumpled stack of petition pages containing over 6,000 signatures as well as the remainder of some 300 letters to BoF executive officer Chris Rowney. In a now-familiar refrain, the board responded that it "did not find that an emergency rule(s) was needed for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety...."

Anticipating the BoF's February action, Forests Forever President Mark Fletcher, Forests Forever board member Jesse Noell and Executive Director Paul Hughes had paid several lobbying visits in Sacramento on Jan. 6. The topper was a meeting with Assemblymember Fred Keeley of Santa Cruz, the Assembly Speaker Pro Tem and a leading environmental advocate. Keeley was courteous and supportive but non-committal in response to our request that he introduce the proposed rule as a spot bill. He had not yet seen the language of our rule.

But by Feb. 16 Keeley's staff had worked up our rule proposal into bill language. We obtained endorsements of our planned bill from the Redwood and Bay Chapters of the Sierra Club.

After a letter-writing push aimed at various legislators, Keeley on Feb. 24 introduced our rule language verbatim as a spot bill - AB 717.

Early on, however, the bill was headed toward bad committee assignments in both houses. Beyond this the science and monitoring methodology the bill required was unfinished. Consequently the bill on Apr. 5 was transformed into a three-part measure tagged the "Closing the Logging Loopholes bill." The three parts covered watershed prescriptions, interagency review and penalties.

Keeley also had introduced 717's companion bill, AB 748, the "THP Fee" bill, the second measure in our push in '99. Forests Forever had become a leading player in a conservationist coalition that met regularly in Sacramento and by conference call with Keeley's and other legislative staff.

Forests Forever's unique contribution to the coalition is we were the only group doing year-round broad-based grassroots organizing on the legislation.

The bills were assigned to Assembly Natural Resources (Wayne), a promising committee. We picked up the endorsement letters of Loma Prieta Chapter Sierra Club and Assemblymembers Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco) and Ted Lempert (D-Palo Alto), with the latter becoming a co-author.

In the committee's initial meeting on the bills on Apr. 12 Forests Forever made a showing with several members of our staff; the timber industry and CDF were out in force with their pin-stripe types. Keeley needed six of the 11-member committee's votes. After some interesting maneuvering to obtain the needed votes he was forced to place the bill on call, slating it for a vote later the same day.

But by day's end he still could not count on the minimum number of votes needed, so he postponed the vote one week.

Forests Forever spent the week leading up to Apr. 19 campaigning door-to-door in the districts of the two key uncommitteds - Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) and Carole Migden (D-San Francisco). We generated some 550 letters in that week. And on Apr. 19 these two representatives voted our way, passing the bills from Natural Resources with the requisite six votes.

We pulled out a similar cliffhanger for the 21-member Appropriations Committee. The May 26 hearing was preceded by a canvassing blitzkrieg by both the field and phone programs to the Democrats on Approps, including not only "certain yes" votes Shelley, Migden and Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) but also virtually all the 10 remaining targets.

Our thrust included flying field canvass crews on the eve of the committee vote to the districts of Herb Wesson (D-Los Angeles) and Gloria Romero (D-Monterey Park), putting our people up at a motel in Hollywood. We also lobbied intensively the constituents of legislators in Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Vacaville and other locations far from our office.

We committed 15 caller-nights between May 11 and 19 to pure lobbying (non-fundraising). In these calls we asked our contributors in the targeted zip codes to contact their legislators to set up in-person lobbying appointments. Far exceeding our expectations, this resulted in an impressive 141 commitments to schedule a lobbying visit, and garnered another 110 commitments to write or call.

Each contributor who committed to lobbying received an official Forests Forever packet including action alerts, additional background material on the bills and tips on how to lobby effectively. By coincidence our field canvassers visited personal friends of Migden, Wesson and Steinberg.

When the Approps vote was taken May 26 we racked up all 13 Democrat votes. The mood of Keeley's staff after the vote was one of surprise and elation and Forests Forever was credited with having made a huge difference in the result.

At this point only six organizing days remained before the June 4 floor-passage deadline. Needed were 41 votes. But the time remaining was insufficient to garner the needed votes without having to weaken the bills.

So with the coalition's support Keeley moved the bills to two-year status - setting the must-pass date back to Jan. 31, 2000. This gave us and our allies more time to pull together support. We also had picked up small-but-potent opposition from one local each of the carpenters and machinists unions, which were corralling labor people in districts of key legislators such as Lou Papan (D-Millbrae).

Following the Approps vote Keeley and other state and federal lawmakers became absorbed in defending respected U.S. Forest Service scientist Leslie Reid from a right-wing attack in Congress.

The congressional faction of timber goons falsely charged Reid, among other things, with speaking out on behalf of forest-protection legislation. Reid's scientific work was valuable reference material we often cited in arguing our positions on forestry, a fact not lost on her opponents. They sought to discredit her.

The defense of Reid culminated successfully at a June 9 press conference in Sacramento, when legislators Migden and Shelley stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Keeley in Reid's defense. The Forest Service refused to sanction Reid. Migden's and Shelley's support of Keeley and Reid was thanks in large part to their having heard so much in the previous weeks from their constituents concerning forests and watershed protection.

Until the (ultimately successful) floor vote on AB 717 in January we worked on gaining legislative support, picking up Shelley as a co-author.

Wrote a key legislative staffer: "Kevin Shelley has anxiously informed us that he wants to be a co-author of (A.B.s 717 and 748). I assume this is the work of Forests Forever.... In fact, Shelley is so anxious to get his name added that he cannot wait until January when we next amend the bill. He wants his name added now so that he can inform his constituents of his co-authorship.... Thanks again and great job!!!"

Following our week-long camping canvass to Kuehl's West-LA district Sept. 19 she also signed on as a co-author.

We shifted all but one of our phone staff to the Keeley campaign. And we sent letters on behalf of the coalition (and placed hundreds of follow-up calls) to some 240 environmental groups throughout California, urging their endorsement of the bills. We focused on groups in targeted legislators' districts.

We sent a six-person camping canvass to the district of Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) the week of Oct. 17 through 23.

Our materials emphasized the importance of healthy forests to drinking water quality, a point especially effective for our Southern California organizing forays.

We also kept busy attending, testifying at, and boosting turnout for BoF hearings on proposed rules packages - Gov. Davis' rules package on Sept. 14 and Coho Considerations on Oct. 6. Prior to these hearings we beat the bushes for public comment. For the Governor's package we co-produced a postcard with the Living Forest Project and mailed it to our Sacramento/Davis area contributors (about 400 names).

Although 748 was not ultimately placed before the Assembly for a vote, A.B. 717 did pass on Jan. 26, as mentioned earlier.

At this writing A.B. 717 is headed for its first Senate vote, before the Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee on Apr. 11.

For the complete text of A.B. 717 call the Legislative Bill Room at the State Capitol: 916/445-2323 or visit: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html