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So is Schwarzenegger really an environmentalist, or does he just play one on television? On balance, his credentials are mostly legit. Whatever quibbles environmentalists may have with him, he's signed more major green legislation than just about any other governor in the country. Unlike McCain (see "Grand Canyon," March 12), Schwarzenegger's been willing to personally invest himself in the day-to-day business of shepherding important bills to passage. "We were in constant contact with the governor and his staff," former assemblywoman Fran Pavley, a Democrat and the author of the state's landmark law capping greenhouse gas emissions, told me. "He was determined to make it happen." Schwarzenegger took a fairly hands-on approach even on less sexy issues, helping push through a bill to allocate $3.2 billion in state funding for rooftop solar panels. "He did just about everything we wanted him to do," raves Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, an advocacy group that helped draft the law.
Schwarzenegger's recent missteps, moreover, have been more superficial press fodder than substantive change in policy. "He's been remarkably consistent and solid, from a legislative standpoint," says Fred Keeley, a former Democratic assemblyman and self-described "wacky liberal tree-hugger." Schwarzenegger has implemented, by executive order, several of the key provisions of the bills he's vetoed, like green building codes and a low-carbon fuel standard--his vetoes in these cases evince more a preference for executive power than an anti- environmental bent. The new ARB chair is just as well regarded as the one Schwarzenegger fired. And the concern environmentalists have with the governor mostly reflects how much further left the debate is in Sacramento than in Washington: The main opposition to the state's cap-and-trade scheme to limit greenhouse gas emissions--itself more ambitious than anything being seriously contemplated in Congress--came from Democratic legislators and their allies who preferred an even more aggressive, overtly regulatory approach. Keeley, who shares such sentiment, concedes that Schwarzenegger is "better on the environment than any governor we've had in the last forty years, period."
