Risky Business in the Fire Season

It’s an old legislative trick, holding a bill hostage. It happens when you want something badly and your opponents want something badly: You attach your want to theirs and both sides get their way. But the current deadlock in the state Senate over firefighting funds for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention is a particularly dangerous form of the hostage game.

The Wilson administration has submitted emergency legislation to raise $69 million to make up for last season’s deficit in firefighting funds. This is a common procedure since officials never know by budget time in June just how much they’ll have to spend fighting fires in the ensuing summer. But Democrats led by Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer of Hayward are holding up passage of the measure in hopes of using it to push through a bill that would grant state employees a 3% pay raise for the rest of this fiscal year. Gov. Pete Wilson and Republicans in the Legislature oppose the raise.

The problem is that the fire season is off to an early start this year. Crews are on alert throughout Southern California. The wholesale fuel supplier for fire trucks in much of the state is refusing to provide any more until there is some guarantee of payment.

The shortage is most acute in Northern California, where officials have made a show of taking trucks to service stations and buying gasoline on state credit cards at far higher prices. Not bad theatrics, actually. And imagine the public reaction if a truck failed to respond to a fire for lack of fuel. Neither the Democrats nor the Wilson administration could afford to let that happen.

The firefighting appropriation needs to be approved quickly. State employees, most of whom have gone three years without a raise, may deserve a boost, but that should be dealt with during budget negotiations. Both sides should abandon this perilous game immediately.