QUOTE
CAMPAIGN 2006: 11th Congressional District Republican Primary
ENVIRONMENTAL PUSH AND PULL
INCUMBENT: Richard Pombo confident despite fiercer attacks from 'enviros'
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Sunday, June 4, 2006
Washington -- From the moment he wakes up in his small Capitol Hill apartment until his last roll call vote, Rep. Richard Pombo's daily life in Congress is a one-man battle against environmentalists.
On a recent morning, it begins in his black Ford Explorer, shuttling between an interview at Fox News and his office at the Capitol. In the front passenger seat, Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, is prepping for a vote on his new bill to overhaul how the nation's fisheries are managed.
From the backseat, his press aide delivers the day's first bad news: A Washington Post editorial, echoing concerns by environmental groups, warns that his bill could weaken federal protections for depleted fish species.
"Yeah, I know," Pombo says sarcastically. "I'm 'gutting the fisheries.' "
He glances at the editorial quickly and lets out a big sigh. "It's so frustrating. They get this stuff from the enviros and they just run with it, as if there is no reason to question it."
The clash is not new -- the Tracy Republican, a cattle rancher and avid property rights activist, has been sparring with environmentalists since he was first elected to Congress in 1992.
But this year the nation's environmental lobby has upped the ante, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into TV and radio ads, mailers and automated "robo" phone calls in a bid to oust him from Congress in the fall elections.
The environmental groups have been eagerly joined by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org, labor unions and liberal groups who see defeating Pombo as part of a broader strategy to end 12 years of Republican control of the House.
As a result, the 45-year-old seven-term lawmaker is facing his toughest re-election fight, including a challenge by former Republican Rep. Paul "Pete" McCloskey in Tuesday's primary.
Although Pombo is widely expected to win the primary with the backing of his conservative base, recent polls suggest he may be vulnerable in November. Last month the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its assessment of the race from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican."
"It's clear that the political environment nationally is taking a toll on pretty much every Republican incumbent in the country," said Amy Walter, senior editor of the Cook Political Report.
"He has had a pretty safely Republican district, but at the same time, we know his district is changing and Pombo's high profile and his combative nature have earned him some enemies," she said. "It's clear the environmental community is going to spend a lot of time and money here, and I think it's taking a toll."
Pombo is now fighting back. He's airing TV and radio ads in his district and is using his status as a powerhouse committee chairman to raise several million dollars for the race.
"In the end, it won't be that close," Pombo boasts during an evening interview, sipping Coors Lights he keeps stashed in the refrigerator in his committee office. "Once people really start focusing on this -- and once I respond to (the attacks) -- it won't end up being that close."
In fact, he is so confident he'll be re-elected in his district, which stretches from Lodi to Danville to Gilroy, that he is already laying the groundwork for an ambitious second act in Congress.
Under the six-year term limits Republicans have imposed for their House committee chairs, Pombo would be forced to give up his gavel in two years. But he recently moved into an opening as the No. 2 Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, positioning himself to replace Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who also terms out in two years.
"My goal would be to take agriculture into the next century and get away from the 100-year-old idea of subsidizing agriculture," Pombo said.
If he had his way, the next farm bill would start to wean Midwest corn farmers and other big crop growers off direct subsidies. He points to New Zealand, which moved to a consumption tax, allowing farmers and ranchers to boost their profits by paying no tax on exports. To do so in America, he admits, would require a radical overhaul of the federal tax code.
"Whether we go to a flat tax, a consumption tax or whatever, you change the tax code so it encourages export and guys will export," Pombo said.
Even floating the idea of switching committees could pay political dividends. The prospect of chairing the Agriculture Committee could attract even more campaign donations from ranching and farming interests, and strengthen his hand in the half of his district in San Joaquin County, where agriculture is still the dominant industry.
Pombo, who leapfrogged his way to power as an ally of former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, is making his seniority in Congress a key selling point in his race for re-election, talking about his ability to secure federal money for levee repairs and highway projects.
"Being chairman of a committee in the majority party, it makes a big difference," he said. "There are things I can do that someone else couldn't do."
In Congress, Pombo plays up his agricultural roots. He wears black ostrich skin boots beneath his dark business suit. He is built like a baseball catcher, the position he played in high school and still plays in the annual congressional baseball game. He is plain-spoken with a country twang, and when he gets excited, especially about environmental issues, his voice cracks like a teenager's.
In the corridors of the Capitol, most Democrats are unfailingly polite to Pombo -- at least partly because they need his approval to move any bill involving public lands in their home states. But during major committee votes, including the recent debate over his fisheries bill, they are more likely to accuse the chairman of gutting environmental laws.
"It does not matter if we are debating drilling for oil, cutting trees or depleting fisheries, no Republican legislation is apparently complete without language weakening or waiving" environmental rules, said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., the panel's top Democrat.
Seated beside Rahall, Pombo rolls his eyes. He's used to the rhetoric, but it still annoys him. But Pombo also has a flair for the dramatic. At his signal, Resources Committee staffers drop 11 phone-book-size binders on the desk -- all part of one regional fishery council's environmental reviews of the effects of fishing on Steller sea lions in Alaska. Each one lands with a thud. The books, Pombo said, suggest that much of the analysis required under current law is duplicative.
After hours of fiery debate and some last-minute concessions by Pombo, several Democrats agree to back the bill, which is passed by the committee on a 26-15 vote. Pombo has won another round against the "enviros."
Ever since he took over as chairman of the Resources Committee in 2003, environmental groups have watched Pombo with increasing alarm. First, he pushed through the Healthy Forests bill to thin forests through logging. Then he led the drive to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
He succeeded last year in passing a bill in the House to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, although the effort has stalled this year. Now he wants to rewrite the National Environmental Policy Act, called the Magna Carta of environmental laws, and give states the authority to drill for oil and gas off their coasts.
"Everywhere you turn, it is just remarkable how obsessed he is with weakening, eliminating or eviscerating our federal conservation laws," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.
Last October, Schlickeisen commissioned a poll that found that Pombo's re-election support was under 50 percent, a troubling sign for any incumbent. The poll also suggested that many of Pombo's constituents did not share his views on the Endangered Species Act.
So the group's political arm, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, began a series of automated calls criticizing Pombo's environmental record and accusing him of ethical lapses. The group has aired TV ads and five spots on drive-time radio. Organizers even rented a recreational vehicle and drove it around Pombo's district to satirize a trip the Tracy lawmaker took with his family through the national parks in 2003 at taxpayer expense.
The Sierra Club began running new radio ads last week highlighting Pombo's ties to oil companies, while the League of Conservation Voters is making calls and mailing brochures urging voters to support McCloskey. Humane USA Political Action Committee has sent more than 6,000 letters to members of animal welfare groups in the district, criticizing Pombo's views.
The outside groups have gotten under Pombo's skin, but he insists he is not worried about losing his seat. However, he is watching the race closely: Each morning he gets up at 5 a.m. to listen to talk radio and check the morning papers in his district online from a row house divided into apartments that he shares with two fellow GOP lawmakers, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma and Sam Graves of Missouri.
Since his first razor-thin victory in 1992 as a little-known Tracy city councilman, Pombo has won relatively easily, and he knows it would take a major Democratic or anti-incumbent tide to unseat him in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 7 percentage points.
"What everyone forgets is the district that I originally won was a majority Democrat district, and I've consistently polled 60 percent," he said. "When you look at what they gave me out of the East Bay (after redistricting) it was historically what a Democrat couldn't win. That's why they put it in my district."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Pombo
Party: Republican
Age: 45
Hometown: Tracy, San Joaquin County
Career: House member, 1992-present; member, Tracy City Council, 1990-92; co-author of a book advocating private property rights; family involved in a variety of ranching and real estate interests in San Joaquin County
Education: Attended California State Polytechnic University at Pomona
Accomplishments: Chairman, House Resources Committee; co-founded the San Joaquin County Citizens Land Alliance; co-author of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that encourages domestic oil production; has been working to revamp the Endangered Species Act
Web site: richardpombo.com
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
ENVIRONMENTAL PUSH AND PULL
INCUMBENT: Richard Pombo confident despite fiercer attacks from 'enviros'
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Sunday, June 4, 2006
Washington -- From the moment he wakes up in his small Capitol Hill apartment until his last roll call vote, Rep. Richard Pombo's daily life in Congress is a one-man battle against environmentalists.
On a recent morning, it begins in his black Ford Explorer, shuttling between an interview at Fox News and his office at the Capitol. In the front passenger seat, Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, is prepping for a vote on his new bill to overhaul how the nation's fisheries are managed.
From the backseat, his press aide delivers the day's first bad news: A Washington Post editorial, echoing concerns by environmental groups, warns that his bill could weaken federal protections for depleted fish species.
"Yeah, I know," Pombo says sarcastically. "I'm 'gutting the fisheries.' "
He glances at the editorial quickly and lets out a big sigh. "It's so frustrating. They get this stuff from the enviros and they just run with it, as if there is no reason to question it."
The clash is not new -- the Tracy Republican, a cattle rancher and avid property rights activist, has been sparring with environmentalists since he was first elected to Congress in 1992.
But this year the nation's environmental lobby has upped the ante, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into TV and radio ads, mailers and automated "robo" phone calls in a bid to oust him from Congress in the fall elections.
The environmental groups have been eagerly joined by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org, labor unions and liberal groups who see defeating Pombo as part of a broader strategy to end 12 years of Republican control of the House.
As a result, the 45-year-old seven-term lawmaker is facing his toughest re-election fight, including a challenge by former Republican Rep. Paul "Pete" McCloskey in Tuesday's primary.
Although Pombo is widely expected to win the primary with the backing of his conservative base, recent polls suggest he may be vulnerable in November. Last month the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its assessment of the race from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican."
"It's clear that the political environment nationally is taking a toll on pretty much every Republican incumbent in the country," said Amy Walter, senior editor of the Cook Political Report.
"He has had a pretty safely Republican district, but at the same time, we know his district is changing and Pombo's high profile and his combative nature have earned him some enemies," she said. "It's clear the environmental community is going to spend a lot of time and money here, and I think it's taking a toll."
Pombo is now fighting back. He's airing TV and radio ads in his district and is using his status as a powerhouse committee chairman to raise several million dollars for the race.
"In the end, it won't be that close," Pombo boasts during an evening interview, sipping Coors Lights he keeps stashed in the refrigerator in his committee office. "Once people really start focusing on this -- and once I respond to (the attacks) -- it won't end up being that close."
In fact, he is so confident he'll be re-elected in his district, which stretches from Lodi to Danville to Gilroy, that he is already laying the groundwork for an ambitious second act in Congress.
Under the six-year term limits Republicans have imposed for their House committee chairs, Pombo would be forced to give up his gavel in two years. But he recently moved into an opening as the No. 2 Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, positioning himself to replace Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who also terms out in two years.
"My goal would be to take agriculture into the next century and get away from the 100-year-old idea of subsidizing agriculture," Pombo said.
If he had his way, the next farm bill would start to wean Midwest corn farmers and other big crop growers off direct subsidies. He points to New Zealand, which moved to a consumption tax, allowing farmers and ranchers to boost their profits by paying no tax on exports. To do so in America, he admits, would require a radical overhaul of the federal tax code.
"Whether we go to a flat tax, a consumption tax or whatever, you change the tax code so it encourages export and guys will export," Pombo said.
Even floating the idea of switching committees could pay political dividends. The prospect of chairing the Agriculture Committee could attract even more campaign donations from ranching and farming interests, and strengthen his hand in the half of his district in San Joaquin County, where agriculture is still the dominant industry.
Pombo, who leapfrogged his way to power as an ally of former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, is making his seniority in Congress a key selling point in his race for re-election, talking about his ability to secure federal money for levee repairs and highway projects.
"Being chairman of a committee in the majority party, it makes a big difference," he said. "There are things I can do that someone else couldn't do."
In Congress, Pombo plays up his agricultural roots. He wears black ostrich skin boots beneath his dark business suit. He is built like a baseball catcher, the position he played in high school and still plays in the annual congressional baseball game. He is plain-spoken with a country twang, and when he gets excited, especially about environmental issues, his voice cracks like a teenager's.
In the corridors of the Capitol, most Democrats are unfailingly polite to Pombo -- at least partly because they need his approval to move any bill involving public lands in their home states. But during major committee votes, including the recent debate over his fisheries bill, they are more likely to accuse the chairman of gutting environmental laws.
"It does not matter if we are debating drilling for oil, cutting trees or depleting fisheries, no Republican legislation is apparently complete without language weakening or waiving" environmental rules, said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., the panel's top Democrat.
Seated beside Rahall, Pombo rolls his eyes. He's used to the rhetoric, but it still annoys him. But Pombo also has a flair for the dramatic. At his signal, Resources Committee staffers drop 11 phone-book-size binders on the desk -- all part of one regional fishery council's environmental reviews of the effects of fishing on Steller sea lions in Alaska. Each one lands with a thud. The books, Pombo said, suggest that much of the analysis required under current law is duplicative.
After hours of fiery debate and some last-minute concessions by Pombo, several Democrats agree to back the bill, which is passed by the committee on a 26-15 vote. Pombo has won another round against the "enviros."
Ever since he took over as chairman of the Resources Committee in 2003, environmental groups have watched Pombo with increasing alarm. First, he pushed through the Healthy Forests bill to thin forests through logging. Then he led the drive to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
He succeeded last year in passing a bill in the House to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, although the effort has stalled this year. Now he wants to rewrite the National Environmental Policy Act, called the Magna Carta of environmental laws, and give states the authority to drill for oil and gas off their coasts.
"Everywhere you turn, it is just remarkable how obsessed he is with weakening, eliminating or eviscerating our federal conservation laws," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.
Last October, Schlickeisen commissioned a poll that found that Pombo's re-election support was under 50 percent, a troubling sign for any incumbent. The poll also suggested that many of Pombo's constituents did not share his views on the Endangered Species Act.
So the group's political arm, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, began a series of automated calls criticizing Pombo's environmental record and accusing him of ethical lapses. The group has aired TV ads and five spots on drive-time radio. Organizers even rented a recreational vehicle and drove it around Pombo's district to satirize a trip the Tracy lawmaker took with his family through the national parks in 2003 at taxpayer expense.
The Sierra Club began running new radio ads last week highlighting Pombo's ties to oil companies, while the League of Conservation Voters is making calls and mailing brochures urging voters to support McCloskey. Humane USA Political Action Committee has sent more than 6,000 letters to members of animal welfare groups in the district, criticizing Pombo's views.
The outside groups have gotten under Pombo's skin, but he insists he is not worried about losing his seat. However, he is watching the race closely: Each morning he gets up at 5 a.m. to listen to talk radio and check the morning papers in his district online from a row house divided into apartments that he shares with two fellow GOP lawmakers, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma and Sam Graves of Missouri.
Since his first razor-thin victory in 1992 as a little-known Tracy city councilman, Pombo has won relatively easily, and he knows it would take a major Democratic or anti-incumbent tide to unseat him in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 7 percentage points.
"What everyone forgets is the district that I originally won was a majority Democrat district, and I've consistently polled 60 percent," he said. "When you look at what they gave me out of the East Bay (after redistricting) it was historically what a Democrat couldn't win. That's why they put it in my district."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Pombo
Party: Republican
Age: 45
Hometown: Tracy, San Joaquin County
Career: House member, 1992-present; member, Tracy City Council, 1990-92; co-author of a book advocating private property rights; family involved in a variety of ranching and real estate interests in San Joaquin County
Education: Attended California State Polytechnic University at Pomona
Accomplishments: Chairman, House Resources Committee; co-founded the San Joaquin County Citizens Land Alliance; co-author of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that encourages domestic oil production; has been working to revamp the Endangered Species Act
Web site: richardpombo.com
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...L&type=politics