FRESNO — No politician in California has ever managed to touch it. For nearly 60 years, thanks to rural tradition and state law, agriculture has been exempt from clean-air rules.
Even as the San Joaquin Valley has emerged as the smoggiest region in the nation, farmers continue to enjoy a special status, burning their uprooted trees and vines in big bonfires and plowing their fields into great clouds of dust.
But the days of wide-open farm pollution in the valley may be nearing an end. Last week, state Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), one of agriculture's most loyal supporters here, walked into the state Capitol and did the heretical. He introduced a package of bills that, if passed, will stop agricultural burning in California and make cotton, fruit, vegetable and dairy farmers answer to the state and federal Clean Air acts for the first time.
Environmental groups call the legislation historic. Some farmers consider it a betrayal, while others plan a concerted fight to water down several of the 10 bills. Pollsters say Florez's timing could not be better, with surveys showing air quality as a top concern of valley voters.
"It's a gutsy move because it shows that Dean is willing to challenge agriculture on a sensitive issue," said Carol Whiteside of the Great Valley Center, a nonpartisan Modesto-based think tank. "But no issue moves politically until it's ripe, and the issue of air quality is ripe in the valley. Over the past few years, growth and air quality have become the No. 1 and No. 2 concerns of voters here. Like any politician worth his salt, Dean has a good antenna."
Veteran political observers say Florez, a maverick Democrat, is a savvy politician with an eye toward higher office. As an assemblyman last year, Florez proved he was willing to cause a stir. He pushed so hard in committee hearings that exposed a no-bid $95-million computer contract with Oracle Corp. that he embarrassed Gov. Gray Davis' administration. That earned him a reputation for calculated political risk and, many believe, got him fired from a committee chairmanship.
Now the Harvard-educated freshman senator is proposing to take on the San Joaquin Valley's No. 1 employer by imposing new regulations on agriculture. If air quality has emerged as an issue dear to a voter's heart here, this region also happens to be the Bible Belt of California, where conservative viewpoints, including pro-business arguments, resound.
