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Battered by conservative allies who believe he's broken faith with them, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Friday replaced Cabinet Secretary Terry Tamminen, a Democrat and well-known environmental activist whose appointment two years ago was trumpeted as a show of the Republican governor's bipartisanship. Tamminen, who headed the Santa Monica-based Environment Now foundation when he became one of the governor's first major appointments in November 2003, will hold an advisory job as special assistant to the governor for energy and environmental technologies, Schwarzenegger's office announced late Friday. Fred Aguiar, who now runs the State and Consumer Services Agency, will replace Tamminen as Cabinet...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday named a former GOP assemblyman as his new cabinet secretary, a move seen as crucial within the Republican Party to balance the governor's earlier appointment of a Democratic activist as his chief of staff. He also announced creation of a new position, deputy chief of staff and senior adviser for policy development, filling it with a Republican operative. The moves were praised by the California Republican Party, which had received angry protests from grassroots organizers when Schwarzenegger named Susan Kennedy, an aide to former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, as his chief of...

...The conservative betrayal Posted: December 9, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The past few weeks have been a wakeup call to those Republicans, and especially those conservatives, who got stars in their eyes and supported movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor during the historic Gray Davis recall campaign. On the heels of a decisive defeat in the recent special election for his reform ballot initiatives, the Terminator is acting like he wants to terminate his alliance with the Republican Party. Since he has failed to even slow the nonstop spending of the California Legislature, Arnold's false reading of...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced at a press conference last week that he'd chosen one of his predecessors' top aides to run his staff, he did something else unusual for a California governor. He pulled a list from his pocket of all the senior aides he said had left his administration because they were burned out, no longer felt like spending so much time away from their families or simply desired to return to the private sector and make more money. Schwarzenegger's decision to replace outgoing Chief of Staff Pat Clarey with Susan Kennedy, a Democrat and...

Given the polarized tenor of politics these days, you would think that being a Democrat, or even an independent, in the inner sanctum of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Republican administration would feel like sneaking behind enemy lines in war or, worse, working for the other side. But a funny thing keeps happening as California moves closer to the Nov. 8 special election and Democrats seek to characterize Schwarzenegger as a right-wing partisan trying to impose the Bush agenda on the Golden State. The more Democrats accuse the governor of veering to the right, the more he keeps hiring, and promoting, Democrats...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enthused activists and unnerved business leaders with many of his early appointments to top environmental slots, is increasingly favoring industry officials for key jobs protecting California's forests, air and water. Schwarzenegger's effort to be a green Republican has been one of the principal ways the governor has depicted himself as being above Sacramento's traditional partisan divides. But in a reversal from the beginning of his tenure, it is now environmentalists who are objecting that Schwarzenegger has bent too far to one side. --snip-- "We have seen a change in the wrong direction," said Bill...

Arnold, how could you? You were the GOP’s great gubernatorial hope. Sure, you had no political experience, were “squishy” on social issues, and had married into America’s foremost Democratic family. But you were going to terminate the state’s financial problems. How could you mandate a global warming program that will leave your people drowning in red ink long after you’ve said, “Hasta la vista, baby!” Bypassing the legislature, Schwarzenegger last month signed an executive order mandating drastic cuts in so-called greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. "The debate is over," Schwarzenegger wrote July 3 in a...

Bipartisanship was “the wave of the future” last fall. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Maria Shriver talked it up at private dinner parties. In conversations, the governor took pains to learn if he was “coming off as a bipartisan guy.” It was a staple of his speeches. That was then. After a promising, though modest, start last year, Schwarzenegger has embraced a hastily developed, hazily defined, harshly partisan agenda that promises to roil the waters of California politics all year long. Notwithstanding the “theatrics” — Schwarzenegger’s own term — of seizing the national stage in this election off-year, the...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named the chair of the state's pioneering Air Resources Board as his new Environmental Protection Agency secretary Thursday, sticking with an environmentalist for the top pollution-control post. Alan C. Lloyd replaces Terry Tamminen, a former Santa Monica-based environmental activist who moved up last month to become the governor's Cabinet secretary. Lloyd, 62, has chaired the California Air Resources Board since 1999. The board has repeatedly pushed for the nation's toughest air standards, drawing challenges from the automobile industry and federal government that it is infringing on federal interstate regulations. The latest lawsuit was filed...

SACRAMENTO – The solar panels gleam like black fish scales on the roof of Mark Louvier's Santa Ana factory. They save him $2,500 a month as they pour electricity into the machines below that grind out doors and fixtures for tract homes. They also cost $1.2 million to install, way beyond Louvier's budget without the government subsidies and tax breaks he got that brought the bill down to less than $600,000. "Without the credits, I wouldn't have anything to do with it," said Louvier, president of Trimco Finish. It's businessmen like Louvier and homeowners throughout California that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A top aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the administration's plans to reduce California's oil dependence, calling Thursday for more conservation, fuel-efficient vehicles, and hydrogen power. Terry Tamminen, the governor's newly appointed Cabinet secretary, delivered the speech by videotape at a conference on transportation. It was sponsored by Calstart, a consortium of government agencies and private companies, including automakers. Tamminen said drivers should try to conserve fuel in the near-term, with the midterm goal of buying more fuel-efficient cars and the long-term goal of finding cleaner fuels than petroleum, including hydrogen. "Proper tire inflation, using your...

From Pool Guy to the Halls of Power Terry Tamminen, actor, author and tree-hugger, has held many jobs. His next: Cabinet secretary. Thirteen years ago, Terry Tamminen was a Malibu pool cleaner and part-time actor with a gift for charming influential people and a resume that chronicled more rambling than a Jack Kerouac novel. Tamminen had sold condos in Florida, managed a sheep ranch in the Midwest, helped start a bottle recycling program in Nigeria, dabbled in Shakespearean acting and measured chlorine levels for such celebrities as Madonna and Johnny Carson. His peripatetic career had taken him from California to...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - In what may signal a move to broaden his bipartisan appeal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday named environmentalist and state Environmental Protection Agency director Terry Tamminen as his new Cabinet secretary. The two moves indicate to some a desire on the part of the governor to break with more conservative policies championed by former members of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's staff who have dominated the first year of his administration. "I think it is a very positive signal that he's going to be more open to a bipartisan orientation," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for...

SAN FRANCISCO – California environmentalists urged voters on Thursday to pass Proposition 57 and 58, warning that conservation programs could suffer if the two budget measures aren't approved. State Sen. John Burton, California EPA Secretary Terry Tamminen and Maria Shriver joined state environmental leaders at a news conference in San Francisco's Presidio to pledge support for the two ballot measures aimed at fixing the state's budget problems. "You can't balance the budget on the back of the environment," said Ann Notthoff, California Advocacy Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We need a stable budget to protect California's public health...

Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger named the head of a Santa Monica conservation group his secretary of environmental protection Wednesday but appointed a North Coast timber company executive as the agency's second-in-command. Schwarzenegger's appointment of Terry Tamminen to head the state Environmental Protection Agency had been expected and was broadly cheered by environmentalists. But the governor-elect turned in a different direction for the agency's No. 2 slot, naming James Branham, government affairs chief at Pacific Lumber and an official in former Gov. Pete Wilson's administration, as Cal-EPA's undersecretary. Schwarzenegger appointed another onetime Wilson official, Los Angeles attorney Maureen Gorsen, as the agency's...

Oakland Tribune Cal-EPA nominee left of most Democrats Terry Tamminen puts governor at odds with Bush administration By Douglas FischerSTAFF WRITER Friday, November 14, 2003 - Incoming California Environmental Protection Agency boss Terry Tamminen outlined an agenda Thursday that places the Schwarzenegger administration at odds with the Bush administration, while simultaneously defending the governor-elect's decision to put a timber industry executive in the agency's No. 2 slot and Bill Jones as the state resources chief. "We have to get beyond balkanizing ourselves," Tamminen said shortly after addressing business leaders gathered for the 17th annual San Francisco Bay Decisionmakers Conference....