The State : McCarthy Assails Hodel

Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy blasted Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel’s plan to decertify the California Coastal Commission and called on Gov. George Deukmejian to intervene. Responding to a memo Hodel sent to Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, saying the commission had usurped federal authority and suggesting that the agency is having a negative impact on “development of energy resources” and “individual freedom and property rights,” McCarthy held a news conference in San Francisco in which he suggested that Hodel has exceeded his authority--and the bounds of ethical criticism. “Hodel,” he said, “has gone too far in characterizing the California Coastal Commission as un-American. . . . I think he should definitely resign.”