Capitol Alert

The Brown administration is preparing a proposal to limit environmental challenges to California's high-speed rail project, heightening legal standards under which a court could block construction.

The proposal could shield the $68 billion project from court-ordered injunctions that might otherwise be issued under the California Environmental Quality Act. Except in the most serious environmental cases, the proposed legislation would let construction proceed while the California High-Speed Rail Authority fixes any environmental flaws identified by a judge.

The proposal is likely to be considered by the Legislature this month or next. Environmentalists expected to be briefed by administration officials on the plan next week.

Dan Richard, chairman of the rail authority board, said the proposal consists of "pretty small, pretty technical" changes. It would allow a judge to block construction in major cases - if opponents showed, for example, that an endangered species was threatened with extinction, he said.

The proposal is almost certain to be opposed by environmentalists.

"I don't imagine that we're going to see something next week that will make us want to embrace these exemptions that they're going to be proposing," said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California.

Phillips said the rail authority's concern about environmental challenges slowing the project is misplaced.

"Environmental review is not going to slow this project," she said. "What's going to slow this project is ineptitude by the high-speed rail authority, and that's what we have seen, at least in the last four years."

Here's what Assemblyman Richard Pan did not say in announcing that he was switching homes to run in a new district: Taxpayers are footing much of the bill.

The Sacramento Democrat switched gears and requested that he be paid per diem after moving from North Natomas to the Pocket area months ago.

Beginning Jan. 4, Pan began receiving the $142 per day in living expenses that is designed to assist out-of-town lawmakers with food and housing costs while in Sacramento.

All legislators legally are entitled to per diem - about $30,000 annually - but Sacramento-area lawmakers typically do not accept it because they live within an easy commute of the Capitol.

Pan decided to move away from North Natomas after newly drawn legislative boundaries placed him in the same Assembly district with a fellow Democratic incumbent, Roger Dickinson of Sacramento.

Relocation allowed Pan to run as the only sitting legislator for the 9th Assembly District seat. The winner will represent a predominantly Democratic area from south Sacramento to Lodi.

Asked about his decision to accept per diem, Pan said, "I think the rationale is that I have to maintain two places of residence. I know that we're all trying to work things out."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said today he is uncomfortable with a proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown to limit payouts in wildfire liability cases, arguing it would involve the Legislature meddling in ongoing litigation.

The proposal, which is included in Brown's budget plan, could save timber companies millions of dollars in liability cases. It is opposed by the U.S. attorney's office, which said the measure could affect pending wildfire negligence cases against Sierra Pacific Industries and other defendants in a case involving a 2007 fire in Lassen and Plumas counties.

That case is scheduled for trial this summer, immediately after Brown is expected to sign the state budget.

Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, told reporters today that "it's not our job to decide" a case currently in the courts.

"This is one where, at a minimum, I think we need to take some time," he said.

Steinberg said the proposal could be revised to include language exempting pending litigation from any changes to the law.

But he said, "I don't know what that would do to the deal."

Between Tuesday's primary, the budget deadline and hot-button issues on tap under the dome, California political junkies are going to need a steady drip of caffeine to keep up with all that June has in store.

Capitol Alert is here to help.

A $25 gift card to a Sacramento coffee shop is yours if you secure the top slot in our 2012 primary election quiz.

This year's contest features a mix of trivia and predictions related to the June 5 balloting. The entrant with the most correct answers wins the gift card. Those playing from outside the Sacramento region can opt for Starbucks or another major chain. See all the rules at this link.

How to play: Read the questions listed after the jump and send your answers to capitolalertcontests@gmail.com by 11:59 a.m. Tuesday, June 5. The best way to submit your answers is by copying the questions into an e-mail and writing your answers below.

Even its own attorney concludes that the California Citizens Compensation Commission lacked authority to cut legislators' per diem for living expenses and eliminate their lease-car program in separate actions over the past three years.

Now the commission wants another opinion.

The independent, seven-member panel of gubernatorial appointees voted 5-1 Thursday to ask the Department of Personnel Administration to provide outside counsel to consider the scope of its control.

"So we can kind of settle this once and for all," Commissioner Scott Somers said in voting yes.

Thus far, the commission has struck out in finding a state attorney who will ratify its authority - but the issue has simmered for years because lawmakers have been reluctant to challenge cuts to their compensation.

The Department of Personnel Administration concluded in 2009 that the panel lacks authority over lawmakers' travel and living-expense subsidies, and the Attorney General's Office cited a similar rationale in opining on travel allowances last year.

Commission Chairman Tom Dalzell criticized the seven-member pay panel Thursday for balking at the advice.

"We need to stop asking for an opinion and then ask for another opinion when we don't like what it is," Dalzell said.

Gov. Jerry Brown is in Los Angeles today, slated to speak at the memorial service there for a longtime civil rights and religious leader, the Rt. Rev. Hamel Hartford Brookins.

Brookins, 86, was a bishop of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a mentor to former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others. He died May 22.

"The son of Mississippi sharecroppers, Brookins rose to prominence in the 1960s and '70s as an articulate, self-assured champion of black political empowerment," this Los Angeles Times obituary says.