CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Oil Spill Bill Must Be Watered Down

A proposal to impose hefty fees on oil companies to build an oil spill cleanup fund and to make company employees and officials criminally liable for spills suffered a major setback in a state Senate panel. The Natural Resources Committee, which generally is friendly to environmental causes, approved the measure to keep it alive, but with the understanding that the author will present a new, less stringent bill. The decision upset the plans of the measure’s Democratic backers--Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and Controller Gray Davis--who wanted to move it through the Legislature quickly so oil companies would have less time to pick it apart.