Its just a ploy to get the issue before the voters. They will equate Simon with the devil and give Davis a passing grade when the election is near.
I too have observed very high regulatory control in riperian zones around rivers on private land. They regulated our logging and kept us out of river zones. What else could they do except plant spotted owls in the forest?
What they were after was no-cut buffers on the non-fish bearing creaks and seasonal streams. As stated in the article:
The rules do not contain protections for streams without fish or gullies that become watercourses during the rainy season. The large landowners presented maps to the Board when these rules were debated showing in graphic detail how these buffers would overlap one another, thus rendering over half of their land off-limits to logging.
The enviro's are right in that the big companies are benefiting from the status quo. This is because the timber industry has always been plagued by over production. Regulation always falls heaviest on the smallest, thus we now have regional monopolies in California's timber industry - they are the only ones that can afford to do business here. These regulations restict production from the small private landowners thus preventing unwanted competition. Saving the fish hell - it's a protection racket.