CARPINTERIA — Admitting he’d known little about the issue before running for governor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger touted his plans for the environment Sunday by pledging to cut air pollution in half and reduce energy use by 20 percent in five to eight years.

Appearing on a bluff overlooking beaches blackened in the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Schwarzenegger called clean air, clean water and healthy forests a “birthright of every Californian.”

“Those things result in a more productive work force and also in a healthier economy,” he said. “We don’t have to choose between protecting our environment and protecting our jobs. We can do both. All we need is strong leadership.” The Republican front-runner outlined his plan over the shouts of about 20 sign-waving protesters who were disrupted briefly when a Schwarzenegger supporter tried to wrestle a bullhorn from one demonstrator. Police stepped in and broke up the scuffle.

Schwarzenegger’s proposals were the most detailed he has presented since he entered the race to replace Gov. Gray Davis in August.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments today on the recall election. Because of public interest, the appeals court is allowing C-SPAN to telecast the 1 p.m. proceeding, during which an 11-judge panel will reconsider a smaller panel’s ruling postponing the election.

On Sunday, environmentalists criticized Schwarzenegger for being short on specifics, while his leading Republican opponent’s campaign attacked him for abandoning GOP principles.

Schwarzenegger’s proposals would encourage the development of hydrogen-powered cars, the quick removal of polluting vehicles from the state’s roads, construction of solar-powered homes and the retrofitting of existing buildings with energy-efficient technology.

His plan calls for reducing freeway congestion by charging less in bridge tolls during off-peak hours and updating plans to protect Lake Tahoe’s water clarity.

It also seeks the creation of a Sierra Nevada Mountains Conservancy to protect the Sierra Nevada range and declares his support for the Sierra Nevada Framework, a forest protection plan.

His advisers said they didn’t know the cost of his proposals, many of which rely on getting federal and private investment, rather than state funds.

Pedro Nava, a state coastal commissioner and Vote the Coast board member, attended the news conference but said Schwarzenegger’s staff forced him to stand outside the police lines surrounding the site.

“This is a charade,” Nava said. “This guy has no environmental background or history.”

Nava opposes the recall and supports Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as a replacement should Davis be recalled.

John Stoos, deputy campaign manager for Schwarzenegger’s leading GOP opponent, state Sen. Tom McClintock of Simi Valley, said Schwarzenegger’s plan showed Schwarzenegger is “ashamed to be a Republican,” because he differed with President Bush’s forest and clean-air policies.

With two hydrogen-powered vehicles parked alongside the stage, Schwarzenegger said Sunday he would sign an executive order to create a “hydrogen highway.” It would encourage the establishment of hydrogen fueling stations every 20 miles on the state’s major freeways by 2010 to prod auto manufacturers to build hydrogen-powered cars.

His aides said the plan would cost about $60 million, most of it from federal and private sources. Some would come from the state, but they couldn’t say how much.

Protesters and environmentalists, meanwhile, criticized Schwarzenegger for being the driving force behind one of the least fuel-efficient vehicles on the road, the Hummer, which gets 10 to 11 miles to the gallon.

Schwarzenegger said he persuaded the automobile industry to turn the military vehicle into a civilian one 11 years ago.

Now, he said, he’s turning his Hummer into a hydrogen-powered vehicle in the hope that will convince the manufacturer to produce hydrogen-powered Hummers.

Asked why he didn’t convert his vehicle sooner, he said, “I’m not perfect.”

“The things I have learned in the last month are spectacular,” he said. “I have never known you could take a car you had” and convert it to hydrogen fuel.

His plan also calls for incentives for homes to be built with solar power, with a goal of having half of all new homes solar-powered by 2005.

He also proposed speeding up the state’s conversion to renewable energy sources so that it will meet its goal of 20 percent renewable energy supply seven years earlier — by 2010.

As Schwarzenegger spoke, Bustamante and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo met in San Jose at a forum sponsored by the Pacific Institute of Community Organization, a nonpartisan, multi-ethnic coalition of church-based community groups focused on the concerns of low-and moderate-income Californians.

There was little disagreement in the opinions the two candidates expressed, each saying they would direct more government attention and public funds toward health care, affordable housing and education. Camejo stressed he would pay for that by hiking state income taxes on the wealthy, whom he asserted now pay a smaller share of their wages in taxes than do lower-income workers.

“I’m calling for a fair tax,” Camejo told the crowd of several hundred packed into a stuffy high school gym. “Why shouldn’t they pay what you pay?”

Both men also voiced support for granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, a position that was met with loud applause by an audience that included a large percentage of Latino workers and parents. One of them, Maria Cabrera, was near tears as she told the candidates in Spanish how she had to ride a bus to see her ill daughter in a hospital.

“I’m alone, frustrated and sad,” said Cabrera, 34, of San Jose.

“Having a license,” Bustamante said in his response, “is a basic right for anybody who works hard, plays by the rules, pays taxes (and does) not get in trouble with the law.”

Bustamante, replying to a question about his housing policies, also won applause as he recounted growing up in a crowded home in the Central Valley city of Dinuba and living in his current Elk Grove house.

“I don’t live in a house like Arnold does, with 12 bathrooms,” he said. “I live in a regular house.”