On Feb. 6, Michigan’s Republican-led state House of Representatives voted to do something the state legislature hasn’t done since 1977: overturn an executive order given by a sitting governor. During the coming week, the state Senate, which is also in Republican hands, will hold hearings and possibly a vote to join them.
At issue is Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Executive Order 2019 -03, which, among other things, abolishes “polluter panels” of industry representatives who have been given veto authority over the state’s environmental regulators. In other words, the question is about who should have the ultimate power to set the state’s environmental regulations: experts appointed by a governor who has been elected by the state’s voters, or corporate interests who are beholden only to their shareholders?
The panels were created by the Republican legislature and signed into law by former Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018 over the objection of his own top environmental regulator, C. Heidi Grether, a former BP executive. On Feb. 6, Grether issued a letter supporting Whitmer’s move to abolish the panels.
Under the new law, one of the panels, called the Environmental Rules Review Committee, is to have a voting membership made up almost entirely of industry representatives, including proxies from the solid waste, oil and gas, and public utility industries. State regulators, on the other hand, don’t get a single vote on the panel, which has the authority to overrule any and all new environmental regulations proposed by the state.
Another panel was given the power to hear permit appeals, potentially making the process even easier for polluters.
Whitmer signed her executive order on Feb. 4, and a mere two days later the state House voted to overrule it by a straight 58-51 party-line vote.
In response, Whitmer said in a statement to the media that House Republicans had just, “on a party line vote, voted down protections for drinking water,” according a report on MLive.com. “Today’s actions endanger our public and threatens to burn bridges, and that’s unfortunate, because there are a lot of people in this state that are counting on us to clean up drinking water.”
The governor has also asked Attorney General Dana Nessel to issue an opinion on the legality of the Republican and Michigan Chamber of Commerce-backed panels. According to the governor’s request, in 2018 the federal Environmental Protection Agency “raised serious concerns” about the law establishing the panels, including the fact that it “lacked conflict-of-interest protections required under the Clean Air Act.”
In effect, even Donald Trump’s EPA thought the panels might be too pro-business.
Meanwhile, a representative of the same political party that originally voted to put regulatory power in the hands of private industry called Whitmer’s executive order an example of government overreach. Republican Rep. Jim Lower, who sponsored the state House resolution to protect the polluter panels, said that Whitmer’s executive order “constituted a direct attack” on legislative powers, according to the MLive report.
Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield agreed, saying that the house resolution to protect the industry panels is “… literally talking about giving the people that we serve a voice,” according to a report by the nonprofit Michigan Advance news site.
Michigan’s Republican-led state Senate will take up the resolution to abolish Gov. Whitmer’s executive order in the coming week. Daily Kos readers who are Michigan residents can find contact information for their state senator by clicking here and entering their name and address.
Dawn Wolfe is a freelance writer and journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.