Engler Muzzles Public InputBy Jim
Dulzo
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It was a scene Brenda LiveOak says she'll never forget: hundreds of people waiting their turn to address the state Air Pollution Control Commission's two-day marathon hearing. All kinds of people were there &emdash; Detroit and Wayne County officials, industry representatives, grassroots activists, world-class experts, local reporters, the passionately committed, the merely curious. Feelings ran high, but the dialogue was mostly well-reasoned and tightly focused. The subject was a tough one &emdash; the city of Detroit's municipal incinerator. In contention was the excessive levels of heavy metal that the incinerator spewed into the air, a gross violation of its Air Pollution Control Commission (APCC) permit. "When they voted to shut it down," LiveOak recalls, excitement still ringing in her rapid-fire voice, "I'll never forget the looks on everybody's faces. The commission had actually listened to all of the experts we had brought in. I was so thrilled, because, yeah, that was democracy at work." Linda Berker, a Davison lawyer and APCC member, remembers that hearing fondly too. "At times, it was like a circus," she says. "At other times it was like the most wonderful class you could ever take at one of the best universities in the country. The speakers were that diverse. There were members of the public who were absolutely eloquent. Industry had people there who were just as eloquent. It was wonderful." And even though the air commission eventually allowed the city to restart the incinerator after reaching an agreement for adding more exhaust-scrubbing equipment, LiveOak still warmly endorses the public process in which she, her activist friends and incinerator proponents engaged. Kiss it goodbye. On January 14, citizens, captains of industry and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will begin a new, still-undefined ball game. That's when Gov. John Engler's recent executive orders to abolish the Air Pollution Control Commission and 18 other similar public bodies which deal with Michigan's environment go into effect. Though the Michigan House of Representatives voted to override Engler's orders two weeks ago, the Republican-controlled state Senate, voting along party lines, refused to bring a similar motion to a floor vote. House Democrats are taking the matter to Ingham County Circuit Court, claiming that Engler is violating the state constitution's separation of powers provisions. Democrats maintain that because these committees were established by legislation, the executive branch doesn't have the power to alter them. If their case fails, gone will be a 70-year-old tradition of citizen involvement in environmental decision-making: public commissions that have overseen the DNR's design, permitting and enforcement of rules and regulations concerning surface and ground water, wildlife, fishery, hunting, forest and mineral resource, oil well drilling, marine safety, wilderness, state recreation, plastic recycling and hazardous waste management. With a few breathtaking strokes of his pen, Engler is moving all of that activity out of public forums and into the DNR, where it becomes the direct decision-making responsibility of the governor's newly appointed DNR director, Roland Harmes. Engler's orders further restructure the DNR. The department's policy-making body and chief public forum &emdash; the Natural Resources Commission &emdash; will be stripped of its regulatory authority. Its chairperson will also become a gubernatorial appointment where formerly that person was chosen through the commission, a nonpartisan process. Another order, which would have activated a Science Advisory Panel that could have been an end run around the state's new "polluters pay" laws, was withdrawn amidst the storm of controversy. Alex Sagady, who works in the Lansing office of the Michigan Lung Association, is part of that storm. "What this is is an enormous power grab," he says of the remaining three orders. "John Engler is grabbing all of the power that was formerly exercised by citizen commissions and volunteers. That power is now going to be exercised by the DNR director, which will be run by the governor's office. So much for a thousand points of light." Sagady is referring to the makeup of the targeted boards and commissions. In addition to government workers, they are heavily staffed with volunteers who take no compensation for both preparing for and attending regular, often frequent, meetings. The people who have testified to those committees have been points of light too &emdash; Americans who took their citizenship seriously. Fred Brown takes his citizenship seriously. He's a registered Republican, a longtime member and past president of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC) and, for the last seven years, a member of the seven-member Michigan Water Resources Commission, where he represents conservationists. He speaks in almost Lincolnesque prose about what will be lost when his commission folds next month. "It is a very effective public education opportunity," he says of public hearings that bring citizens, industry and government together. "When you hear each other's arguments, some learning goes on, not only by the commission, but also among the public. So far as I am aware, the (Engler) executive order has no language whatsoever in it relative to public participation." That is what has so many people so distressed. Few would argue that the boards and commissions facing Engler's tireless wrecking ball needed improvement. But three weeks before their scheduled extinction, Engler has announced no alternative plan to guarantee public input as the commissions did. A legislative committee held hearings about public input last week (with just six days public notice), but Sagady says that any new DNR input procedures those hearings trigger will not have the force of law. The DNR will be able to decide, listen politely to complaints and then politely ignore them. Engler's Press Secretary John Truscott says that the new system will allow a more integrated approach to regulating the environment &emdash; instead of dealing separately with, say, fishing, acid rain and water pollution, the new system will combine them. But environmentalists fear that the governor's real agenda is about keeping activists away from decision-making. Brown rejects the governor's argument that the changes will ensure accountability and efficiency. "Anybody who makes a decision in state government right now has got to be accountable to somebody," he says. "Ultimately, they are accountable to the courts. In terms of efficiency, it is very obvious that if one person makes a decision, it can happen a lot faster than with seven. But if that decision requires some experience in resource management, then I don't think one man is going to be any more efficient, because you still have to go somewhere else to get that expertise." Sagady says Engler's order will throw away a great deal of expertise that was available at bargain rates. "You are losing a tremendous citizen contribution to governmental effectiveness," he argues. "Look at the Air Pollution Control Commission. You have physicians, engineers, a labor union person, representatives of the Public Health and Agriculture departments, citizen representatives with expertise. You are losing all of these people that helped you make decisions before." APCC Commissioner Berker says that the elimination of meaningful public input will make the DNR's regulatory efforts less, not more, efficient. "If they don't find a better way to do this, a way to provide real administrative hearings," she says, "then they are going to increase the number of lawsuits, plain and simple." Kimberly Dunbar, a Milan resident who's spent four years organizing area citizens against a toxic waste dump and incinerator proposed for Augusta Township, says the expense of lawsuits will hit poor people the hardest. "It will probably have a disproportionate effect on lower-income communities," she says, "because political clout and litigation will count more than public access." Dunbar, however, does see at least a trace of silver lining in the gray clouds of controversy. She thinks that Michigan's environmental movement's Blanchard-era complacency is ending with a bang. Dunbar, whose anti-toxic organizing netted her a landslide victory in Milan's recent city council elections, predicts a huge backlash. Even the conservative Brown thinks Engler may have gone too far. "This is major &emdash; very, very major," says this man who abhors hyperbole. "The MUCC has been opposing this kind of effort for as long as the organization has existed, and the organization is over 50 years old. We will be involved and concerned, not only today, not only tomorrow, but down the road a long, long way." "When you cut off the open forum, you are in trouble and the system breaks down," says Nicholas Kachman, an assistant director for air and water pollution control at General Motors Corp., who served on the Air Pollution Control Commission. "The environmental problems are more serious and the public is more interested in them than ever before. If something goes wrong now, the governor won't have any excuse; he won't be able to get away from it. I wish him luck, I really do. But the way he has gone at this, I can't believe that he isn't going to stumble."
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