Echo

Michigan Conservation Voters grade lawmakers’ environmental votes

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Today the Michigan League of Conservation Voters slapped a big fat zero on 12 Michigan legislators for lousy environmental voting records. The scores are in the non-profit group’s 2009-2010 Environmental Scorecard, a report that rates the state’s elected officials based on their voting record on bills that would affect the state’s natural resources and its citizens’ environmental health. You can read the 20-page report here (PDF) or search for your Senator or Representative here. Those earning the zero-percent “Dis-Honorable Mention” include Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom (R-Muskegon). Van Woerkom is chair of the Senate Agriculture and Bioeconomy Committee and vice chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee.

Echo

Lake politics: Obama to ban fishing?

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The Internet rumor mill was working overtime this week, with stories, columns and tweets flying around that the Obama administration was going to ban recreational fishing in the Great Lakes. It all began with a column on ESPN.com by Robert Montgomery that baldly stated: “The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.”
He cites “industry experts”  — the industry being sport fishing — as warning that NOAA’s Ocean Policy Task Force is under the influence of environmental groups pushing to end sport fishing. The expert, a spokesman from fishing equipment manufacturer Shimano, said President Obama will issue an executive order for “marine spatial planning” which he believes will impact sport and recreational fishing, as well as commercial fishing, on inland lakes and rivers along with the coasts. The leap from fact to supposition was so great that ESPN.com added an editor’s note to the column after receiving more than 400 comments to the column. Executive Editor Steve Bowman wrote“… this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view.

Echo

Lake politics: Stimulate America?

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Stimulus funds for wind turbines and materials for other clean energy projects should go to companies that manufacture them in the U.S., three Great Lakes senators say. Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Casey (D-PA), along with Montana’s Jon Tester, introduced legislation to include a “buy American” provision on stimulus funds. The senators say more than three-fourths of $2 billion spent on wind-enery projects have gone to foreign companies. “Stimulating” American – rather than foreign companies – seems to be a sensible use of U.S. tax dollars.

Water

Mercury limits disregarded

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(OH) Columbus Dispatch – Since 2004, the state has allowed 42 treatment facilities, power plants and factories to ignore federal limits on dumping mercury into lakes, rivers and streams.

This year, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is considering more than 30 new requests for variances from companies that argue that the cost of keeping mercury out of the water far exceeds any benefits to wildlife and human health. More

Water

Herb Gray departs IJC frustrated by inaction on Great Lakes

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(ON) Canada.com – Nearly seven months ago, Herb Gray watched as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Lawrence Cannon, met halfway across the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls and – amid considerable fanfare – pledged to redraft and bolster a decades-old treaty aimed at protecting the Great Lakes from environmental harm.  

This week, on the eve of Gray’s departure after eight years as Canadian chairman of the International Joint Commission that oversees transboundary waters, he expressed frustration that the “very fine words” spoken by Clinton and Cannon at the bridge ceremony in June had not yet led to the launch of formal negotiations between the two countries to modernize and strengthen the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. More

Echo

President misses the boat on Asian carp danger

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(OH) Toledo Blade – Imagine a terrorist heading toward your community. Not a disgruntled Nigerian with possible ties to al-Qaeda, mind you. But a hyperactive, monster fish from Asia armed with a voracious appetite and the ability to wipe out a Great Lakes fishery valued at $7 billion.  
It’s an especially frightful scenario for Ohio and Michigan, two states looking to the sportfishing industry for help in recovering from economic ruin with more recreation and tourism. More

Echo

Look to objective facts with climate tax

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Sooner or later, Mother Nature is going to pick sides. Temperatures will rise, fall or remain relatively stable. Ocean levels either will rise precipitously, swamping coastal areas worldwide, or they won’t. Changing weather patterns will render vast swaths of currently arable land uninhabitable, or not. Alarmists like Al Gore and denialists like Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe may not live long enough to know which of their long-range climate forecasts was closer to the mark, but their great-grandchildren will know with some certainty.

Echo

Editorial: Idea for 10-cent water bottle tax is all wet

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(MI) The Detroit News – Lt. Gov. John Cherry has launched a new tax trial balloon. Cherry, for now the top Democratic contender to succeed Jennifer Granholm as governor, wants to tax water bottlers in Michigan to fund higher education scholarships. Creating this new tax is a bad idea in a state desperate for new jobs. No matter how well-intentioned their purpose, tax increases on job providers hurt employment. More

Echo

Cherry: Bottler fee could revive scholarships

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Lt. Gov. John Cherry on Thursday proposed using Michigan’s water supply to fund education. Businesses that make a profit by selling Michigan’s water should pay a fee of 10 cents per bottle, Cherry said. That money, in turn, could replace the recently dismantled Promise Scholarship, he said. “We are losing one resource — our talented workforce and the energy of our young people — and we are giving away another resource, our water, for free,” he said. “You don’t need a PhD in mathematics to know this is a terrible equation.”

Echo

Michigan DEQ details goals for water protection

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has released details of five major goals for its water protection programs.

The “Measures of Success” document focuses on ensuring safe drinking water; protecting groundwater; enhancing recreational waters; ensuring safe consumable fish; and protecting and restoring aquatic ecosystems.  More