On Tuesday, a group formed by Governor Doyle to work on the Great Lakes Compact met for two hours in the Governor’s office.
As a member of the Wisconsin Legislative Council Special Committee on the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact, and as the state Senator representing New Berlin and the Waukesha area that will be affected by the Compact, I should have been notified about the meeting and invited. I was not.
Darryl Enriquez of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel interviewed me Tuesday about the meeting and writes about it in today’s paper:
“Lazich (R-New Berlin) is fighting a key detail in the compact, one of several that show the deep political and economic divisions that have brought work to a standstill.
The legislative group headed by state Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn) has a Sept. 15 deadline to complete its work. It is reconvening today after a lengthy lull.
Lazich's beef with the federal version of the compact is that any proposal to divert water outside the Great Lakes drainage basin can be vetoed by a single governor. As outlined in the accord, a diversion must be unanimously approved.
Lazich is working to change that provision so that only a simple majority vote of the eight Great Lakes states governors is needed for approval of a diversion project.
Her stance is viewed as an obstruction to compact approval.
"The compact is so flawed that it gives one governor veto power and no recourse," Lazich said. "I'm very much an obstructionist to the single veto. I'm very much a supporter to preserving the Great Lakes."
Lazich said she was upset about not receiving an invite to the governor's working group.
A governor's spokesman said that seven members of the Kedzie committee attended the working group, along with governor's staff, state Department of Natural Resources staff, environmentalists and others.
"Was there a meeting of the Kedzie committee and I wasn't notified?" Lazich asked. "I am very, very concerned, and I will make this an issue at the start of the compact group meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) morning."You can read the entire Journal/Sentinel article
here.At the beginning of today’s meeting, I asked for a show of hands of those committee members who attended Tuesday’s meeting at the Governor’s office. Seven people raised their hands, many of whom are members of the same Great Lakes Compact subcommittee that I serve on.
I reiterated my concern that I represent an area that has a great deal at stake on this issue, and yet was not notified or invited to Tuesday’s meeting. I then respectfully asked some of the members who did attend to give a brief summary of what transpired so I could have the same frame of reference before today’s committee proceedings began.
There was a quorum of members of the subcommittee I serve on at Tuesday’s meeting in the Governor’s office. That is very troubling, especially since I have been critical of the compact. I have referred to the Compact as a flawed document that is bad for public health, bad for the environment, bad for economic development, and generally bad public policy.
At today’s committee meeting, I requested that Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School be invited to speak to the Great Lakes committee. Squillace has written a research paper titled Rethinking the Great Lakes Compact. The Compact’s ideal goal is to protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage the Great Lakes waters. Squillace writes the prescription in the Compact is sorely inadequate for achieving the stated goal.
The Compact is so problematic that Squillace suggests chucking it entirely and starting from scratch. The research paper published in the Michigan State Law Review can be found
here.Committee chair, Senator Kedzie said he will consider my request to add Squillace to a future committee agenda.
