LANSING — Michigan House Republicans are proposing a budget plan that could slash hundreds of millions of dollars for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
Republicans say that their proposal would cut dozens of empty positions at the department, while Democrats argue that the changes would endanger the environment and human heath.
The plan would eliminate the equivalent of more than 240 positions at EGLE, including 116 positions for water quality programs.
“We talk about growing our population, but who would want to move here if we can’t offer at a bare minimum, clean water and air?” said Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou, (D) District 75, East Lansing.
That cut comes in at $200 million, close to 20% of the department’s annual budget.
State Rep. Cam Cavitt, who led the committee on EGLE funding, says that the plan makes reasonable cuts to state spending and eliminates empty positions.
“EGLE has a responsibility for making sure we have a clean environment, and I think the funding is in the budget to do that —without a doubt,” said Cavitt, (R) District 106, Cheboygan.
But Democrats argue that the proposal turns a blind eye to the state’s environmental concerns.
“The idea of just cutting, getting rid of half of the people that are around our state, testing water, making sure it’s safe, that seems like a really bad idea for our health and for the future of our tourism economy, which is the second biggest industry here in our state,” said Sen. Jeff Irwin, (D) District 15, Ann Arbor.
The House budget also cuts 30 positions from contaminated site cleanup and 28 positions from air quality programs.
“It’s really important for a state like Michigan to be able to set their own standards to protect our air and our water quality, and those are just two basic fundamentals for life,” Tsernoglou said.
House Republicans are also proposing a change to Michigan’s PFAS regulations that would prohibit them from being any stricter than federal standards.
Cavitt says that the changes would allow more development and fewer environmental restrictions.
“PFAS is more and more prevalent in more and more areas around the state as we discover it, and we’ve put some boilerplate language to address PFAS in EGLE,” he said. “They have to develop their own standards, so we’re not stopping permitting.”
Irwin, who introduced Senate Democrats’ EGLE funding proposal, says that with federal regulators easing environmental protection and climate policies, the state should be taking a greater role in conservation, not a smaller one.
“At a time like this, with the federal government rolling over to big industry, with the federal government basically rolling back protections for water and air — that’s a time when we really need the state government to step up and to be there to protect air quality and water quality,” he said.