Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on February 24, 2009, the House version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009-2010 budget for a proposed "Department of Conservation," which would combine the Department of Natural Resources and the Departmment of Environmental Quality. The DNR portion would appropriate $287.9 million in gross spending, compared to $289.9 million, which was the FY 2008-2009 amount enrolled in 2008. Of this, $9.5 million will come from the general fund (funded by actual state tax revenues), compared to the FY 2008-2009 amount of $10.6 million. Another $214.5 million comes from other state sources including debt, fees, royalties, etc., compared to $219.1 million in the previous budget. $54.7 million is from federal revenue. The DEQ portion would appropriate $338.6 million in gross spending, compared to $363.9 million, which was the FY 2008-2009 amount enrolled in 2008. Of this, $28.7 million will come from the general fund (funded by actual state tax revenues), compared to the FY 2008-2009 amount of $44.4 million, and $171.5 million is from other state sources including debt, fees, royalties, etc., compared to $170.0 million in the previous budget. $130.2 million is from federal revenue

The vote was 78 in favor, 30 opposed and 2 not voting

(House Roll Call 322 at House Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

 

Senator Brater, under her constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of House Bill No. 4446 and moved that the statement she made during the discussion of the bill be printed as her reasons for voting “no.”

The motion prevailed.

Senator Brater’s statement is as follows:

I rise again, regretfully, to oppose this budget. First of all, it is vastly underfunded. This budget, just to remind the members, puts together the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Natural Resources in one department. I don’t oppose that idea of putting the two departments together. I don’t think it should be done in a budget bill because in order to really save money by blending these two departments, we really have to spend some time looking at merging programs.

For example, fisheries in DNR and water quality in DEQ could be put together for some real savings and for some good public policy outcomes. If you just blend these two departments without doing any of that analysis of what programs to put together, you will come up with about $2 million in administrative costs. There is a lot more savings that could potentially be realized if we just took some time to do this correctly.

In addition, I have a strong concern about the underfunding of both of these departments. We are constitutionally mandated to have programs in place that protect the natural resources of this state. We are the only state in the United States that is completely surrounded by the Great Lakes. We have four of the Great Lakes surrounding our state. We have one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the nation, and yet, we are slashing the meager General Fund funding that these departments have.

I am told by the Department of Natural Resources, for example, that the next emerald ash borer is already here, but they just don’t have the personnel to go and identify it. We have unfunded remediation programs going on. We are issuing permits without having money to fund monitoring and compliance. There are many, many deficiencies in this budget that we are adopting today. I think it is incumbent upon this Legislature to identify the means to fund these operations properly.