Midterm season is fast approaching. In November we'll head to the ballot to vote for our state's executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The results could dramatically reshape each institution come 2023.

That means these remaining months of 2022 could very well be a time of intense legislative action. As lawmakers feel political winds change, they may seek to pass their landmark legislation and advance agendas with more tenacity.

This leaves us with many exciting opportunities to pass legislation a long time coming that make our nature and communities stronger. There are bills that will give every school and childcare center lead-free drinking water. Other bills would better keep over a million septic systems from spilling into our lakes and streams.
There are, of course, a few threatening bills in the works, too. One set could ramp up ethanol production, a move that would only create more pollution and higher gas prices. Another set might make it easier for mines to pollute.

Join the Michigan Environmental Council's water policy director Megan Tinsley, chief policy officer Charlotte Jameson, and President & CEO Conan Smith as they share the great opportunities and potential threats ahead for our state and planet in what will surely be a busy fall.

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The Capitol Connection webinar series is generously sponsored by: 

Steve & Judy Dobson

Gas prices are slowly dropping across the state and nation, as they have been for two months. That’s thanks to an increase in gasoline production, federal initiatives, and a cutback on driving.

It’s what economists call the “rocket and feather” effect. Gas prices shoot up quickly and fall slowly. Unlike a falling feather, though, the slow drop in gas costs is painful. Gas prices are still abnormally high. That in turn, is making the cost of many products, which are dependent on vehicles, to be abnormally high, too.

People have endured this expensive cost of living for too long. For some, it’s a frequent inconvenience. For others, it’s another dent in their already too-strained paychecks, a sacrifice of comfort.

The Huron River should be known as a prime place in Southeast Michigan to kayak, fish, and take in the beauty of nature. Unfortunately, companies like Tribar Manufacturing continuously threaten these activities by polluting our water. Tribar's made fish and beef unsafe to eat by spilling PFAS, and in August it spilled the chemical hexavalent chromium into the Huron River.

Tribar is the most infamous, recent example of a company that is not held accountable for its pollution. Without accountability, change does not happen. Join the Rebecca Esselman, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, as we discuss what happened with Tribar and how it speaks to the need for laws that keep companies from polluting.

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The Capitol Connection webinar series is generously sponsored by: 

Steve & Judy Dobson

For years, Groundwork Center—a Michigan Environmental Council member group—has worked to make the dream of passenger trains in northern Michigan a reality. The organization wants to provide ways to connect the communities in the region and to the metropolitan southeast, making travel easier for not just vacationing but for more everyday wants and needs, too.

This summer, the advocacy paid off. A northern Michigan state senator helped secure major funding for a study looking into the potential for a Traverse City-to-Ann Arbor railway service. A little while later the US Department of Transportation announced it would provide the remaining funding necessary.

This is no small step. It comes off of millions of dollars in railway repairs made and a preliminary study in 2018.

"The next 18 months are crucial to the project, and we’re hopeful this will lead to the beginning stages of service within five years," said Jim Bruckbauer, director of Groundwork's transportation and community design program.

Join Jim and Carolyn Ulstad, Groundwork's transportation program manager, as they discuss why a north-to-south railway is important for the communities along the route, our state's economy, and the environment.

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The Capitol Connection webinar series is generously sponsored by: 

Steve & Judy Dobson

Another year, another bad algal bloom for Lake Erie, another lackluster government effort to prevent it. Join Megan Tinsley, the Michigan Environmental Council's water policy director, and a local business owner as they share the devastating impact poisonous algal blooms can have on our environment, economy, health, and happiness. They'll also share the solutions they're advocating for in Lansing and beyond.

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Can't make the event live? Register and we'll send you a recording.

The Capitol Connection webinar series is generously sponsored by: 

Steve & Judy Dobson

Once it's complete, you could run a full marathon on the Joe Louis Greenway… and then some. You could bike it and pass through 23 neighborhoods, four cities, and a smattering of art installations. You could walk it and veer off to go shopping for gifts or groceries, or you could stop and stare out at Canada across the Detroit River.

The City of Detroit's Joe Louis Greenway is and will be far more than just a trail to get your exercise on. It will be a place that connects communities, strengthens neighborhoods, protects nature, and gives people more options to get to where they want conveniently and safely.

And although it has a few more years of construction to go, its fans believe the Joe Louis could be the national standard for greenways, which are designated, protected paths used for both travel and environmental protection.

Among the greenway's first and most consistent supporters are Todd Scott and Mark Wallace, leaders of member groups Detroit Greenways Coalition and Detroit Riverfront Conservancy respectively. Christina Peltier, of the City of Detroit, has been instrumental in seeing the Joe Louis Greenway's construction through.

Join them and Environmental Council President & CEO Conan Smith as they share the history of the Joe Louis Greenway from infancy to eventual completion and what it will mean for the people that use it or live by it.

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Can't make the event live? Register and we'll send you a recording.

The Capitol Connection webinar series is generously sponsored by: 

Steve & Judy Dobson

This is big. Like, really big. 

It's not often we get to celebrate a truly good environmental win. Sometimes good legislation is dead on arrival. Sometimes it stalls out as a new guard of politicians arrives. And sometimes good policy is paired with the ambivalent or bad.

But on March 30, Gov. Whitmer signed into law $2.5 billion in funding to better water, parks and communities, and it's almost wholly good news. It stems from earlier proposals by Gov. Whitmer and Republican Sen. Jon Bumstead, and it's supported by leadership from both political parties.

It began with a skim through the Yellow Pages.

Lynn McIntosh needed an environmental lawyer. Her thick phonebook yielded only one: AJ Birkbeck, Fulcrum Law.

So she gave him a call, and a short while later she was driving from small-town Rockford to East Grand Rapids in her rundown ’97 Mercury van.

Healthier, more affordable homes; cleaned-up communities; and a premiere electric vehicle workforce could soon be coming to Michigan.

It was all in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's vision for billions in unused American Rescue Plan dollars, which she revealed Monday afternoon.

The Michigan Environmental Council applauded her proposal, noting its emphasis on clean energy jobs and smart development will create financial and environmental resiliency.

This blog post is the first in of "Bellringers," a quarterly series highlighting the major accomplishments of Michigan Environmental Council member groups.

When torrential rain hit Sandra Turner-Handy’s Detroit home in late June, her basement was immediately flooded.

She spent the next few days pumping out water, throwing out furniture, fixing a busted water heater and, worst of all, discarding the personal keepsakes of her late mother.

Then came two other “once-a-century” storms.