Officials in Great Lakes Region to Act on Algae Problem, Water Diversion

Last month, Quebec City hosted a conference of the 8 Governors from the Great Lakes US States and 2 from Canadian Provinces to discuss issues facing the Great Lakes.  One of the top issues discussed was the algae blooms on Lake Erie; to which Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario pledged to a reduction of 40% by 2025.

While the pledge is a step in the right direction, environmental groups have tried to call attention to this issue for years but have been largely ignored by government officials in the region.  In 2011, a sixth of Lake Erie was covered with toxic algae blooms. It reduced fish populations, fouled beaches, and most importantly it contaminated the drinking water. The bloom produced a concentration of a liver toxin that was 1,200 times the limit set by the World Health Organization.

The drinking water contamination continues to be one of the largest issues associated with the algae blooms. Just last August, Toledo was without drinkable water for 3 days because of dangerous toxin levels.

Some environmental groups are not only angry with the delayed action, but with the announcement itself. The conference provided no details on how the reduction will be carried out nor any mechanism to ensure compliance. The governors only said that “adaptive measures” will be taken by State environmental agencies.

The Sierra Club and the Food and Water Watch believe the announcement just shows how the agricultural industry continues to remain untouchable. Since the algae blooms are largely created by agricultural runoff containing phosphorus, measures would be taken to regulate agricultural pollution. Unfortunately, no such measure was expressed in the announcement.

A spokeswoman for the Food and Water Watch issued a statement “Relying on voluntary action is irresponsible and leaves a major source of drinking water for the region at the mercy of an industry looking to profit above all else”.

Another big issue raised was whether or not Great Lakes water should be diverted to Waukesha, Wisconsin. This community has had a polluted well for years, and now the Wisconsin DNR requests access to the safe water in the Great Lakes. In order to have access, the request needs approval from all 8 Great Lakes States. Just one vote against it can deny the whole proposal.

State leaders are expected to proceed with caution in forming their response because they believe the decision will become precedent for all future water diversion requests, which will be highly significant in the near future as water becomes scarcer around the country.

Michigan will arguably be the most important voice in the matter as it is the only state completely in the Great Lakes Basin. While it is important to provide those in need with available water sources, Michigan has the most to lose if diversion requests start to flood in.

How Dark is "Dark Money"?

Dark money, money used by lobbyists to skew elections in their favor has begun to sweep the United States elections. The New York Times stated that this past November the “Senate was elected on the greatest wave of secret, special interest money ever raised in a congressional election”.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is a long-time advocate of unlimited campaign spending. His own campaign received about $23 million in unlimited spending from independent groups this past November.

It seems that Michigan is one of the biggest players in the dark money saga, if not the biggest. Director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network Rich Robinson called Michigan the “dark money capital of the world”.

In the 2014 election cycle, Michigan’s top 150 PACs raised $68 million. $3 million of this record amount was used in independent expenditures to influence the November 2014 election.

These instances are not outliers, but a trend. State lobbyists’ spending was over $37 million in 2014, a 4.1% rise from 2013. Politicians are calling what we saw in 2014 a “dress rehearsal” for what is to come in 2016. The matter-of-fact is dark money is more relevant than ever in the United States.

Michigan has passed the Michigan Campaign Finance Act. Through this act, corporations both for-profit and non-profit alike, can establish a Separate Segregated Fund (SSF). A SSF allows a business or nonprofit to survey which candidates will advocate for their policy stances, and also give them a chance to educate candidates on their issues.

A SSF allows you to avoid having to spend money on lobbyists and thus losing control of the candidates in which your money goes to. For anyone looking for a way to assist a political candidate, while avoiding the phenomenon of dark money, an SSF is the way to go.

Paul Bohn of Fausone Bohn, LLP specializes in the areas of environmental, real estate & land use, and municipal law. He also advises clients, including those running for elected office, on the establishment of SSFs and their compliance requirements. 

Record Number of Veterans Back Home, Many Running for Office

Brig. Gen. Carol Ann Fausone (Ret)
Veteran Advocate

 

The population of recent combat veterans in the U.S.  is higher than at any time since the Vietnam era. So it should not be surprising that there seem to be an unprecedented number of veterans running for local and state offices this election cycle, including Illinois congressional candidate and Iraqi vet Tammy Duckworth, California's Republican nominee for the 53rd Congressional District and Iraqi vet Nick Popaditch, and Iraqi vet and Arizona State House candidate Mark Cardenas.

Meanwhile, the number of service people who hold public office continues to decline. Close to 90 percent of the members of the U.S. House and Senate  were military members in 1969; currently, according the Congressional Research Service, only some 20 percent of members serve or have served in the military.  The peak of post-military politicians peaked in the postwar era; by the end of the Second World War, there were roughly 16 million service people who "came home" to serve, including in political offices.  

"Working in public office is just another way these men and women are serving their country," stated veterans' lawyer James Fausone.

The push to get more veterans into public office is helmed by Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan organization working to train veterans to run for public office. Their stated goal includes supporting and encouraging veterans by running workshops, lectures and research to demystify the campaign process. Veterans Campaign supports veterans as valuable and electable leaders, possessing exemplary leadership backgrounds, the ability to work with many different types of people and a depth of understanding the bureaucratic steps and tangles so familiar to anyone working with foreign policy affairs and government systems.

According to a Harvard study cited by Veterans Campaign, Americans are only becoming more confident in military personnel; currently, they state, 82 percent of U.S. citizens report confidence in the members of the armed forces. Younger Americans, ages 18 to 25, also report that they believe U.S. politics is excessively partisan. According to Veterans Campaign, this dissatisfaction with the current atmosphere is an opportune time to help veterans continue to serve their country, this time in office. 

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/article/2590761