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Do you breathe or drink water in Michigan? Does your family live near any source of pollution? Are wetlands in your area needed to assure protection from flooding?
If you answered YES to any of these questions, YOU, RIGHT NOW need to pick up the phone or send an email or fax to ALL of the members of the Conference Committee that is going to decide shortly on the Department of Environmental Quality Budget Bill, SB 1066. And ALSO call your own Senator and Representative as well (see details on contact information below).
The Michigan Legislature is expected to vote within days on the funding for the people whose job it is to PROTECT your family and community from pollution and destruction of the environment. And right now, as the budget for the DEQ goes into a Conference Committee, the situation looks grim – if the Legislature keeps moving toward gutting DEQ funding.
Those people whose job it is to check and see whether an illegal discharge of pathogens and carcinogens is happening upstream from where your children are enjoying a day at the beach are going to have significantly less staff and funds to do the job.
Those professionals who are there to make sure wetlands that prevent flooding from destroying your property will be hobbled and able to do much less.
Those scientists who help assure that Michigan residents are getting protection from emissions from smokestacks will be unable to get to required conferences to learn what they need to make sure you are safe.
And, a lot of those professionals will in fact be laid off, looking for a job because YOUR LEGISLATURE MAY CHOOSE TO UNDERMINE THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROFESSIONALS OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.
In fact, our state’s environmental professionals already have much less to work with and there are fewer of the Environmental Cops on the Beat today because the Legislature has become increasingly out of touch with YOUR needs for a clean environment, and more in sync with a narrow group of heavily funded industry interests who stand to gain financially at your loss.
A year and one half ago, Michigan’s State Government suddenly went from officials at the top who saw their job as making the world safe for polluters to officials at the top who saw their job as enforcing the laws of the state and the nation, and recognized that protecting the people of this state from pollution was the RIGHT thing to do.
A year and one half later, the Michigan Legislature is poised to pass an Appropriations Bills for the DEQ that would gut the already meager funding of the group of professionals we have hired to do one of the most universally supported activities in this state: protecting our air, protecting our water, protecting our children’s and parent’s health and making our communities stronger and cleaner.
Are we nuts? Can anyone on this list say it makes sense to cut the legs out from under the folks whose job it is to make sure the future is actually a place we not only can get to but will be able to live, breathe and thrive in?? If we allow the Legislature to proceed with this crazy effort to destroy the very fabric of the Environmental Cops and Professionals who WORK FOR US, then in fact we ARE nuts.
Take time RIGHT NOW – AND ASK YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AS WELL – TO CALL, EMAIL OR FAX THE MEMBERS OF THE DEQ APPROPRIATIONS CONFERENCE COMMITTEE – IT WILL MATTER MORE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE!!
Contact the conferees on SB 1066, and tell them to: Let your OWN State Senator and Representative know as well – this may be your only chance so PLEASE – ACT RIGHT NOW!! Contact information for Conference Committee members: Rep. Rich
Brown: 888-663-4031, or 517-373-0850
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Anne Woiwode, Director Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter 109 East Grand River Avenue, Lansing, MI 48906 ph: 517-484-2372 fx: 517-484-3108 e: anne.woiwode@sierraclub.org website: http://michigan.sierraclub.org
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