LANSING (WKZO AM/FM) — They may have been talking bipartisan unity in Lansing, but that took a quick hit late Wednesday when the State House on a straight-line party vote, moved to kill an Executive Order issued by Governor Gretchen Whitmer that would reorganize the DEQ.
The bills specifically seek to reverse the Governor’s decision to eliminate two controversial permitting and administrative rules commissions created by the Legislature last year that Whitmer says may be illegal. She has asked the Attorney General for an opinion on that.
The State Senate must also approve the House measure for it to take effect. Speaker Lee Chatfield says the commissions were created to give more public oversite on decisions made by the environmental agency. “We are literally talking about giving the people we serve a voice”, Chatfield argued during the floor debate.
Critics of the commissions say the “people” he refers to are business interests who are seeking influence over a regulatory agency.
Whitmer says the vote to reject her EO is a” vote against clean water”. She says the commissions are hardly critical to the operation of the Government as Chatfield has suggested, saying they have only met twice in the six months since they were created.
She says it is within her authority to reorganize the executive branch, just as all the Governors before her have done.
It’s the first time a Michigan legislative body has voted to reverse an Executive Order since the Milliken Administration.
Whitmer says it’s too early to give up on more bipartisan cooperation, but she calls this a setback.
She says she is now working with the leadership in the Senate, apparently in an effort to head off passage in that chamber.
