Doyle Pushes Water Compact; He Accuses Assembly Leaders of Toying With Precious Great Lakes

By DAN EGAN

Gov. Jim Doyle turned up the heat on the Wisconsin lawmakers Friday to quickly pass the Great Lakes compact.

Speaking near the shore of Lake Michigan at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Great Lakes WATER Institute, Doyle accused Assembly leadership of playing political games with what he considers Wisconsin’s best chance to both protect and capitalize on the state’s grandest natural resource.

The compact is an agreement all eight Great Lakes governors signed in Milwaukee over two years ago that essentially blocks new water diversions outside the Great Lakes basin, with limited exceptions for communities and counties that straddle the basin dividing line.

The compact requires approval from all state legislatures and Congress before it becomes law, and it already has been approved by four state legislatures.

It’s enjoyed bipartisan support in the Wisconsin Senate, but Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) and Scott Gunderson (R- Waterford), chairman of the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee, said last week that they will seek changes that compact supporters argue could scuttle five years of negotiations between the Great Lakes governors and two Canadian provincial premiers.

The compact was written to allow water-strapped communities just beyond the basin — places such as Waukesha County — access to Great Lakes water, provided they get unanimous approval from all eight Great Lakes governors.

Huebsch and Gunderson contend that provision is unfair to Wisconsin because it means a single governor from a neighboring state can hold undue sway over Wisconsin economic interests. They point out that the compact doesn’t restrict Illinois diversions in the same way because it essentially exempts the 2.1 billion gallons Chicago siphons from Lake Michigan each day, the result of the city reversing the flow of its namesake river more than a century ago.

Michigan also doesn’t have to worry about other states vetoing proposed diversions because, unlike the other Great Lakes states, it lies almost entirely within the Great Lakes basin.

Gunderson and Huebsch say the disparity can be addressed with a change in compact language to allow diversions to be approved with a simple majority vote by the governors.

Doyle said there is nothing simple about that proposal. It will, he said, most surely unravel the agreement because some states will not budge on the unanimous provision. The reason: Existing laws already give individual Great Lakes governors veto authority over proposed diversions, and switching to a majority vote would be perceived by many as step backward in lake protection.

The governors are rewriting the existing rules with the compact because most everyone agrees they are too weak and arbitrary to withstand a court challenge. Under existing rules, governors can issue a veto for any reason — or no reason. That is not the case under the compact, which sets up a specific set of criteria a community must meet to get a diversion approved. If a governor issues a veto anyway, that community can appeal and, if necessary, seek relief in court.

Compact advocates contend the compact is Waukesha’s best chance for getting Great Lakes water to replace its radium-contaminated groundwater.

Doyle called Gunderson and Huebsch’s position on the issue, “a false argument, raised for some cynical purpose, to try and defeat the compact.”

Efforts to reach Huebsch for comment Friday were unsuccessful.

Gunderson spokesman Mike Bruhn said Doyle should not be surprised opposition surfaced last week, the same time a bill to ratify the compact appeared in the Legislature. Bruhn said Gunderson has had concerns about the veto issue since the governors signed the compact in Milwaukee in December 2005, and Gunderson has shared those concerns directly with the governor.

“They (compact advocates) want to ramrod this through as quickly as possible, and economic consequences be damned,” Bruhn said.

Matt Moroney, executive director of the Metropolitan Builders Association, said this week that the goal of removing the one- governor veto is a “sincere effort” to improve the compact, and not to destroy it, as Doyle contends.

Moroney notes that more than a dozen business associations have endorsed the simple majority provision, including the Wisconsin Paper Council and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.

Doyle maintains that the compact will protect Wisconsin water, and that is critical for the state’s economic future.

Badger Meter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Meeusen, who appeared at Doyle’s news conference Friday, said Wisconsin should be leading the charge to ratify the compact.

On Thursday, meanwhile, the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources met in Kenosha for a public hearing on the legislation to ratify and implement the compact. More than 50 people testified in favor of the bill, while three opposed it, according to committee records.

Stacy Forster of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

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