Category Archives: transparency

EPA Proposed Regulation on Dental Amalgam Separation Could Cause Burden on Local Treatment Systems

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The Environmental Protection Agency is having an open comment period until December 22nd, to allow individuals and organizations to respond to proposed new regulation of discharge of dental amalgam into publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) as part of the Clean Water Act. The regulation would classify dentists as an “industrial user” under part 23, which would require additional pretreatment measures that could be burdensome to locals due to the increased oversight requirements in this category. Michigan already has an amalgam separation law on the books, but this new provision would place dentists into a category (industrial user) that the DEQ does not have authorization over in order to modify the federal requirement to better align with the existing state law. If you would like to read about this issue further and/or submit comments, click here.

Summer Minnick is the Director of Policy Initiatives and Federal Affairs. She can be reached at 517-908-0301 or sminnick@mml.org.

EPA Extends Deadline to Submit Comments on Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Power Plants

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The Environmental Protection Agency has extended the deadline to submit comments on the proposed plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for existing power plants to December 1st, from October 16th.

Click here to access additional information on the proposal and to submit comments.

Summer Minnick is the Director of Policy Initiatives and Federal Affairs. She can be reached at 517-908-0301 or sminnick@mml.org.

Webinar This Thursday on EPA’s proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under Clean Air Act

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This Thursday, September 18th from 1-2 pm the State and Local Legal Center will be hosting a webinar on the legal issues raised by EPA’s proposed rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. This webinar will be particularly helpful to those who are in the process of drafting comments, which are due on Oct. 16. There is no pre-registration for the webinar; simply click here at the appropriate time and sign in as a guest.

EPA has invited comment on a number of issues that may have legal implications for states. Given the compliance obligations this rule will create for states, the National Governors Association has worked with the SLLC to develop a presentation that will provide states with an opportunity to explore topics that will most directly affect them. Some of these topics will be addressed in the webinar and include:

o   State-level considerations for regional compliance and a legal roadmap for how states could join together to develop a regional consortium to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

o   Whether states can legally adopt multiple approaches to reducing carbon emissions, including approaches that are rate based, mass based, market based, or some combination of those three.

o   The authority for states to implement approaches outside of reductions at individual power plants (regardless of the legal interpretation at the federal level), or whether states need internal authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through other measures like regional agreements or the implementation of energy efficiency measures through 111(d).

o   The ability of states to adjust the specific percentage by which they must reduce their carbon emissions by 2030.

Roger Martella,, a former General Counsel for the EPA and current partner with the law firm of Sidley Austin, will lead the discussion and answer questions.

Summer Minnick is the Director of Policy Initiatives and Federal Affairs. She can be reached at 517-908-0301 or sminnick@mml.org.

Set up a target, and I’ll hit it every time!

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Local government in Michigan has been operating under the shadow of the Economic Vitality and Incentive Program, or EVIP for the last two years.  The EVIP program has three basic components, transparency, cooperation & consolidation, and employee compensation.  The State of Michigan has set arbitrary requirements that if met, allow local government to get 2/3 of the revenue sharing money they had previously received without any strings. Why did this happen?  The state needs to create incentives for good government, because the locals clearly can’t achieve these objectives without help from above (please note sarcasm).

What has been accomplished through EVIP is nothing short of remarkable!  We have a program that has created new levels of bureaucracy at both the state and local level.  Added additional costs.  Stymied cooperative efforts.  Confused labor negotiations and contract administration.  Most importantly we have established a system that rather than spur innovation, encourages communities to manage to the prescribed targets.

Hitting a target is easy, it’s like checking a box…done.  But is that what we really want?  Take the second leg of EVIP.  It requires one additional  cooperative effort each year to receive funding.  Knowing that I need “ONE” every year, how many do you think I will implement on an annual basis?  When the state tells me to get funding I must publish certain information on my website, what gets published?  Its not what I think my community cares about, I “HIT” the target.  If I am negotiating labor agreements can I maximize my leverage when certain outcomes are predetermined, or do I ensure that I hit the target and receive our funding?

Clearly EVIP is needed. Without the new vision from the state as it relates to transparency, cooperation and managing benefits, local government could never have conceived of such innovations.  The hundreds of examples of cooperation and consolidation that already existed before EVIP should not be interpreted as working together or creating efficiency.   The countless ways that locals shared information previously doesn’t mean that we are being transparent.  And if we aren’t following a one size fits all approach to benefit design, then we must not be managing our benefits.

Fortunately, that has all been figured out for us.  We now have a target to hit, and we will it it every time.

 

Better, Faster, Cheaper

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Better, Faster, Cheaper.  It is the battle cry of any good government reformist.  How can you argue with the premise?  Shouldn’t we all strive to reach this lofty goal? I certainly think we should.   In reality though, it seems that the focus as of late is really only on cheaper & faster when we talk about government services.  Better never enters into the dialogue.  If something costs less, then that becomes the default answer.  We talk about, but our policies don’t back up the rhetoric.

I’ll be the first to admit that many of the processes that we have engaged in are not cheapest or fastest, but let’s not forget that part of this is by design.  So why would we intentionally have inefficient processes?  Well, another rallying cry of any good government reformist is transparency and accountability.  Everyone needs to know everything at all times.  Is this better, faster, cheaper?  Well it is certainly not faster or cheaper. The need/desire to be open and transparent leads to a slow, costly, cumbersome bureaucracy.  Is it open and transparent?  Yes it is.  Is it efficient?  No, it is not.

Now this does not absolve us of the need to be the best at what we do.  I would also suggest that the best is rarely if ever the cheapest.  The old adage that you get what you pay for is true in the private sector, your home, and in local government.  Ask any successful business person, what is the most important ingredient to a successful enterprise?  The answer will uniformly be talent.  Hire the best people you can and let them do their thing.  I would suggest to those who believe that the best way to save money is to impose further restrictions on locals consider this concept.  By employing a top down, control filled environment as a way of controlling costs: they are in reality making every government less efficient.  We need to attract the best and brightest people possible and let them lead.

We must remember good people always have options.  If we create an environment where the best and brightest choose not to serve locally because we have made it untenable, have we won because it’s cheaper? Are we better off if we have degraded the talent we can attract because of the environment we have created?  Would any business survive with this approach?  Clearly not.  Why then would we use this as our model of success for local government?  In the phrase better, faster, cheaper:  better comes first for a reason.  We should be striving to make Michigan’s communities the best, not the cheapest.