Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
After last year’s election, newly chosen leaders and the old guard with a few weeks left in Lansing rushed in opposite directions. The Snyder administration and legislators intensified their unprecedented, legally questionable attacks on water, the environment, and public health during a lame-duck feeding frenzy. The new guard, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana… Read more »
My favorite way to challenge myself is by traveling. It is the simplest way of removing every comfortable aspect of my life, and replacing it with new perspectives, people, and customs. The further away from home I travel, the more challenges I encounter, and the more my perspective changes. While international travel can be expensive… Read more »
Some gifts come after the lights and music of the holiday season drift into the snowy weeks of the New Year. We at FLOW are delighted to share a gift just sent to us from Courtney Hammer, our first legal intern, who spent the summer of 2014 here in Traverse City helping us research law… Read more »
Of all the blows former Governor Rick Snyder and the lame-duck Legislature delivered in late 2018 to Michigan environmental policy, one stands out — a new law intended to thwart state rules that go beyond weak federal minimums. This seemingly abstract law in fact repudiates 50 years of efforts by state officials to act in… Read more »
It’s January 2019, and it is time to unpack and undo the anti- water, air, environment, public health, and community laws passed by the Republican-run Legislature and signed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in the last two months of 2018. Lame-duck lawmakers and now ex-Governor Snyder blatantly followed a hit-list prepared by far-right, big business-supported… Read more »
The idea that Lake Huron is an overlooked or forgotten lake has even seeped into our government. A report issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality posed the question whether Huron is a victim of amnesia. It’s not the biggest Great Lake, the dirtiest, the most populated or the purest. It’s just unlike any… Read more »
With four days remaining until the Michigan Legislature is scheduled to adjourn and 14 days until the inauguration of a new governor, environmental rollbacks still threaten Michigan’s waters and values. To help FLOW and many allied groups fight back, please read the bill summaries below, and – for greater detail – click on the links… Read more »
https://flowforwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Liz-testifying-12.11.18.mp4 FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood testifying Dec. 11, 2018, at the Michigan House of Representatives Government Operations Committee. https://flowforwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Kelly-testifying-12.11.18.mp4 FLOW Deputy Director Kelly Thayer testifying Dec. 11, 2018, at the Michigan House of Representatives Government Operations Committee. In coordinated fashion, the Michigan’s lame-duck legislature on Tuesday and governor today opened the flood gates to a 99-year… Read more »
Giving the 18-hour bare minimum amount of public notice allowed by law, the Michigan House Government Operations Committee at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday will take up the Enbridge oil tunnel bill. A number of lawmakers in both parties – as well as thousands of individuals, groups, businesses, tribes, and local communities – have previously raised… Read more »
Photo credit: Charles Brackett Michigan’s waters and environmental values are under attack. In the next two weeks, Michigan citizens have an opportunity to defend them from a lame duck Legislature that is defying the clear mandate of the State Constitution and the preferences of strong majorities of Michigan voters. Michiganders are not clamoring to leave… Read more »
