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Feingold to chair Senate hearing on Great Lakes Compact
The Great Lakes Compact, years in the making, now appears to be on the fast track for Congressional approval, at least in the Senate.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, late Wednesday announced that Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., would chair a hearing on the Senate Joint Resolution approving the compact next Wednesday in the Senate Dirksen Office Building.
The announcement came at the end of a day which saw Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, chair of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, appear at a Washington news conference with House and Senate authors of legislation to approve the compact.
"I applaud the members of Congress for the leadership in protecting the Great Lakes," Doyle said. "It is gratifying to see the consensus that we have built in our region reflected in the bipartisan Congressional support for this historic measure. We must now do all that we can to work with our Congressional partners to turn these protections into law," he said.
Congress urged the Great Lakes states to develop a policy to protect the waters of the lakes in 2000, after it was discovered that Ontario had issued permits to a company which wanted to sell fresh water to Asia by the tanker-full.
Earlier this month, Michigan became the final state to approve the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, as it is officially called, and Congressional approval is now needed to make the agreement binding. Eight states -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- and two Canadian provinces have now agreed to a series of rules designed to prevent diversion of water from the Great Lakes away from its natural drainage basin.
Feingold has been a long-time supporter of the compact, and it would appear that the Judiciary Committee would be ready to approve the compact and send it on to the full Senate for its consent.
The resolution approving the compact was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio. Feingold is a co-author of the resolution and part of a bipartisan contigent of senators supporting the compact.
"As I travel around Wisconsin holding town hall meetings, I regularly hear from people concerned with the health of the Great Lakes," he said in a statement released by his office. "Over the last year, the Great Lakes have reached historic low levels, and studies suggest both man-made changes and abnormal weather conditions may be responsible," the senator said.
While the compact does not specifically address that problem, it would guarantee that other interests could not compound the problem by drawing water from the lakes.
The House resolution approving the compact was introduced by a group which includes House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich, fellow Democrat James Oberstra of Minnesota, and Republican Reps. Steven LaTourette of Ohio and Vernon Ehlers of Michigan.
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