When The Great Lakes Compact Bill Is Rolled Out, Look For The WMC's Fingerprints

Legislators are being pressured on all sides of the Great Lakes water debate as they put their finishing touches on legislation that would have Wisconsin approve and implement the Great Lakes Compact.

The Compact is a pending eight-state agreement designed to improve water conservation in the Great Lakes region, and also to produce first-ever rules and standards for the diversion of water to communities outside of the Great Lakes basin.

With water supply now a hot issue worldwide, all eyes will be on Wisconsin when the legislation arrives, because our state has a long favorable environmental history, yet is the only one of the Great Lakes states without a Compact bill adopted or debated.

For more than two years, efforts to get the Compact introduced for debate in our legislatures have been thwarted, principally by business interests in Waukesha County who want easier access to Lake Michigan diverted water than would be permitted by the Compact, as well as by existing laws.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was part of that resistance.

Speaking for the state's largest businesses, the WMC sent the legislature last year an eleven-page critique of a first draft of legislation to approve and implement the pending Great Lakes Compact.

The WMC called for the gutting of that draft, which never moved into the legislature for a debate.

Too restrictive, said the WMC. Too many new hoops to jump through. Too much regionalism.

And as the Compact rollout approaches, there again has been a concerted effort behind-the-scenes these at the Capitol recently to weaken yet another draft Compact bill - - and again, sources say, the WMC is carrying water for the crowd that wants a watered-down Compact for Wisconsin.

When the bill comes out in a few days, it will be interesting to see how many times the WMC's "delete" key got hit as final trade-offs' were made and were committed to paper.

Will Wisconsin debate a bill that genuinely seeks to approve this historic, Great Lakes management agreement - - a document and plan already compromised substantially during four years of negotiation and containing major loopholes permitting bottled water exports and some easing of Great Lakes diversions - - or will Wisconsin go further down the WMC's path to an even weaker bill?

Here's that link again to the WMC's arguments. Bookmark it and put it side-by-side when the Compact bill sees the light of day.