On the Radar
Legislators reach compromise on Great Lakes compact
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by Associated Press
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
State lawmakers have reached a compromise on the multistate Great Lakes water compact after Assembly Republicans blocked the plan last month, a state senator said Wednesday.
Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, told The Associated Press that he expects Gov. Jim Doyle to call a special legislative session Wednesday to approve a draft of the treaty. Doyle has scheduled a news conference Wednesday afternoon in New Berlin to make a “major announcement” on the compact.
The treaty passed the Democratic-controlled state Senate in early March. But Republicans who control the Assembly refused to vote on the compact before the legislative session ended days later.
One of the major sticking points for the GOP was a provision allowing any Great Lakes governor to veto any request to pull water from the lakes. Republicans complained the clause gave other states too much control and could threaten development in southeastern Wisconsin.
Miller, who has spent months working on the compact, revealed few details of the compromise. He said only that the one-governor veto remains in place and a statewide water conservation plan has been scaled back to affect only the Great Lakes basin.
Doyle, a Democrat, has said he would call the Legislature into a special session “in a second” if Democrats and Republicans could strike a compromise.
The governor’s spokeswoman, Jessica Erickson, declined to comment Wednesday morning, saying only that Miller and Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, the chairman of the Assembly natural resources committee and a compact opponent, would attend the news conference.
Gunderson declined comment Wednesday morning.
The compact was motivated largely by fears that states in the booming Southwest will try tapping into the lakes, which hold 90 percent of the nation’s fresh surface water, as their populations and political clout grow. The compact also seeks to encourage water conservation in the states and two Canadian provinces around the lakes.
All eight lake states and Congress must ratify the treaty before it can effect. New York, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota have approved the treaty so far.
