{"id":7752,"date":"2025-06-06T13:17:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T17:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/senatedems.com\/mcmorrow\/?p=7752"},"modified":"2025-06-06T13:17:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T17:17:54","slug":"hold-polluters-accountable-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.senatedems.com\/mcmorrow\/2025\/06\/06\/hold-polluters-accountable-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Legislation Will Hold Polluters Accountable for Cleanups"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NOTE<\/i><\/b>: Additional information on the legislation can be found\u00a0<\/i><\/span>here<\/a>.<\/u><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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LANSING, Mich (June 6, 2025) \u2014 Democratic legislators in both chambers of the Michigan Legislature are jointly introducing legislation to hold polluters accountable by requiring more thorough cleanups, making information about sites more available, and making it easier for those harmed by pollution to seek justice. The bills\u2019 sponsors are Sen. Jeff Irwin<\/b> (D-Ann Arbor) and Rep. Jason Morgan <\/b>(D-Ann Arbor), along with Sens. Stephanie Chang<\/b> (D-Detroit), Jeremy Moss<\/b> (D-Southfield), Mallory McMorrow <\/b>(D-Royal Oak), Sue Shink <\/b>(D-Northfield Twp.), Sean McCann <\/b>(D-Kalamazoo), and Reps. Donavan McKinney<\/b> (D-Detroit), Noah Arbit<\/b> (D-West Bloomfield),\u00a0Matt Koleszar<\/b> (D-Plymouth),\u00a0Cynthia Neeley <\/b>(D-Flint), and Phil Skaggs<\/b> (D-East Grand Rapids). Several of the bills have already been introduced in the House as House Bills 4636-4640, and the remaining bills will be introduced next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s shocking that Michigan law doesn\u2019t require polluters to actually clean up their mess or even report all spills,\u201d Sen. Irwin <\/b>said. \u201cThis package will ensure more thorough cleanups and comprehensive spill reporting. I\u2019m grateful to the many experts and stakeholders who helped us tailor these bills so that brownfield re-developers can continue to play their key role in cleaning up polluted sites. These bills put liability where it belongs: with the polluters, not the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, corporations have dumped their messes on Michigan communities and left working people to pay the bill,\u201d Rep. Morgan<\/b> said. \u201cIf you pollute our water, poison our soil, or threaten public health \u2014 you pay to clean it up. It\u2019s time we stand up for the people of Michigan and stop protecting billionaire corporations at public expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan\u2019s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act often enables polluters to restrict access to land or groundwater in lieu of cleaning up pollution. An ever-growing list of over 4,500 sites<\/a><\/u><\/span> in Michigan features such land- or water-use restrictions. Environmental advocates and legislators have been working to strengthen Michigan\u2019s pollution cleanup laws for decades.<\/p>\n

The current Polluter Pay package was refined through an intensive stakeholder workgroup hosted by the Michigan Dept.\u00a0of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) in the summer of 2024. Five of the six bills in the package passed the Senate last fall, but the House was not able to take them up before the end of the legislative session. The bills were re-introduced in the form they passed the Senate. Sen. McCann<\/b>, one of the sponsors of the legislation and chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment, plans to hold a hearing on the bills next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan\u2019s biggest polluters have been able to use bureaucratic barriers to essentially block updates to the cleanup criteria that say how much contamination is acceptable in our land and water,\u201d Sen. Chang <\/b>said. \u201cWe need this legislation so EGLE can update inputs to cleanup criteria as scientists learn more about the effects and exposure risks of different pollutants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan laws should protect residents, and the default response to a spill should be to clean it up, not fencing it off and letting it sit,\u201d Sen. Moss <\/b>said. \u201cWe know that contamination cleanup can be difficult, but the current law doesn\u2019t even require polluters to try. The Polluter Pay legislation prioritizes removing contamination rather than simply issuing land and water use restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time we understood PFAS risks, the legal window to hold polluters accountable had already slammed shut,\u201d Sen. McMorrow<\/b> said. \u201cFor decades, manufacturers knew that even low levels of these ‘forever chemicals’ were dangerous and covered it up. We can’t let companies get away with poisoning Michigan just because they hid the evidence long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re notified a polluter has exposed you to a hazardous substance, of course, you want to find out if your health has been affected,\u201d Sen. Shink <\/b>said. \u201cPeople already have the right to sue polluters who make them sick, but it often takes a while for the ill effects of a toxic exposure to manifest in a medical diagnosis. My bill would make polluters liable for the costs of medical monitoring to detect problems in the people they put at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t always know immediately that you have been harmed by pollution,\u201d Sen. McCann<\/b> said. \u201cBy starting the clock on polluters\u2019 liability before the problem is detected, Michigan\u2019s statute of limitations incentivizes coverups and penalizes people for not knowing they were being poisoned. My bill would, like federal law, start the clock on liability when a person finds out about the pollution so that they have a meaningful chance to seek justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t continue to rely on the honor system when it comes to pollution,\u201d Rep. Koleszar <\/b>said. \u201cMichigan enacted pollution cleanup laws because we had all too many examples of polluters who failed to do the right thing. Yet our current law still allows a polluter to release a hazardous substance, clean it up however they see fit, and never report it to anyone. House Bill 4640 would require reporting for all releases, because people have a right to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPolluters count on the fact that it\u2019s hard for regular people to pay out of pocket for the kinds of testing and monitoring they need to prove that pollution has made them sick,\u201d Rep. McKinney <\/b>said. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to pay to find out how much a polluter has harmed you. House Bill 4637 would make polluters liable for medical monitoring so that people don\u2019t have to shoulder these costs after being exposed to hazardous substances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is outrageous that many corporate polluters have successfully utilized government red tape to shirk their responsibilities to clean up harmful contamination \u2014 and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill,\u201d Rep. Arbit <\/b>said. \u201cMichigan\u2019s cleanup criteria for chemical substances are over 10 years out-of-date. House Bill 4638 will ensure Michigan no longer lags behind in protecting our residents from toxic substances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in my district know that you can\u2019t always tell immediately when you\u2019ve been exposed to dangerous levels of a chemical; some hazards, like lead, are not detectable by human senses alone,\u201d Rep. Neeley<\/b> said. \u201cBut in Michigan, the clock on your right to sue a polluter starts when they dump the chemicals. By the time you find out about it, you may have no way to hold that polluter accountable. My bill would set a common-sense standard that parallels the federal law: starting the clock when someone finds out about the pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless we pass House Bill 4639, forever chemicals will mean forever costs for Michigan taxpayers,\u201d Rep. Skaggs<\/b> said. \u201cSince my time on the Kent County Commission, I\u2019ve worked to hold polluters accountable and prevent them from transferring that financial burden onto Michiganders. The pollution is still there in our water and land, but current law allows unethical businesses to avoid responsibility for cleaning it up because industrial polluters successfully concealed the dangers of PFAS for so long. The people of Michigan deserve to be able to sue for the damage emerging contaminants have done to our land and water. We all learned a basic rule in kindergarten: clean up your own mess. That simple truth should be the law of the land here in Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025 Polluter Pay Package would:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n