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Will the Ohio Senate listen to the House about the Great Lakes?
Published on Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008
Thus, the House appears ready to approve the compact, as it did once before, by an overwhelming margin. State Rep. Matthew Dolan launched the process last week in the Economic Development & Environment Committee. The Novelty Republican reminded his colleagues of the first purposes of the agreement: to prevent large-scale diversions of Great Lakes water and to provide Great Lakes states with a mechanism to act as one, preventing a single state from putting at risk the priorities of the whole.
Great Lakes states crafted the compact at the recommendation of Congress. The feds made plain that they would manage the lakes — if the states did not do so on their own.
Already Minnesota and Illinois have approved the compact. Other states are mobilizing. Will Ohio be next? That will require a change in the state Senate, where the agreement stalled in the last legislative session. Mind you, the trouble wasn't lack of support. As Tom Niehaus, the chairman of the Senate Environment & Natural Resources Committee, explained to the Gongwer News Service last week: ''We want the compact to pass — most if not all the senators.''
Unfortunately, Niehaus and his colleagues in the Republican majority have permitted Timothy Grendell to stand in the way. Grendell, a Chesterland Republican, warns about risks to private property rights and state sovereignty. Senators should note the clarifying language added by Rep. Dolan, the equivalent of Ohio stating in its own words what is the spirit and intent of the compact: The accord isn't a bid to extend government authority or jeopardize typical water usage in Ohio.
The compact would improve collective management of the lakes, preventing one state from embarking on a reckless course that would harm the interests of the others. That is a positive development, one the Ohio House soon will endorse again. Then, senators must say to their colleague: You have had your say. Now we're going to do what is right by the region and the Great Lakes.
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