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Sunday, January 16, 2005

Env't - Concern over Daniels' IDEM direction

"Concern over Daniels' IDEM direction" is the headline to this story today in the South Bend Tribune. Some quotes:

A lot of people with environmental and conservation groups have some concerns about the changes Gov. Mitch Daniels is making in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Some are more concerned about shake-ups at the top of the agency. Others are more concerned about things he has been quoted as saying about the direction of the agency. * * *

The Associated Press quoted Daniels as telling the staff of the agency that his and their top priority should be to help businesses create new jobs in Indiana. "If, as he says, the department's purpose is to create jobs, then whose job is it to protect public health and our state's environment?" Laura Fuderer, head of the conservation committee of the South Bend-Elkhart Audubon Society, wrote in an e-mail. "And why isn't job creation the purpose of an economic department instead?" * * *

Tim Maloney, executive director of Hoosier Environmental Council, based in Indianapolis, was not quite as critical. He said that while it's not uncommon for an new administration to want its own people, removing people "... in this fashion so quickly causes them to lose some institutional memory and maybe some people who might be valuable."

But Maloney was hesitant to read too much into something he personally didn't hear Daniels say. He said members of the Hoosier Environmental Council and other environmentalists agree with Daniels' concern that it has taken IDEM too long to make decisions on permits businesses need to operate.

Maloney said the worst problems have been in permits allowing companies to discharge things into the state's water. The permits generally run for five years, and instead of renewing them or changing them after that, IDEM has simply extended the old permit, according to Maloney.

"That should be the rare exception," he said. "But for water (permits), it is the norm." Maloney said some permits have been extended for years instead of changes being made to renew them. "You have to balance getting things done timely and getting them done well," he said.

The Louisville Courier Journal has an opinion piece on IDEM today by columnist David Hawpe, titled "The idea is to protect the environment." It begins:
In news from the Hoosier capital last week, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels fired one Indiana Department of Environmental Management administrator and pressured six others into resigning.

He traipsed over to the agency and told employees that their top priority should be to help business create new jobs. Which is sort of like telling the highway patrol that its new top priority should be to promote speeding.

How different from the approach taken by Kentucky's new GOP governor. Ernie Fletcher is second to none in his devotion to the free market, and to economic growth as the preferred method for solving society's social and economic problems. He's a real Republican.

But in forming an energy task force last November, he gave the environment equal emphasis. He at least said, inclusively, "It is time to tackle the challenge of ensuring low-cost energy for the next generation of Kentuckians while we develop our natural resources in a responsible and environmentally sound way."

During a break in the energy group's first meeting, his environmental chief, LaJuana Wilcher, said the Governor wants an energy policy that will improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Up in Indiana, Daniels is putting jobs first, condemning regulation that might slow economic development and burbling to environmental officials, "Nowhere can a bigger difference be made more swiftly than by the people in this room."

[Note] Perhaps use of picturesque verbs such as "traipsed" and "burbling" is more of a southern thing; I don't see them used that much in the Indianapolis Star or the Gary Post-Tribune.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 16, 2005 02:12 PM
Posted to Environment