Senate Committee Hears Testimony on Bills to Reform Pollution Laws

LANSING, Mich. (June 11, 2025) — The Michigan Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment, chaired by Sen. Sean McCann (D-Kalamazoo), heard testimony this morning on Senate Bills 385–387 and 391–393, which would 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 were sponsored by Sens. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit), Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), Sue Shink (D-Northfield Twp.), and Sean McCann. Legislators spoke in support of their bills, and they were joined by environmental advocates, local governments, and people personally affected by pollution.

“How many aquifers are we going to surrender to polluters before we get serious about protecting our water in Michigan?” Sen. Irwin asked. “We can and should have better protections for water, and residents have a right to know about pollution in their backyard.”

“When part of a polluted site, Revere Copper, collapsed into the river in my former district, neither regulators nor the public had enough information to even know what contaminants were present, or what precautions were needed to protect the public,” Sen. Chang said. “We urgently need this legislation to ensure that we have a full inventory of polluted sites and publicly available plans to manage the risks they pose.”

“Under current law, people have to show their health has been harmed to sue polluters, but the cost of testing and monitoring needed to detect health problems places an unfair burden on people and communities,” Sen. Shink said. “Senate Bill 386 will make polluters who expose people to hazardous substances liable for the screening they need to catch health problems early, when they are most treatable.”

Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor) is the lead sponsor of the House bill package that mirrors the Senate legislation. “There are over 24,000 polluted sites in our state, with too few of them being cleaned up and too many paid for by taxpayers — not polluters,” Rep. Morgan said. “People shouldn’t have to wait to get sick before they can ask for help, and polluters who poison our communities should pay for their messes. It’s time we fix this injustice and put public health, our environment, and people first.”

Andrea Pierce spoke in support of the legislation on behalf of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and the Anishinaabek Caucus. She is a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. “My village of Pellston has beautiful artesian spring water that we cannot drink,” Pierce said. “I am a water protector, and my own mother was a tribal elder who died of pancreatic cancer from PFAS exposure. Now I’m just waiting for another family member who will get sick and die from PFAS. As legislators, it’s your job to make laws that protect us and our communities.”

Dr. Becky Lahr, the drinking water quality manager for the City of Ann Arbor, spoke in support of the legislation and detailed the costs water pollution imposes on municipal water customers. “The price that the public pays for water depends on the quality of our source water,” Lahr said. “Our community has been forced to bear costs for added treatment and ongoing monitoring because of PFAS contamination in the Huron River. A decades-old groundwater plume of 1,4-dioxane now threatens our drinking water reservoir. We have to spend municipal resources on monitoring and mitigating this threat, because the polluter has never been required to clean it up at its source or stop its spread.” Ann Arbor’s sole municipal water source has been a reservoir on the Huron River since the city was forced to close municipal wells by the expansion of industrial solvent contamination from the Gelman Life Sciences site.

Jimmy Banish, Chief Operations Officer of the Bear Factory, spoke in support of the bills from a business perspective. “The costs of pollution should fall on polluters, not on taxpayers, ethical businesses, or future generations,” Banish said. “I hear some businesses complaining that this legislation would increase their costs. But responsible companies adapt under pressure, and it’s not fair to allow companies to artificially inflate their profit margins by evading accountability. This legislation doesn’t target business; it targets pollution.”

Tony Spaniola, Co-Chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network, spoke about the need to reform Michigan’s statute of limitations. “My family and community have been directly impacted by the PFAS contamination from Wurtsmith Air Force Base. We have been shocked to learn that we have no recourse in the courts against those who caused the harm because of Michigan’s barbaric statute of limitations system,” Spaniola said. “People, businesses, and local governments all lose their rights to seek justice before they even know they have been harmed. We need to change the law so that the legal clock starts when people discover the damage, not when the pollution secretly occurs.”

Aaron Keatley, Chief Deputy Director of the Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, also spoke at the hearing. While not taking a position on the specific bills in the package, he said that he believes Michigan’s current laws regarding polluted sites should be updated. “Right now, our agency can’t say with confidence that we know where polluted sites are, how they are being addressed, or if they are being properly managed,” Keatley said. “I hear from communities that they have sites that are impeding their ability to grow, and they are worried they are creating risks. And I hear from those in industry and in development that they need more clarity in how to clean up their sites and prevent risks. This is an opportunity to bring stakeholders together and work to set clear expectations and improve transparency.”

The Senate Polluter Pay legislative package is comprised of: