Maybe it’s my contrarian nature, but the Governor is doing the right thing on the landfills bill and it’s not his fault that Mell had another eruption. In fact, the administration is learning and starting to move the sujbect away from the personal and to the policy on this issue which is what they should do.
The bill itself should be uncontroversial and despite Mell’s protestations about other issues, giving the state government the ability to act when public health is at risk isn’t a terribly novel power.
“There are so many aspects of this bill that my agency has needed for so long to increase our regulatory oversight, our enforcement, our ability to address abandoned open dumps in the state of Illinois,” IEPA chief Renee Cipriano said. “To say this is focused on the alderman is simply untrue.”
Part of the problem is the Governor has so annoyed the press that a story like this is too good to pass up, but there’s some glimmer of hope they are learning finally. The other part of the problem is regardless of what Mell says about wanting to keep this private, he’s the one who brought the personal into the public again. The administration deserves credit for the bill.
Under current law, the governor’s father-in-law canown a toxic waste dump, a nuclear waste dump, an electric company, an insurance company, a real estate firm, a bank, a casino, but, if the guv’s bill is passed, NOT a construction debris landfill. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?
Then those should be addressed in the next bill to regulate such firms. Whether the restriction on a Governor’s family is a good idea is largely not a big deal to me. I’m not sure what it really hurts and frankly expanding it to other highly regulated industries would be fine with me–other than we might run many people out of running for office–I’d be curious if any of the above would limit anyone running for Governor. I’m betting not.
I don’t know why the restriction on the family interest is the part of the bill that is most getting the attention when an emergency power to shut down a landfill for public health is a power the state government should long have held.