Some Michigan communities are already facing the effects of pollution. Now, an environmental group says a proposed state law could help prevent those areas from taking on even more pollution.
The Michigan Environmental Council is pointing to the Protecting Overburdened Communities Act; legislation it says could provide additional safeguards for communities already dealing with environmental challenges.
The bill would require certain industrial facilities seeking approval in heavily polluted areas to complete a community health impact assessment and a community needs assessment before moving forward.
The goal is to determine whether a proposed project could worsen health impacts in a neighborhood before it is approved.
Samantha Pickering, Public and Environmental Health Manager with the Michigan Environmental Council, said the legislation would help Michigan consider the existing pollution burden in a community before allowing new facilities to move forward.
“It’s essentially a bill that’s saying that we shouldn’t be permitting facilities in areas that are overburdened,” Pickering said. “So rather than putting more facilities in areas like Detroit that are already overburdened with pollution, facilities would have to complete a community health impacts assessment, a community needs assessment to determine what the status of that neighborhood is, and if it would worsen the health.”
She said the proposal is aimed at creating more protections for communities that have historically experienced greater exposure to pollution.
“Right now, there really isn’t much in state statute to prevent those things from happening,” Pickering said. “So, putting safeguards in place to protect those environmental justice communities, first and foremost, as well as everyone else throughout the state.”
The Michigan Environmental Council says the bill would give Michigan another tool to evaluate the impact of pollution before approving new industrial projects.
The bill was introduced in the Michigan Legislature last year and was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources and Tourism. Since then, it hasn't move out of committee for a vote.
The Michigan Environmental Council discussed the legislation while responding to President Donald Trump’s recent pardons of people convicted of violating the Clean Air Act. Of those were two men from Grand Rapids, who was convicted in 2023 for disabling diesel engine emissions controls in semi-trucks.
At the time of sentencing, then-U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said the convictions demonstrated that "polluters who break environmental laws will be held accountable." Federal investigators said removing emissions controls increases harmful diesel pollution linked to respiratory illness and poor air quality.
The Justice Department previously described the case as one of the largest criminal Clean Air Act prosecutions in the country's history. Prosecutors said the defendants intentionally removed or disabled emissions control systems on diesel trucks, allowing significantly higher levels of harmful pollution to be released into the air.
Pickering said environmental violations should continue to have consequences, and that accountability is important when pollution affects communities.
“We need to continue to tighten up all of our pollution standards,” Pickering said. “We need to hold polluters accountable for their violations and their pollution, not pardon them.”
The council says the bill focuses on the idea of cumulative impacts and how multiple environmental factors can combine to affect public health.
“We don’t experience one environmental stress or in isolation,” Pickering said. “It’s often everything else that’s on top of it as well.”
The council says protecting communities most affected by pollution can help create stronger environmental protections across the state.
While Pickering said Michigan has the authority to adopt environmental standards that are stricter than federal requirements after repealing its "no stricter than federal" law, she warned continued federal rollbacks could make protecting air quality more difficult.
"The Clean Air Act is kind of weak overall," Pickering said. "As we continue to see these rollbacks... it's going to complicate things even further."
This story is brought to you as part of a partnership between WKAR and Michigan State University's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.