House Appropriations Subcommittee adopts H‑2 substitute for EGLE budget bill (HB 5602)

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Environmental Great Lakes and Energy adopted the H‑2 substitute for House Bill 5602 and forwarded the measure to the full House Appropriations Committee after recorded roll calls. The transcript does not specify the meeting date.

Austin Scott of the House Fiscal Agency presented the substitute, describing it as a comparison to current law and the executive budget. "The gross funding included in the house bill for the department for next fiscal year is 470,600,000," Scott said, adding that "of that total, 102,200,000 is general fund support." He told members the substitute includes a large reduction in federal authorization: "There's a reduction of 315,600,000 in federal funding in the house substitute as compared to current law." Scott also said the substitute omits authorization for about 103.2 FTE positions, producing a roughly $459,500,000 gross reduction compared with the current year.

Scott walked members through items in the House Fiscal Agency summary. He said items 1–5 were included in the executive budget but the house substitute removes several fee increases, and item 7 adds $2.3 million in ongoing support for the Michigan Geological Survey at Western Michigan University (bringing the ongoing total for that program to $2.7 million under the substitute). He said items 8, 9, 10 and 12 contained funding reductions for information technology, property management and contaminated‑site remediation and that section 12 eliminates funding for certain energy programs.

Scott also described new boilerplate added in the substitute. He called attention to two sections that were not in the current year or the executive budget: one requiring annual updates and distribution of permanent guidebooks, and another providing permit‑fee discounts when permit reviews are delayed. He said the final new section earmarks a minimum of 25% of the Water State Revolving Fund appropriation for communities with populations under 20,000.

During questioning, Representative Price pressed Scott on restricted funds and local impacts. Price said he understood "about 57% of EGLE funding is goes directly to our local units of government to do things like clean up toxic sites" and asked what would happen to those dollars if spending authorization were removed. Scott replied that if an authorization to spend is not included in law, the dollars would remain in the restricted fund and carry forward until a future appropriation; he added that the department would be responsible for passing along federal or state funds to local recipients when authorizations exist, and he yielded to the department for precise local‑impact figures.

Representative Borton moved to adopt the H‑2 substitute for House Bill 5602. On the adoption roll call the clerk recorded Chair Cabot, Representatives Wharton, Markkanen and Steckloff as "Yes." The transcript records Representative Price as saying "Pass" on the roll call; the clerk announced four yes votes and one pass and declared the H‑2 substitute adopted. (The transcript at one point contains a spoken misstatement of the bill number as "8602," but the clerk and other items in the record identify the bill under consideration as House Bill 5602.)

The subcommittee then voted on whether to report the adopted substitute to the full House Appropriations Committee. The roll call recorded Cabot, Wharton and Markkanen as yes and Steckloff and Price as no; the clerk announced the adopted substitute was reported to the full committee.

There were no amendments to the substitute during the subcommittee meeting. With no further business, Chair Cabot adjourned the session.

What happens next: the adopted H‑2 substitute for HB 5602 was reported to the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration and any further amendments or votes there.