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McCain Signs Great Lakes Pledge
Senator John McCain, on the eve of the January 15 Michigan primary, signed the Great Lakes Pledge and was the only GOP candidate to do so. By signing the pledge, Senator McCain promised to support full funding for the Great Lakes Collaboration Implementation Act (sponsored by our own Congressman Vern Ehlers). REP's Michigan Chapter Executive Committee worked hard to reach out to all of the Republican candidates to educate them and to get them to sign the pledge. One Michigan REP member, through old college connections, was able to get our request onto the desk of McCain's campaign manager.
We worked with the nine largest county Republican parties to deliver a sign-on letter to each GOP presidential candidate. Our members mounted a letter-to-the-editor campaign to ask the candidates to sign the pledge. Several members also attended Senator McCain's town hall meetings in the state. We are excited about the role we played in obtaining the senator's pledge on this critical issue!
Great Lakes Compact
The Michigan Chapter is working to achieve passage of the Great Lakes Compact in Michigan. The Republican-controlled state Senate has recommended significant changes to the bill that would necessitate all the other states in the Compact to revisit and reconsider the legislation. REP's Michigan Chapter urges the Michigan Senate to pass the Compact in accordance with our partner states.
Why Republicans should fight urban sprawl
by Meridian Township Supervisor Sue McGillicuddy,
Sue is President of the Michigan Chapter of Republicans for Environmental Protection.
Republicans across the nation, including GOP voters here in Michigan, are increasingly concerned about urban sprawl.
The unchecked spread of sprawl across farmland and forests causes congestion that steals time from our families, raises our property taxes, sucks the life out of downtowns, degrades community, and gobbles up the green spaces that keep our hometowns livable.
Sprawl is not the inevitable result of omnipotent market forces, as some ideologues assert. Instead, sprawl has been the consequence of deliberate government subsidies and policies that drove poorly planned development into the countryside at the expense of older cities. Tax policies, subsidized highways, flood plain insurance, and rigid zoning codes have all played a role in feeding the sprawl machine. In short, sprawl has been the result of bad government decisions. Reversing the tide will take individuals and communities working with their governments to make good decisions.
Why should sprawl worry Republicans? Sprawl strikes at the heart of traditional Republican ideals. Freedom and responsibility. Prudence and stewardship. Family values.
Sprawl diminishes freedom by hollowing out cities, swallowing up towns, and leaving homebuyers little choice but to live in homogeneous subdivisions that all look alike. Sprawl drives the elderly out of their homes by forcing up property taxes.
Sprawl is inherently irresponsible. Adherents of "anything-goes" land development ignore the costs that sprawl forces others to bear. Time spent in traffic jams instead of home with family, air polluted by auto exhaust, and taxes raised to pay for flood control services that forests once provided for free are among the hidden costs of sprawl.
Sprawl takes no account of our responsibility to be good stewards of land, forests, wetlands, and green spaces that clean the air, purify water, and nourish the spirit.
Communities nationwide are fed up and are taking action. Citizens are taxing themselves to buy parks and open space. Major employers are speaking out in favor of reforms to rein in sprawl and protect the vitality of communities where they live and do business.
Containing sprawl won’t be easy. But we must try. We have the destiny of our communities in our hands. We can let sprawl continue to stress out our families, raise our taxes, degrade our communities, and pollute the environment. Or, we can plan carefully and act intelligently to keep our communities livable. We at REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection, refuse to see sprawl as "inevitable." We are working to protect our quality of life for future generations.
Sue McGillicuddy, of Okemos, Michigan, is Supervisor of Meridian Township. She has served as president of the Michigan Chapter of Republicans for Environmental Protection from 2002 to 2004, and again beginning in January 2007.
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