The Michigan Environmental Council (MEC), a coalition of environmental and public health organizations, was founded in 1980 by six organizations - the Michigan and Detroit Audubon Societies, the Flint Environmental Action Team, the Sierra Club's Mackinac Chapter and the East and West Michigan Environmental Action Councils - to represent the environmental community in public policy debates and to coordinate the flow of information originating from the State Capital. Since then, the organization has built a strong staff with increasing capacity and greater prominence in the governmental and environmental policy making arena. Our coalition has grown to include almost 70 member groups and 11 full-time staff.

In the early 1980s, MEC was instrumental in strengthening the regulation of toxics. Michigan was a leader in using peer-reviewed scientific information relating to the effects of toxic chemicals on human health, and MEC's contribution led to the regulation of toxic substances being discharged into our waterways.

MEC also played a key role in the 1980s in establishing health-based air quality standards. We pushed state officials to develop a solid waste management hierarchy and drafted 1985's Clean Michigan Fund recycling legislation. We helped devise a toxics reduction strategy for the Great Lakes and opposed Great Lakes water diversion. Staff appeared before state commissions on a regular basis - including the Air Pollution Control Commission, the Water Resources Commission and the Natural Resources Commission - to testify regarding toxics in fish and other environmental and public health issues. We also supported then-Governor Jim Blanchard's efforts to create an Office of the Great Lakes and a state Council on Environmental Quality, and we organized the successful campaign to pass landmark "polluter pay" legislation - sponsored by then-Senator Lana Pollack - as well as an $800 million environmental bond proposal in 1988.

The decade of the 1990s saw MEC's work expand from proactive policy making to include defending existing standards and protections. An anti-environmental administration sought to roll back or gut a number of environmental protections (including Pollack's "polluter pay" law, which saved taxpayers $100 million before it was repealed in 1995), and MEC was forced to work to lessen the harmful impacts of bad state environmental policies while at the same time continuing to develop and promote bold new policy ideas.

Our efforts to defend and enhance our environment have been successful: we helped organize a successful legal strategy that resulted in a critical state Supreme Court decision upholding environmental laws; authored a new "right to know" program which enables citizens to obtain community-level information on emissions and compliance with environmental laws; helped block the restart of an old, dirty, coal-fired power plant which would have threatened public health and exacerbated the global greenhouse gas problem; helped change a "polluter secrecy law" that gave polluting companies and governments a shield from inspection and prosecution; and killed "takings" legislation that would have gutted laws protecting wetlands, sand dunes and other vital and sensitive land resources. We also worked with an ad-hoc committee to make Michigan's 1998 and 1999 fish consumption advisories more protective of women and children, successfully pressuring state officials to reverse their position.

MEC continues to leave its mark on state environmental policies and programs. We played a major role in reshaping the Engler Administration's economic development bond proposal into a true environmental proposal, adding $90 million for water quality improvement and protection and $20 million for pollution prevention. The proposal was approved by 63 percent of voters in November of 1998. More recent accomplishments include the creation of a Low Income Assistance and Energy Efficiency Fund which will provide up to $300 million to increase energy efficiency in Michigan, reducing harmful air and water pollution while protecting low income ratepayers from high heating bills.

MEC is now widely recognized as the voice of Michigan's environment in ways its founders could not have anticipated back in 1980. We provide training and support for our member groups; organize workshops and foster partnerships among environmental organizations and other communities, including children's advocates and faith-based organizations; and conduct groundbreaking policy research and analysis, among other efforts. MEC is often the first point of contact when state or national media seek the views of Michigan environmentalists. We are committed to promoting a healthy environment for this generation and those to come.