How a Bill becomes a Law: Green Businesses write Legislation

In the early 1980s you may remember that during Saturday morning cartoons, there were animated informational spots called Schoolhouse Rock. One of my favorites from that series was called, “How a Bill becomes a Law.” Yesterday, a reporter wrote an article that may contradict what we were taught as kids about how government works.

On Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Press ran an article by reporter Matt Vande Bunte about proposed Michigan legislation that would provide “tax breaks for new construction and building rehabilitations that achieve certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED.”

The article states that Michigan Senators Jason Allen, Wayne Kuipers and Patty Birkholz have introduced a package of bills this month that “would give a tax abatement of up to 50 percent on LEED-certified construction and allow upfront costs for certain “green” items such as wind turbines, geothermal energy systems and underground parking to be paid with future tax revenue.”

The reporter also mentions that the “package of bills has been referred to the Senate’s Tourism and Commerce Committee. Committee Chairman Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, was in Grand Rapids earlier this month to vet the bills at a Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce forum.” This basically means that Senator Allen was seeking the approval of the GR Chamber of Commerce, which begs the question if Senator Allen sought the approval from the general public?

However, the main focus of the story had to do with who benefits from the proposed legislation. The story leads off by having local businessman Guy Bazzani saying he would probably wait on plans to build another new building in Grand Rapids if it meant that his company would receive the benefits of tax breaks as proposed in the legislation.

In addition, the article states that Bazzani helped write the legislation that the Michigan senators are expected to introduce. Therefore, it would appear that legislation that will benefit people in the construction business was written people someone in the construction business. How is this possible and what does this say about how democracy works in this state?

He online version of the story includes an addition information box with some details on what tax benefits there would be. The source of information on the details on the tax breaks in the article were provided by the law firm Warner, Norcross & Judd. Interestingly enough Warner, Norcross & Judd has several areas in which their law form practices, one of them being construction.

In early February, one of the lawyers with Warner, Norcross & Judd wrote a short piece announcing that some legislators would be in Grand Rapids to discuss the proposed legislation. The same lawyer, John V. Byl, had written a longer piece last year discussing the benefits to legislation that would provide incentives to “green” construction.

The document states that numerous groups had been meeting to discuss the benefits and that “the Michigan chapter of the National Brownfield Association (NBA) organized a stakeholders group in spring 2008 to develop legislation that would promote green construction through financial incentives.” Some of these stakeholders were banks, government agencies, the Michigan Municipal League and members of the US Green Building Council.

Clearly, Warner, Norcross & Judd has a stake in promoting such legislation since their clients will be the beneficiaries of such policies. It is also worth mentioning that this law firm was the 144^th largest entity to lobby Michigan legislators in 2009, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network (MCFN). MCFN records show that Warner, Norcross & Judd had spent $44,812 in 2009 lobbying Michigan legislators, which was up 18% from what they spent in 2008. However, we don’t know who were the recipients of the law firm’s lobby funds.

It is unfortunate that the Grand Rapids Press did not further investigate these dynamics, especially when they reported that those who will benefit most from this legislation had a hand in writing it.