AG Reaches Agreement To Clean Up PFAS-Contaminated Materials
Attorney General Dana Nessel has reached a settlement agreement with Domtar Industries and E.B. Eddy Paper to address releases of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at the Techni-Comp Inc. composting site near Port Huron.
Under the terms of the settlement, Domtar has agreed to remove compost piles containing sludges contaminated with PFAS at the site and dispose of the contaminated material in a licensed landfill. In addition, Domtar will investigate PFAS in sediments in surface waters at the site.
The settlement, entered as an enforceable Consent Decree by the 31st Circuit Court in St. Clair County on June 20, includes a $300,000 payment to the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to conduct additional response activities to address PFAS at the site. Domtar will also cover the state’s past oversight costs and costs of litigation, including attorney fees.
Nessel filed a lawsuit against the paper manufacturer in December 2022, and it was brought under a state-approved contract with special assistant AGs retained specifically to assist with complex PFAS litigation.
There are currently four PFAS cases filed under the SAAG contract that are pending in both state and federal court.
Gun Bans On Bump Stocks, Ghost Guns, Carrying In The Capitol Pass Senate
Senate Democrats today approved a suite of proposed firearm bans, which range from permanently banning state Capitol visitors from carrying guns to outlawing “bump stocks” capable of shooting multiple shots with one trigger pull.
The Senate approved SB 224 by Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia) 22-14, as Sens. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell), Mark Huizenga (R-Walker) and Michael Webber (R-Rochester Hills) joined Democrats in support. The bill makes it a $2,500, five-year felony to manufacture, sell or possess a bump stock or a “multiburst trigger activator,” which can also include devices placed within trigger guards causing the finger to move rapidly back and forth.
Polehanki and Sen. Rosemary Bayer (D-Keego Harbor)‘s SB 225 and SB 226 passed by a party-line 19-17, banning non-serving legislators from entering the Capitol building, as well as the Senate and House business buildings, with concealed weapons. Right now, the present-day Capitol ban on visitors and staff entering with guns is dependent on Michigan State Capitol Commission rules.
The Capitol commission’s body is influenced by whichever party holds the Legislature’s majorities and the Governor’s office.
Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak)‘s SB 331 and SB 332 create bans on “ghost guns,” weapons lacking valid serial numbers or made by unlicensed 3D printing. They also passed along partisan lines.
Sen. Jim Runstad (R-White Lake), who also chairs the Michigan Republican Party, said SB 331 and SB 332 were misguided attempts to regulate “so-called ghost guns,” punishing responsible gun owners instead of addressing root firearm violence causes.
“It burdens law-abiding citizens with excessive regulation and fuels fear over the erosion of their Second Amendment rights,” Runestad said. “Under this legislation, over a million firearms in Michigan would be rendered illegal overnight, forcing their owners into costly, bureaucratic re-serialization process.”
He described hobbyists and collectors becoming confused and fearful, with public agencies overwhelmed with new administrative responsibilities.
Under the McMorrow bills, an unlicensed person constructing a gun will have 10 days to notify the Michigan State Police (MSP) of their productions. They would be prohibited from creating more than five firearms each year. New residents will have 90 days of moving to comply with the legislation’s serialization mandates.
Owners of such firearms will have 18 months following the bills’ effective date to have guns or unfinished frames brought to a federally licensed party to have their firearms serialized.
When first caught with a ghost gun, the owner will face a one-year, $5,000 misdemeanor under the legislation, and a five-year, $10,000 felony for subsequent offenses afterward.
In March of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court – where three of the nine justices were appointed by President Donald Trump – upheld 7-2 ghost gun regulations implemented by President Joe Biden’s White House. In 2022, a Biden rule became finalized requiring federally licensed dealers to serialize untraceable guns they take in before selling them, and to mandate gun-making kit vendors be licensed and to incorporate serial numbers into their products.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice‘s archives, federal authorities recovered 25,785 ghost guns that were “privately made” with an “untraceable nature” in 2022 during domestic seizures.
Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy nonprofit behind gun regulation reform, published that 15 states have regulated “do-it-yourself” firearm-building. For example, it summarized Connecticut as requiring serial numbers and background checks for component part purchases, as well as outlawing guns made out of undetectable plastic.
Delaware enforces a ban on distributing 3D printing instructions for building guns, and Oregon requires any guns, frames or receivers to be serialized, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
“We want to keep Michiganders safe. Nobody needs a bump stock, which turns a regular gun into a machine gun. Nobody needs a gun in the Capitol. We have children coming through here every year by the thousands,” Polehanki said.
Both Polehanki and McMorrow acknowledged to members of the media today that today’s reforms were among legislation left behind by the previous Democratic-controlled House during lame duck 2024.
“When you look at the fact that gun violence has become an epidemic, it is now the top killer of kids in our country –it is heartbreaking that this is not more bipartisan than it is,” said McMorrow, a 2026 U.S. Senate candidate. “These issues didn’t happen overnight. Gun violence started really many decades ago. We now have more firearms in this country than we have people, and it is going to take many decades – let’s be honest – to undo a lot of the damage.”
Near the end of today’s Senate session, Sen. Joseph Bellino Jr. (R-Monroe) brought up Sunday’s recent shooting incident at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne County. According to city police, the 31-year-old suspect arrived at the church upon driving recklessly, wearing a tactical vest and carrying a long gun and handgun.
The man reportedly started firing one of his weapons, but was struck by the truck of one of the driving parishioners, and two armed staff members fatally shot him.
“What happened to that church is not just an act of heroism, it’s proof that when danger comes to the door, it’s often the good guy with a gun that stands between life and death. We must stop vilifying responsible gun owners. We must stop passing laws that disarm the very people we depend on when evil threatens our schools, our churches, our neighborhoods and, God forbid, our Capitol building,” Bellino said.
After voting against today’s proposed bans and penalties, Bellino said he’ll continue standing strong against any legislation stripping Michiganders “of their God-given constitutionally protected right.”
Penalties For Intimidating Abortion Patients Pass Senate
It would be a $10,000, one-year misdemeanor to try to intimidate, injure or interfere with someone who’s approaching an abortion clinic, under legislation the Senate passed today on a party-line.
The Senate voted 19-17 on SB 154 and SB 155 , by Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), a 2026 candidate for the U.S. Senate, which address cases in which anti-abortion protesters attempt to block the doors to clinics to prevent women from entering the premises.
The legislation aims to create Michigan’s own version of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994, which lays out federal charges for intentionally intimidating, harming or interfering with someone seeking reproductive health services.
Proponents of McMorrow’s bills argue that under President Donald Trump, FACE Act enforcement will become minimal. Meanwhile, opponents see the legislation as redundant when Michigan statute already criminalizes harassment, assault and vandalism, seeing it as an effort to restrain and villainize close-but-distant activists seeking to counsel pregnant women on abortion alternatives.
Supporters of the McMorrow bills also point to Trump’s decision to pardon 23 anti-abortion demonstrators he believed “should not have been prosecuted,” including several who were convicted by a federal jury for conspiring to violate FACE Act protections when blocking a Sterling Heights clinic.
“When people are forced to walk through hostile crowds to access health care and when staff are targeted simply for doing their job, it becomes a public safety issue, not just a political one,” said Melina Brann, Planned Parenthood of Michigan’s director of government relations, in a May 22 letter. “(SB 154 and SB 155 ) will not just protect reproductive freedom – they will improve safety at our clinic doors and help dismantle the dangerous rhetoric that criminalizes care.”
In fall 2022, more than 56 percent of voters adopted Proposal 3 of 2022 – or the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative – listing abortion access as a right within Michigan’s constitution following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe V. Wade.
Roe V. Wade was the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that previously considered abortion as protected under rights to privacy. In the first two full years after it was overturned, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) published that there were 169 cases of vandalism nationally, three attempted bombing or arson incidents, 621 trespassing situations and 296 death threats or threats of harm.
In Michigan alone, 24 percent of abortion providers who participated in the NAF’s report experienced obstruction in 2023 or 2024, four of 17 said they received threats and 59 percent claimed to have dealt with trespassing.
Sen. Jim Runstad (R-White Lake) – the minority vice chair of the Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee – offered unsuccessful amendments wanting to ensure a Michigan-version of the FACE Act offered the same protections for religious facilities. He noted how this past Sunday, a 31-year-old in Wayne County reportedly opened fire at the CrossPointe Community Church before being struck by a parishioner’s truck and fatally shot by staff members.
Runestad said SB 154 and SB 155 intentionally omit the additional protections the federal act offers for religious places of worship.
“Churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and other religious gathering places are all too often targets of harassment and violence. That’s why they were put in the federal law,” Runestad said. “These sacred spaces are just as deserving of protection as the facilities and individuals already covered under this proposed legislation, such as those working in abortion clinics.”
Sen. Joseph Bellino Jr. (R-Monroe) opposed the legislation, describing it as designated to limit the ability of sidewalk counselors to reach women facing untimely pregnancies.
“These counselors provide peaceful, loving and compassionate outreach to women, presenting her with options she may not be aware of, such as there are nearly 100 pregnancy centers in our state,” Bellino said. “These bills are nothing more than a platform designed for abortion supporters to support the false narrative that claims that pro-life sidewalk counselors are dangerous.”
Independent Pharmacies Surviving While Chain Stores Dying
In Beaverton, a small, 1,000-person town northwest of Midland, the local Rite Aid went out of business and the local independent drug store closed its doors when the owner retired.
With the next-closest pharmacy 20 miles away, John GROSS, the owner of pharmacies in Clare, Gladwin and Genesee counties, saw an opportunity. The executive director of the Michigan Independent Pharmacists Association bought the Rite Aid location and opened the doors to the Beaverton Family Pharmacy to fill what had become a “pharmacy desert.”
The business is staying afloat, but like other independent pharmacists in Michigan, the story is more of surviving, as opposed to thriving, because of how insurance companies and the pharmaceutical middle-man, known as pharmacy benefit managers, are short-changing the pharmacies on reimbursements.
Over the last five years, nationwide, the number of independent pharmacies increased by 1.4%, while the number of chain stores declined by 7.4%, according to a National Council for Prescription Drug Programs report.
Nevertheless, there are still more chain pharmacies than independents. In Michigan, there were 1,100 independents, and 1,147 chains, the report said.
David Allen, owner of Great Lakes Pharmacy in Midland, said benefit managers make it harder to stay in business, ”especially for high-cost brand-name items, like inhalers, that are reimbursed below cost.”
The situation has progressively worsened over time, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a struggle, but we are going to get there,” said James PANCY, who owns the Village Pharmacy of Fruitport.
“The cost of doing business has gone up, and the reimbursement we get from the insurance companies has gone down,” he said, noting that 85% of his customers use insurance to pay for the medicines and products they need.
“Some benefit managers only pay me $500 on a drug that costs $680,” he said.
The experiences of these pharmacists are backed up by data.
A July 2024 report by the Federal Trade Commission said, “Powerful middle men inflate drug costs and squeeze Main Street pharmacies.”
The FTC website quoted agency Chair Lina M. Khan as saying, “The report also details how pharmacy benefit managers can squeeze independent pharmacies that many Americans —especially those in rural communities — depend on for essential care.”
The website said the report found that the benefit managers “hold substantial influence over independent pharmacies by imposing unfair, arbitrary and harmful contractual terms that can impact independent pharmacies’ ability to stay in business and serve their communities.”
Pancy said he feels a personal relationship with the community and relies on word of mouth to attract local customers.
”I do things like sponsor baseball teams to get my name on the jerseys,” he said, “and I give guest lectures to local groups and organizations.”
His is the only independent store in an area with three large retail chains, yet he said he remains optimistic.
“I had a customer who said to me that if five years ago, Rite Aid would be gone and you would still be there, I would have said you were crazy,” he said.
(Contributed by Capital News Service correspondent Victor Wooddell).