Michiganders will have difficulty holding the government accountable in the $83 billion 2025 budget as lawmakers slashed severance pay reporting requirements for 18 departments.

Lawmakers cut the reporting requirements for the following areas: the Michigan Department of Education; Environment, Energy, and Great Lakes; the general government; Insurance and Financial Services; Labor and Economic Opportunity; Licensing and Regulatory Affairs; and the Department of Natural Resources.

The budget also removed severance pay reporting from the Agriculture and Rural Development, Corrections, Health and Human Services, Military and Veterans Affairs, State Police, and Transportation.

Employers often pay severance to workers who are fired, laid off, or who retire, as a way to provide a brief financial runway for bills such as housing and food.

The change in the new budget will lead to more corruption and government waste, said Rep. Mike Harris, R-Waterford, who serves on the House Ethics and Oversight Committee.

”By keeping generous severance payments secret, Democrats are keeping corruption and incompetence under cover of darkness,” Harris told CapCon. “When Gov. Whitmer paid her top bureaucrats hundreds of thousands of dollars to go away and keep their mouths shut, Republicans exposed this corruption and held the governor accountable for hush-money agreements.”

In 2021, a reporter discovered Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration made nearly $253,000 in severance payments — undisclosed, at first — to government workers who abruptly left during the COVID pandemic.

In 2022, voters gave the Democratic Party a political trifecta, and the state’s new leaders cut the severance reporting requirement.

“Budgets required transparent reporting on severance deals to expose taxpayer-funded golden parachutes for the employees the governor fires,” Harris said. “But in their new budget, Democrats stripped out these and other key transparency measures, enabling government waste and mismanagement to fester.”

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, hasn’t responded to a request for comment. The Legislature doesn’t return to work until late July.

Lawmakers cut another transparency measure, which applied to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the judicial budget and the Department of Education. This requirement compelled the agencies to track key performance metrics on a publicly accessible website.

Lawmakers also deleted a requirement that the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development maintain performance measures and key metrics on a publicly accessible website. They deleted a similar requirement for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

(Editor's note: This article has been updated to note that 18 departments have been released from reporting severance payments.)

A federal judge has declined to give the state of Michigan immunity in a lawsuit filed by Enbridge Energy against the state’s effort to close its pipeline underneath the Straits of Mackinac. The ruling rebuffs the state, which asked the court to throw out the Enbridge suit.

The Canadian energy company filed the lawsuit after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tried to shutter the Line 5 pipeline in 2020.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her DNR director had said the state was shielded from the lawsuit by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Judge Robert J. Jonker, in his July 5 order, said the Ex parte Young exception to the state’s sovereign immunity applied. As a result, the case will continue.

“Rather than seek the sweeping relief of a claimed owner of the bottomlands, Enbridge requests relief that would preclude state officials from shutting down ongoing operations of a pipeline that has been functioning under easement for the past 65 years,” the 11-page order says. “And the bases for that requested declaratory and injunctive relief are rooted in alleged violations of federal law, a paradigm Ex parte Young scenario.”

In 2020, Whitmer terminated the pipeline’s 1953 easement and sought to have the pipeline shut down within 180 days.

The 645-mile pipeline stretches from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Canada, and it has carried 540,000 gallons of hydrocarbons daily across Lake Michigan’s lakebed since 1953.

The pipeline supplies 65% of the propane demand in the Upper Peninsula and 55% of Michigan’s statewide propane needs.

Enbridge argued that the shutdown order would violate the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause as well its interstate commerce clause. Enbridge also said the governor’s order conflicted with the Constitution’s foreign commerce clause and its foreign affairs doctrine.

The court has scheduled an oral argument on July 31 to hear Enbridge’s motion for summary judgment.

Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said Michigan lacks authority under federal law to close the Line 5 pipeline.

“At the same time, we are pleased that the State’s motion to dismiss was denied, vindicating our decision to seek relief from the State of Michigan’s unwarranted efforts to force a critical international pipeline to close,” Duffy told CapCon in an email.

He said the 1977 treaty between Canada and the U.S. prohibits Michigan from shuttering the pipeline, which he called an “international energy delivery system.”

Duffy said the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration regulates Line 5 pipeline safety, and it has raised “no safety concerns regarding Line 5’s crossing of the Straits and the state should not be second-guessing PHMSA’s authority.”

“Enbridge is responsibly operating Line 5, providing critical energy to Michigan and the region that supports economic strength, mobility, jobs, and quality of daily life,” Duffy wrote. “We adhere to and comply with all safety and operational standards.”

Whitmer’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

Enbridge’s recent win in federal court follows a loss in state court.

In June, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded a different Line 5 lawsuit to state court. Since 2019, Attorney General Dana Nessel has sought to shutter the pipeline.

Enbridge attempted to move the lawsuit to federal court but lost.