compact: 'top-heavy in legalese'

Tom Henry's right:

Legislation to ratify the agreement is top-heavy in legalese. It has tested the patience of policy wonks while boring the layman. The compact has its flaws, depending on whom you speak with. It hasn't been especially fun to write about. That means it probably isn't the favorite thing for people to read about, either.

So what? The lay public rarely sweats every detail. Nor should it. We pay public officials to represent us to the best of their abilities.

But what if those public officials are co-opted, either by ideology or by relationships with those who benefit by water exports from the Great Lakes? That increasingly seems the case as we move toward ratification of a compact that says billions of gallons leaving the Lakes via pipelines = bad; billions of gallons leaving the Lakes via bottles = good.