Mining Bill Signing Presents Challenges

I can guarantee that as you read this there is a team of officials and gofers from the Governor's office, both houses of the GOP-run Legislature, mining interests and corporate lobbying operations debating where to hold the signing ceremony to celebrate the mining bill's adoption.

Also on the planners' to-do-lists: who gets to be positioned where, as there are Republican campaigns to run beginning later this year that will want these holy pictures for TV and Internet ads, but also lobbyists who want to be able to show their clients that they delivered the goods.

I think you can rule out the site with ceremonial shovels into the ground, as many of the opponents are right there.

Besides, turning over the earth calls attention to the scientific fact ignored by the bill's ramrods: the iron ore to be mined sits below hundreds of feet of other rock formations containing sulfides, which, when exposed to air and water, create sulphuric acid runoff.

A Milwaukee mining equipment executive who threw cold water on the mining bill's jobs narrative a few days ago might have eliminated that stage, too.

The Governor's suite has a nice conference room, but events there are a dime a dozen and doesn't offer the optics the bill's backers prefer.

It'll be interesting to see how the people who rammed through this bill squeeze out of it the political and partisan perks they believe are there.