Republicans Continue Their Partisan Obstruction Of The Great Lakes Compact

There are two ways legislators could consider the Great Lakes Compact:

The open way, and the closed way.

Unfortunately, the difference has become completely partisan, with Republicans taking the obstructionist route, which makes the Great Lakes vulnerable to unregulated diversion and harm.

On the more open path, State Senator Robert Jauch, (D-Poplar), has announced two listening sessions on the Great Lakes Compact bill that has now been introduced in the Democratically-controlled Senate.

Read his statement, here.

These hearings stand in marked contrast to the machinations and spin that has kept the matter bottled up at the Capitol since late 2005, with the blame for inaction clearly at the doorstep of key Republican legislators.

One year was lost when a study committee, chaired by State Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn) and stacked deliberately with Republican business interests from Waukesha County, could not produce a bill, let alone a consensus.

That was the beginning of the closed path - - the GOP's hypocritical effort to appear interested in implementing the Compact in Wisconsin while stalling, weakening or defeating it here.

If one of the eight Great Lakes states fails to approve it, or makes substantial changes to the agreement's 2005 draft, the Compact does not take effect.

Two weeks ago, leaders in the GOP-controlled State Assembly went further down the closed path by saying that the bill will not be passed in their house unless amendments are added that would render the Compact useless across the Great Lakes.

All to help get Lake Michigan water without restraint to some communities in Waukesha County that have overdrawn their groundwater but continue to annex land for more water-hungry subdivisions and strip malls.

Now there's more activity on the closed path: Kedzie and Dale Schultz, (R-Richland Center) have asked Sen. Mark Miller (D-Madison) to cancel the first Senate Energy and Environment Committee executive session consideration of the bill. Miller chairs the committee.

Here is the Kedzie/Schultz statement.

Note that Kedzie and Schultz say they are worried that Miller is rushing the bill, and that fast-track could endanger the Compact.

Please!

The bill has been introduced after 28-months of delay, much of it due to the way Kedzie constructed the study committee and then let it languish for much of 2007 without meeting.

Had the committee done its work, a bill would have been produced six-to-nine months ago.

That history is here.

With Kedzie, Schultz and other Republicans stalling things in the Senate, and GOP Speaker Scott Gunderson, (R-Waterford) doing the same in the Assembly, don't expect Jauch or Miller's efforts to get very far in these waning days of the early 2008 legislative session.

For the GOP and their pals at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, it's Mission Accomplished.

For the Great Lakes, and the 80% of Wisconsin whom pollsters say want a strong Great Lakes Compact now, it's a setback.