Override Vote Reveals Political Power Basics

Call the DNR override vote yesterday one of those defining moments in Wisconsin politics: big business still calls the shots at the Capitol.

George Meyer, former Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and a principal force in the unsuccessful effort to remove that position from gubernatorial control, lays out the facts, here,

Meyer was around when then-Governor and his legislative lieutenants hijacked the appointment from the Natural Resources Board to make sure the agency better served the needs of the business community.

So under a politicized and weakened DNR, we have easier permitting for construction near waterways, for example.

We have weak clean air advocacy.

And the DNR has decided (been told?) to proceed with Waukesha's Lake Michigan diversion application review - - the precedent-setting application under the Great Lakes Compact - - without having written the very administrative rules that would have defined what an application or review process must contain.

Little wonder - - as it was Wisconsin's DNR, I have been told - - that pushed the notion during Compact-writing negotiations that a community like Waukesha could be eligible to divert water entirely out of the Great Lakes basin if it was within a county that somewhere touched the Great Lakes basin boundary.

In other words, a political line on a map would trump geography - - and perhaps a political advantage could be scored.

If a Republican wins the Governor's office in November, you might as well move the DNR - - what little will be left after the agency goes through an ideologically-inspired diminution - - over to the WMC's offices a few blocks away because that's where policy and program will be directed.