Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Mining Bill Rushed Before Governor's Office, State Senate Goes Democratic

Republicans roll out their plan to turn over state waterways, Bad River Band wild rice growing areas and your Constitutional rights to enjoy them to polluters and special interests.

It's the Big Sellout.

Even though the US Army Corps of Engineers, with a major role to play in mining and other project-approval in Wisconsin. has warned the Walker administration in writing to go slow on major mining and other permit approval changes.

And the Bad River Band has met with Walker to express its opposition.

“The Band’s position on proposed iron mining legislation is that such legislation should be based on sound science and sound legal principles,” said [Tribal Council chair Mike] Wiggins.

“The Band opposes the proposals that were included in LRB 2035, which was leaked to the public in early 2011, to streamline and weaken the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (“DNR”) permitting process.”
Anybody listening?

Yet the rush to approve a bill to ease mining approvals comes after a mere one hearing in Madison - - plus a lot of talk about the need for thoughtful, careful study - - and also after a wasted, so-called Special Session on jobs the Legislature just closed after taking action on many non-jobs bills, including carrying concealed weapons into the Capitol, teaching abstinence in sex-ed classes and selling packed alcoholic beverages as early as 6 a.m.

The Legislature is simply following Walker's fear-driven orders, as he told the legislature a few weeks ago to hurry up, as the Journal Sentinel reported.

Does anyone still wonder why Walker, Scott Fitzgerald and the others are facing recall wrath?

6 comments:

Rose Gardener said...

Walker's tactics can be boiled down to two things.

1. Accommodating his big-money contributors.

2. Accommodating his religious extremist base.

And accommodating his religious extremist base can be traced back to big money. The top 5% in this country has been using divide and conquer tactics since Reagan introduced "trickle-down economics".

The only way to convince anyone that "Trickle down" would benefit them was to use religion and social issues to divide the populace.

And it has worked - it will continue to work until PEOPLE rise up in such large numbers that we can no longer be ignored.

And I am not talking about simply "Occupying" parks and instigating conflict with local police departments. I am talk about massing together and collectively working on things like:

1. Passing a constitutional amendment to undo Citizens United.
2. Passing legislation to end lobbying
3. Passing legislation to break up the "too big to fail" corporations/banks.

All these things (and more) are the way to a future where the Scott Walkers of the world can no longer sell out our environment.

Rose Gardener
http://www.wearethedemocracy.com

Anonymous said...

If I were them I'd be thinking twice about continuing their political suicide mission or are they just little puppets or pawns to be sacrificed on the recall alter? I wonder, can they think for themselves?

Or is this a posturing by Walker to force the Dem's hands to vote against job creation?

nonquixote said...

"Can they think for themselves?"

A question to be asked of the entire state GOP and which ever of them that thinks continued riding with Walker is going to be anything but a Titanic experience.

CJ said...

I googled the company, Gogebic Taconite (GATC) and found little about them. Then I tried looking for information about them on Hoovers.com under Gogebic Taconite, Goegebic Taconite (GATC) and GATC. Hoovers- "Sorry, We could not find any records for the entered search string. Please modify your search and try again."

A company with no history or information? I'm seriously getting a "What's wrong with this picture?" feeling.

Somebody needs to do some serious backround checking on this company.

CJ said...

I googled the company, Gogebic Taconite (GATC) and found little about them. Then I tried looking for information about them on Hoovers.com under Gogebic Taconite, Gogebic Taconite (GATC) and GATC. Hoovers- "Sorry, We could not find any records for the entered search string. Please modify your search and try again."

A company with no history or information? I'm seriously getting a "What's wrong with this picture?" feeling.

Someone with more tech savy seriously needs to do a backround check on this company.

enoughalready said...

This whole mining issue obviously bears close watching. More publicity should only help with the recall effort.