Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Re-Reading Mike McCabe's Blog Post On Mining Interests

McCabe did a good job nearly a year ago, and his research is certainly is a good introduction to the mining bill up for a hearing of sorts Wednesday at the Capitol. An excerpt:

The Democracy Campaign first started noticing large campaign contributions from mining interests to Wisconsin politicians just over a year ago, long before the mining bill was introduced. All of the money came from out of state. Roughly a quarter of the donations came from West Virginia mining magnate Chris Cline. The rest came from associates of Cline's. Some of those associates are at Cline Resource and Development. Others are with a company called Foresight, which is majority-owned and led by Cline. Still others are with a law firm Cline does business with. The remainder are other mining executives who've done business with Cline.

Environmentalists claim the mining bill being pushed in Wisconsin was written by the mining industry and would gut existing safeguards. The legislation certainly is Chris Cline's dream. And its approach to permit streamlining and environmental deregulation does bear a striking resemblance to the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council's model legislation known as the "Performance Based Permitting Act" and "Groundwater Protection Act."

1 comment:

  1. Finding out where the money comes from that funds state or federal legislation is an excellent way to find out who's behind what. Probably the best way, in fact.

    Reminds me of something my father used to say to me when I was growing up which was;

    "Son, if you want to get to the bottom of anything, look for the guy who's making the buck."

    In this case, "the guy making the buck" are the mining companies.

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