Environmental Lawyers Refute WMC On Mining Disinformation

Midwest Environmental Advocates and the Sierra Club set straight the record on mining legislation distorted in favor of environmentally-destructive practices by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

CONCLUSION

Review of the language in AB1/SB1 and the Wisconsin Legislative Council’s official summary of the bill confirm that its passage would drastically and dramatically weaken legal protections for Wisconsin’s water resources.

In overwhelming numbers, citizens from every corner of the state have stated their opposition to weakening those protections. So have local elected officials and Native American tribes from the areas of northern Wisconsin that would be most immediately affected by the proposed changes in our laws.

Their concerns are real, and they are well-founded.

It is Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Gogebic Taconite, the drafter of the bill and its intended beneficiary, which have been spreading misconceptions. 

Wisconsin citizens need to demand that the legislators who have been elected to represent them in the Wisconsin Senate and Wisconsin Assembly actually read the bill and determine for themselves before they vote on it whether it maintains Wisconsin’s current environmental protections, or whether it is an unprecedented and scandalous giveaway of our state’s most precious treasure, our clean and irreplaceable water.

The WMC-backed mining bill is racing towards approval in the GOP-led Legislature.