Documenting Tom Tiffany's Mining Company Relationships

News that State Sen. Tom Tiffany, (R-Hazelhurst) is aiming to wipe out local jurisdictions' controls over mining-related dynamiting, road use, air and water regulation so GTAC mining is freer to engage in 35 years of mountain-top open pit iron mining up North is not the first time he has put the company's interests before everything and everyone else. The bill would also place similar restrictions on local controls over frac sand mining.

*  There was his failed attempt to close 3,500 acres of publicly-accessible forest land because mining might take place there. The effect was to bar scientists working for the nearby Ojibwe band from cataloguing wetlands in harm's way - - and right before state geologists found asbestos-bearing rock on potential mine property.

*  One set of URL's and citations about his close relationship to the mining company is here.

*  Another, thanks to the League of Conservation Voters, and that connects the Governor's office to blatant special interest strategizing for the mine, is here.

A sample:

Begin by taking another look at this Facebook posting from last year by the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters about Tiffany's relationship to a Gogebic's lobbyist:
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters · 15,050 like thisJune 27, 2012 at 5:42pm ·  

David Storey, lobbyist for Gogebic Taconite, sent e-mails to then-Rep. [and now State Sen.] Tom Tiffany, and Walker policy adviser Eileen Schoenfeldt that discussed forming a "response team" to combat negative PR once the final mining bill was released. Read the emails here:http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Storey_Emails.pdf

* Also note Tiffany's pro-mining attack on George Meyer, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, which Meyer rebutted as personal and based on false allegations.

The proposed mine, once the Penokee Hills are dynamited away, would be larger than the Hull-Rust mine in Hibbing, MN, beloe - - currently the largest open pit iron ore mine in the world.