BizTimes Editor Unmasks Mining Law

"Moot" is how Steve Jagler, Executive Editor at BizTimes puts it:

...the bottom has fallen out of the mining industry, and the bill is being exposed for what it was: a law written by proponents of the mining industry that was not tenable with federal environmental standards.

...a recent report by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Research Bureau warned that iron mining in northern Wisconsin would pose a variety of potential threats to human health and to the water supply that connects the complex ecosystem in the forest to wetland bogs and Lake Superior.

In a Dec. 23 letter to Matt Moroney, deputy secretary of the DNR, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regulatory branch chief, Tamara Cameron, said the federal agency would not be able to work alongside the state to develop a joint environmental impact statement for the proposed Gogebic Taconite.

The blockbuster Dec. 23rd letter that Jagler references repeated a 2011 warning that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had sent to Wisconsin officials, including the Governor and DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp, that the proposed - - -and-now-passed-and-signed - - fast-tracking/streamlining mining law was going to slow down required federal approvals.

And without those federal approvals, there is no mine.

Is putting up barriers to cooperation with your permitting partner - - knowingly writing a bad bill - - really a honest plan?

Mining opponents have been saying and documenting these things for years, but it is signifcant that the senior editor at an authoritative mainstream business publication is calling out the so-called state mining 'reform' for what it was - - a transparently bad inside play that has self-destructed.

Jagler notes that a bi-partisan group of legislators opposed to the law since its introduction said 'I told you so' in calling for a do-over:

The federal decision prompted Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar), Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) and Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), the three lawmakers who had introduced an alternative to the bill that was written largely by the mining industry, to write a new letter to their colleagues.

"Either changes must be made to the law, or it will remain completely unworkable," the lawmakers' letter stated. "Defenders of the mining law can no longer ignore reality."

Plenty of people are watching to see what Walker and his legislative allies do next.

Walker might enjoy in an election year a fight with the Feds, but failing to do anything reinforces the belief that the law was less about getting a very problematic mine open and more about pro-business posturing and weakening Wisconsin environmental laws that developers and energy companies don't like.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.