WMC veteran to steer WI DNR response to Obama clean air initiative

Read and absorb the 19th paragraph, past the snide, dirty air enabling stance taken by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce in this story about President Obama's healthy air initiative:

Patrick Stevens, director of the DNR's division of air and waste management, said his agency may offer comments to the EPA after his staff analyzes the proposal.

I think we can bet those comments on the proposal (US EPA posting) will not be a thank-you note for a plan that aims to keep children's lungs and the atmosphere free of ozone and other pollutants.


Stevens had served as the WMC's environmental spokesman and worked with other trade groups before joining Scott Walker's "chamber of commerce mentality" group running the DNR.

I wrote this in January, 2011, a few days after Walker's swearing-in:

First it was the [builder's association] trade group's former executive director, Matt Moroney, getting the [DNR] deputy position.

Now Pat Stevens, the builders' former general counsel, gets a senior regulatory management position as head of the agency's air and waste division.

From the Builders' website:

"Pat Stevens is General Counsel for the Wisconsin Builders Association.  In addition to providing WBA with legal services, Pat staffs the WBA Legal and Building Code Hotline, which is available to all WBA members.  He also manages WBA’s Builders Legal Action and Research Fund, which funds legal actions and research projects that are of interest to the housing industry.  Moreover, he is extensively involved in regulatory, legislative and policy matters on behalf of the association."

Stevens has had stints with the road-builders and the WMC, too.

Stevens, on behalf of the WMC, has called federal clean air standard enforcement in Wisconsin wasteful and intrusive, labeled earlier proposed clean air policy-making "draconian," and defended the Walker administration's lackadaisical approach to implementing clean air standards.

So I think we'll see the WMC and DNR line up their technical comments, with Walker then carrying the dirty message in his State of the State speech and appeals nationally for Tea Party and far-right support for 2016.