Wednesday, April 15, 2015

A win for conservation in Wisconsin

Scott Walker's unanticipated plan within his proposed budget to end the long-standing policy oversight role of the Natural Resources Board had so little support that key GOP legislators today stripped it from the budget document.

That doesn't mean it can't come back as a send-alone bill, but that's unlikely: GOP legislators haven't suddenly morphed into green advocates for citizen-led land and water oversight, but they saw nothing to be gained and no personal interest to be served from continuing and effective pressure from hunting-and-fishing/rural traditionalists along with environmentalists statewide who had a budget-and-process beef with Walker.

So this is a win because the structure of resource management stays as it has been: a policy board overseeing the cabinet-level Department of Natural Resources, where Walker has more direct control.

He is still proposing to slash the DNR's science staff and has given the agency a deliberate, "chamber of commerce" tilt, but citizens can still petition the Board to initiate or stem Department programs.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Wisconsin Budget Project outlined yesterday how by just eliminating Walker's property tax cuts, stopping the continued tax breaks for manufacturers[reducing their income tax rate to near zero] and accepting the federal Medicaid funds; the cuts to schools, the U W system and many other of the proposed cuts in Walker's budget could be avoided. By doing these 3 simple things the budget could be made to benefit not hurt many of us in Wisconsin!

Raven said...

These wonderful budgetary solutions drew a quick response from Walker....