Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Stepp puts DNR in lead on Foxconn env. evasion

[Updated] I wondered on this blog yesterday what words of wisdom Wisconsin DNR Secretary Stepp would bring to today's meeting of the Natural Resources Board to whose agenda a report on Foxconn had been added.

(Update - - And Stepp may be off to DC and Trump's anti-environment US EPA)

Well now we know.


This is, by the way, the same Stepp 'managed' DNR which can't deliver promised bottled water to everyday rural residents and farmers whose wells are contaminated by runoff from industrial-scale animal feedlots the DNR won't inspect nor wants to regulate for water quality - - 

Wisconsin DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp proudly shows off her first deer, taken opening weekend last year. In the upcoming TV Special "Deer Hunt Wisconsin 2012, Stepp urges male hunters to take more girls and women hunting. "The secret's out," she says. "Hunting is a lot of fun, so don't keep it to yourselves."  photo courtesy of Wisconsin DNR
 - - an agency which has been griping (wink-wink) about the staff shortages Walker and the legislature foist coordinate with Stepp's ready, ideological acquiescence - - but today Stepp told the Board to which she purportedly reports that she has already hired a project manager to speed along Walker's over-sold, unaffordable and increasingly unpopular - - check out the comments from GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald - - $3 billions-in-subsidies-and-exempt-from-traditional environmental-oversight Foxconn con.

Stepp sounds in this Journal Sentinel story more like a Foxconn publicist than the senior state employee purportedly in charge of protecting the people's clean air and water:
State Department of Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp said Wednesday her agency supports removing regulatory hurdles for Foxconn Technology Group's massive electronics plant, but she said environmental standards won't be compromised...
Stepp was enthusiastic about Foxconn during a meeting of the Natural Resources Board in Milwaukee, calling the plant pegged for southeastern Wisconsin an "amazing opportunity." The plant would build liquid crystal display panels....
"We want to hit the ground running and make sure that the regulatory processes and bureaucracy are not in the way of job creation in Wisconsin," Stepp said.
The corporately-obeisant hypocrisy and arrogance of these people acting in our name and with our resources is limitless.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They re-hired Eric Ebersberg who got the Waukesha Diversion through.