Tuesday, October 3, 2017

In post-Foxconn WI, GOP is done w/ air, wetlands law

I've been predicting that more businesses would want the same unique exemptions from wetlands protections and other environmental standards that Walker and his GOP legislative allies were handing Foxconn and other firms which locate in the company's heavily-subsidized Racine County development 'zone.'

Here's a single post with links to much of the whole Foxconn story, including its environmental con.

As the state turns deeper red in thrall to the private sector which wants to control public resources.

And while metal mining interests did get some GOP legislators to carry that water, I admit to missing how this all would really work.

It's not that specific special interests would line up for exemptions; it was that the GOP wants to take the initiative and waive clean water and clean air protections for all businesses.

Statewide, as the Wisconsin State Journal lays out:
Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature want to eliminate state protections for wetlands and air quality except when mandated by the federal government, saying they are costly for businesses.
And there's the trick, since under Donald Trump, federal environmental protections, water law and clean air standards - - especially when they originated with Barack Obama - - are being undermined, rolled back and ignored by the anti-Obama corporate bellhops Trump has installed atop the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Matching the destruction of the DNR which Walker has wrought and where he and his legislative allies are aiming the coup de grace.
Smoke stacks from a factory. 


1 comment:

  1. This will impact groundwater too. All rural homeowners rely on groundwater for drinking water, and the Safe Drinking Water act doesn't apply to those home wells. I guess all you red county folks better start stocking up on bottled water. You will all literally being paying the price for no regulation of dumping whether you live near a factory or a factory farm.

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