80% Say Protect The Great Lakes: The GOP And WMC Say NO!

No one should be surprised that Wisconsin Assembly Republican legislative leaders could "gut" the Great Lakes Compact - - as Wisconsin DNR Secretary Matt Frank correctly put it last week when the GOP threw the pending international Great Lakes water conservation and management agreement into a partisan shredder.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) and State Rep. Scott Gunderson, (R-Village of Waterford), said they would support (sic) the Great Lakes Compact only with changes that would render it ineffective and unacceptable to the other Great Lakes states.

Great Lakes news accounts were not favorable.

The GOP's 11th-hour stall-or-kill tactic is happening because the Republican Party in this state, and particularly the GOP leadership in the Assembly. is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

That powerful lobby has had the Compact in its sights since 2004, laying the groundwork for the GOP Assembly leaders to line up with Ohio Republicans trying to kill the Compact there.

Nothing really new about that either: State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin), has been fanning these flames since last spring, something I took note on this blog as early as April.

Similarly, the WMC's junior partner, the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, has been taking the same Great Lakes deregulatory hard line.
I noted 11 months ago here that the Chamber's anti-Compact resolution incorrectly stated that the two Canadian Great Lakes provinces had veto power over any US state's diversion application, and that little bit of false xenophobia is still on the group's website - - easy click here:

http://www.waukesha.org/news_article.asp?ID=253:

And Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas fell in line with that faux, parsed Compact 'support' line a few days ago, too.

In Waukesha Republican circles, no one bucks the WMC. These Waukeshacentric interests don't want to work on behalf of the environment, or to protect resources shared with other states, even other nations.

They just want the water.

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Even though everyone, from Lazich to Vrakas to the WMC's lobbyists in their brick fortress within walking distance of the State Capitol know that the Compact is dead without all eight Great Lakes states adopting common versions, leaving the Great Lakes relatively unprotected against unsustainable diversions.

Anti-Compact forces in Wisconsin and Ohio are suggesting that the Compact go back to the states for renegotiation for the allegedly-minor tweaks that would satisfy Huebsch, Vrakas and the rest of the WMC-inspired gang.

That is a fake argument because A) the changes are not minor, and B) those five-year discussions, which ended in 2005 and included major business organization input by the way, are simply too complex and complete to be restarted.

Note also that within a few weeks or months, six of the eight Great Lakes states will have approved similar Compact bills, leaving Ohio and Wisconsin as the hold-outs.

And because Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell, the obstructionist upon whom Wisconsin's Compact-killers are relying upon in Ohio is a controversial, if not marginalized figure - - he had to offer an apology to his African-American colleagues for insensitive public remarks - - it is possible that Ohio will approve the Compact regardless of Grendell's efforts.

An update on the Ohio perspective from The Toledo Blade is here.

That would leave Wisconsin, the state whose Constitution incorporates public trust protections for water that date to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the state that gave the world Gaylord Nelson and Aldo Leopold, as the sole barrier to Great Lakes' protection and preservation.

Imagine.

It's as if the forces of reaction and greed had taken the slogan, "On, Wisconsin," and transposed the letters in the first word, to "No, Wisconsin."

I think the next step in the anti-Compact strategy is even more daring and potentially-devastating:

A federal lawsuit filed by Waukesha or Ohio interests to overturn the sole federal water management law that protects the Great Lakes from water grabs - - and which ironically, contains tougher diversion regulations than the Compact would ease for Sen. Mary Lazich's New Berlin.

Her city straddles the Great Lakes boundary, so a special exemption was created in the Compact for New Berlin and other similarly-situated communities.

That exemption is not in the federal law, and if the Compact were reopened for negotiation, who is to say that exemption would survive a new round of compromises and trading?

Lazich's logic-defying anti-Compact stance illustrates a central fact of the debate as it gets more partisan:

For the Lazichs and others in the debate from the far right, it's all about ideology - - state's rights and a favorable, de-regulated fiscal environment for their big business allies.

It's a wierd, irrational and self-defeating twist on political correctness that has found a home on the Right side of the political spectrum.

These Great Lakes Compact opponents - - and let's not let them get away with hijacking the language as well as the Compact itself by saying they are supporters 'with just a few tweaks' - - have a lot in common with timber companies who would log the national forests on behalf of 'healthy woodlands,' or oil companies that would sink wells in protected habitats and claim their platforms are good for the wildlife.

When ideology and money are paired, forget about protecting common resoures, or even rationality.

The Compact killers may win a short term victory, but they won't be in the legislature forever.

More than 80% of Wisconsinites said in a recent UW-Survey Center poll that they wanted a strong Great Lakes Compact.

The disingenuous and narrow-minded approach of the Assembly GOP and the WMC represents the viewpoint of a selfish minority of the rich and powerful:

I'll stand with the Wisconsin tradition, and an 80-20 split on behalf of a shared water resource, any day of the week.

Scientists Claim Suppression of Report On Great Lakes-Area Health; Wisconsin Danger Included

Scientists are claiming that federal officials suppressed a report about health risks in the Great Lakes region traced to toxins in the environmental.

The report includes information about PCB contamination in the Fox River, according to The Washington Post.

The story had been circulating in regional newspapers, but now that it's in the Post, expect more national media and perhaps a better explanation from the feds about why they wouldn't release the report.

Great Lakes Regional Policy-Makers Appalled At Wisconsin's GOP Compact Killers

Media and public officials are discovering the Great Lakes Compact sabotage that got underway publicly last week by GOP lawmakers from Wisconsin and Ohio, and the stories are not pretty.

Here's one from The Detroit News.

And another, from the Ohio media, suggests that the Compact 'revisions' favored by that state's Compact obstructionist, State Sen. Tim Grendell, are not completely lucid.

Some revisions, eh?

Central City Milwaukee Experiencing A Hot Real Estate Market

There's much about Milwaukee that is positive, but little publicized: Tom Daykin at the Journal Sentinel shines a little light on new Central City affordable and appealing housing that shows there's plenty of appeal to urban living in Milwaukee.

Superior Daily Telegram Slams GOP Compact Politicking

Superior's Daily Telegram tells it like it is, ripping GOP assembly leaders for trying to sandbag the pending Great Lakes Compact agreement so that Lake Michigan water can be decontrolled and shipped more easily to "urban flighters" now sprawling through Waukesha County.

DNR Secretary Takes Issue With Wisconsin's Compact Killers

Ill-timed actions by GOP Assembly Republicans to"gut" the pending Great Lakes Compact could bring economic harm to Waukesha communities hoping to get Lake Michigan water, according to a letter to the GOP representatives from DNR Secretary Matt Frank.

It's probably a wasted effort, but good for Frank to frame the debate in those terms, since the Compact killers announced their plan Thursday, the same day a bill to implement the Compact in Wisconsin was rolled out in Madison after more than two years of preparation.

Talk about regional uncooperation - - as the goal was a bi-partisan bill to move along an agreement already adopted in four Great Lakes states and about to be approved in two and perhaps three of the remaining four - - meaning our state, the home of iconic conservationists Gaylord Nelson and Aldo Leopold could be the lone holdout to implemention of an agreement to save the Great lakes that has been seven years in the making.

And which does not go on to the US Congress for its crucial approval until all eight states adopt similar bills - - something the Compact killers are willfully trying to prevent.

As I have pointed out many times on this blog, a small group of ideological conservatives and ill-informed business interests, led by the WMC and State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), are putting the Great Lakes Compact - - an eight state, two-country water management agreement and process - - at risk.

For Lazich, the contradictions are overwhelming.

That's because she represents a city that, under the Compact, is given a specific procedural break for easier access to Lake Michigan water - - an exception that does not exist under current and applicable federal law.

If members of Lazich's party successfully stall or torpedo the Compact, New Berlin's efforts to win a water deal could be blocked by the federal law.

As I said 10 months ago on this blog, when Lazich was inexplicably leading the fight against the Compact at the Capitol, that's how you shoot your entire district in the foot.

Pabst Farms Stressing Local City Budget, Services

The Daily Reporter's Sean Ryan produced a fascinating story about Pabst Farms and the consequences of using Tax Incremental Financing to spur the development there.

The story documents that because the increased property taxes produced through the TIF bonding goes first to repay that debt, and not to City of Oconomowoc general fund coffers, then the city can't afford to supply all the routine services those new property owners expect from a municipality.

So Pabst Farms' developers may have to begin paying for police services for instance, because Oconomowoc can't afford city officers to patrol the new developments.

Ironic, isn't it?

You use city tax money to fuel development, but you can't reap the added tax benefits to provide basic municipal services to the residents and businesses the development has produced.

Maybe TIF is a tool that shouldn't be used to build subdivisions on a small city's remaining or annexed farmland because it will stretch that community's resources to the breaking point.

The Northern Illinois Shootings, And The Guns

Among the news stories about the mass murderer's arsenal used to mow down students at Northern Illinois University was this troubling line:

"All four guns were bought legally from a federally licensed firearms dealer, said Thomas Ahern, an agency spokesman."

I'd say that's clear and convincing evidence that guns are just too damn available - - which is the main reason we have an annual murder-by-gun total in the US each year in the thousands, whereas in most countries around the world, similar murders are rare.

Ryan Braun's $10,000 Donation To Habitat For Humanity Speaks Volumes

Nice to see a young ballplayer like the Brewers' Ryan Braun giving his Rookie-of-the-Year $10,000 award check to Habitat For Humanity.

I'm sure athletes and celebrities commit flagrant acts of charity in private and there's no need for anyone to know - - but given the frequent sports-related headlines about selfish or boorish behaviors, and so few stories with anything suggesting a player with a progressive political consciousness, it was refreshing to see Braun, a local player, so generously supporting Habitat.

Rush Limbaugh Still Bashing McCain: You Go, Rush!

Let national talker and egomanic Rush Limbaugh make a fool out of himself, pretending to be as important as a presidential nominee, but let's thank him for helping keep Republicans divided and stirred up.

National Wildlife Federation Says Compact 'Amenders' Are "Hijacking" The Agreement

The National Wildlife Federation has strong words for leaders in the Republican Assembly caucuses of the Ohio and Wisconsin legislatures who want to send the Great Lakes Compact agreement into renegotiation purgatory.

As I have been arguing, this is a deliberate tactic to kill the Compact, and Compact opponents who have lined up in a shamefully destructive partisan approach to regional water stewardship know it.

I first noted efforts by Compact opponents in April, 2007 to convince Wisconsin legislators to make changes sought by conservative Ohio Republicans.

In August, I posted more material about the Ohio-Wisconsin anti-Compact alliance.

I had interviewed the leading Ohio opponent, State Sen. Tim Grendell, the organizer of a meeting in Michigan among midwest legislators who were said to have reservations about the Compact as written.

Grendell has worked State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) to push the Compact back into negotiations: she unsuccessfully tried to convince a state legislative study committee to buy into Grendell's theories of water rights.

But now, along with Lazich, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is calling the shots, and water-carriers from the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce to Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas are willing to risk the Great Lakes for their narrow special, partisan interests.
Update here:

Make no mistake about it: some Waukesha political and business leaders are playing hardball and it's time to call them on it.

Publicly, they say they are Compact supporters.

But then the specifics come out: Supporters of just a certain kind of Compact, gutted of its essential principle of unanimous, eight-state approvals of diversions of water outside of the Great Lakes basin boundaries.

That is already the underpinning of applicable federal law, and how a Compact works.

And there is no way that the other Great Lakes states are going to resume negotiations that ran from 2001-2005 and produced a document already approved by four of the eight Great Lakes states' legislatures.

Waukesha County was already given diversion application permission in the Compact - - a direct, demonstrable route to Great Lakes water - - with the help of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources negotiators in 2004-2005.

Communities like New Berlin that straddle the actual basin boundary were given an even easier application standard to meet.

Yet now Waukesha's legislators want even more, and they know it isn't going to happen.

They should come clean, state they are killing the Compact, and deal with the consequences openly, rather than hiding behind the spin that all they are looking for is a simple do-over, a little tweak, a numbers change, making an "eight" into "a majority."

Environmentalists were tagged as zealots for trying to strengthen the Compact with tough provisions that would not have allowed diverted water to be transferred to communities new annexations.

Those provisions would have made the conservation goals of the Compact real and effective.

Those changes did not make it into the draft bill.

If that was zealotry, then just what the heck is the Assembly GOP/Waukesha business elite position?

McCain Flip-Flops On Waterboarding

As a tortured POW during the Vietnam War, John McCain knew what he was talking about when he consistently and strongly condemned waterboarding throughout the presidential campaign.

It gave McCain a perch on the small piece of moral high ground left in the GOP on the issue.

But now that McCain is the presumptive GOP nominee, he declined earlier this week to vote for a bill that passed the US Senate forbidding waterboarding.

I don't think I can recall a more stunning flip-flop or blatant act of pandering by a candidate poised to lead one of the national parties.

How can he possibly explain it?

Reckless Assembly Republicans Look To Kill Great Lakes Compact

Two leading Republican Assembly leaders are now on record joining the anti-Great Lakes Compact cabal of State Sen Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) and Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell - - whose antics to sink the Great Lakes Compact by sending it back to negotiators for more 'changes' have been well-documented on this blog.

Also siding with Lazich: Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, and the Metropolitan Builders Association.

Lazich and Grendell have colluding on this since August: Here is a posting based on my interview with him then.

Get the picture?

The Compact is a water management and conservation cooperative agreement (this is the concept Lazich & Co. just cannot abide) among the eight Great Lakes states.

Their governors, including Wisconsin's Jim Doyle, also agreed in 2005 following four years of negotiations, to support implementing bills in their states that would contain no substantive changes.

And a similar bill has to be approved by the US Congress, or the Great Lakes will become even more vulernable to whimsical and selfish takings of water, without standards, or a rational set of application and approval procedures needed to protect a multi-state, two-country (the US and Canada) resource.

So just as a Compact bill gets rolled out in Wisconsin today, (two states have approved it among the eight, and two more states' Governors have approved-bills on their desks, making new 'negotiations' after a seven-year process nothing but a sham strategy at this point), out come the Assembly obstructionist tactics, as explained by the following Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Newswatch blog item:

THURSDAY, Feb. 14, 2008, 2:14 p.m.By Stacy Forster
Great Lakes compact debated

Madison - As the state Senate opened debate today on legislation to ratify and implement a compact to stop large-scale water diversions and promote water conservation, some Assembly leaders indicated they want to go back to the drawing board on certain aspects of the compact.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) and Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford) Wednesday sent a letter to Bill Harris, president of the Ohio state Senate, saying they want to work with lawmakers there to change the compact, which was signed by the governors of eight Great Lakes states.

Huebsch and Gunderson wrote that they object to provisions that would allow the governor of one of the eight states to object to a water diversion and expand the public trust doctrine to include groundwater.

"The Wisconsin State Assembly is committed to introducing and passing legislation that mirrors legislation being introduced in the Ohio State Senate, and we welcome the opportunity to work with you and your colleagues to enact these changes across the Great Lakes basin," Huebsch and Gunderson wrote.

Four state legislatures have already ratified the compact, but Ohio, like Wisconsin, faces unique water-access issues.

There has been solid, bipartisan support for the compact in the Wisconsin Senate. But it has always faced an uphill battle in the Assembly, where some members are concerned the agreement is too restrictive for communities - including many they represent -- that want access to water and could stifle economic development.

The compact legislation has been a long time coming; legislators released a preliminary draft on Tuesday but concede there is still more work to be done.

The Senate's Committee on Environment and Natural Resources held an informational hearing today on a draft of the legislation.Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona), chairman of the Senate committee, said the legislature's movement on a bill was a historic achievement.

"The Great Lakes compact is critical to protecting our state's natural resources," Miller said at the hearing. "Fresh water is predicted to become the most important resources in the world within the lifetime of today's children."

Belling Predicts Huckabee Win In Wisconsin

Granted that Mark Belling knows a lot more about Wisconsin's GOP than I do, so I was interested to read this lede in his February 13th Freeman column:

"Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee will win Tuesday’s Wisconsin presidential primary and the results reveal a lot about what is going on in both political parties. "

Full text here.

If Belling is right, (not Right), then the base in the Republican Party is farther right than I thought. So I will have learned something about both the GOP and I will acknowledge Belling's ability to discern that party's true mood and makeup.

On the other hand, if McCain wins the primary next Tuesday, then we will have learned something about Wisconsin's GOP voters, and about Mark, too.

Belling is one of those conservative radio talk show hosts in an absolute meltdown over the impending 'sky-is-falling' McCain nomination.

Democrats will have an easier time accepting either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama's nomination failure, since you don't hear many Democrats crabbing this badly should the Democratic nominee not be their first choice.

Wrote Belling, of McCain:

"The GOP is like the Titanic right after it hit the iceberg. You have the bizarre spectacle of a political party choosing as its nominee a candidate that most members of the party don’t even like. John McCain has nailed down the nomination by managing to win 40 percent of the vote in a lot of states. The remaining 60 percent doesn’t like McCain at all but never rallied around a single alternative.

"This leaves Huckabee as the only non-McCain standing (Ron Paul doesn’t count). Republican voters, distraught over McCain’s certain nomination, will trudge to the polls to register their disgust the only way they know how - by voting for Huckabee. In fact, Huckabee may win eight of the next nine Republican contests. He can’t catch McCain - McCain’s delegate lead is too large - but he will be able to take advantage of being the only way for the conservative base of the Republican Party to vent. Republicans will end up with a candidate so distasteful to them that he will limp into the general election having been clobbered in elections all over the country.

"Many believe McCain’s win, and the fact that fellow moderate Huckabee is the only alternative, is a sign that the conservative movement is dying. A better explanation is that there wasn’t a credible candidate for the party’s right wing to rally around. Fred Thompson was sleepwalking. Mitt Romney is a Johnny-come-lately who is a member of an unusual religion. Rudy Giuliani only supported some of the agenda. The bottom line is that Democrats Tuesday will pick a candidate they love and Republicans will try to send a message to one they hate."

Human Activity Effects The Oceans

Of course, the same people denying that human activity could possibly effect the atmosphere and the climate will resist the notion that people are effecting the oceans, as scientists report.

Ripon Offers Trek Bikes To Students Who Forego Cars

Ripon College has figured out a clever way to reduce the number of cars students bring to campus:

Free bikes, with helmets and locks.

Now there's a smart way to green up a campus.

County Pension Scandal Does Further Harm To Taxpayers

The pension fund debacle that drove former Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament and a brace of supervisors from office continues to threaten the county's solvency.

A rocky investment climate and Wall Street losses could force taxpayers to infuse more dough into the system - - on top of a $50 million contribution this year, reports The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The pension fund scandals, coupled with current Exec Scott Walker's ideological penchant for more cuts in services, continues to harm the county and its taxpayers' wallets.

The best start would be replacing Walker with a real problem-solver, and then the implementation of out-of-the-box approaches to restore the county to fiscal and political health and success.

Barrett Calls For Great Lakes Compact, Notes SEWRPC Problems

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett used his State of the City address Thursday to call for adoption of the pending Great Lakes Compact.

Story, here.

Barrett also highlighted a concern that was detailed on this blog a few days ago - - the Department of Natural Resource's very troubling plan to turn over a key step in review of Great Lakes diversion applications and other water transfers to the regional planning commission, SEWRPC.

(And Assembly Republican leaders announced Thursday they were abandoning a bi-partisan approach to passing the Great Lakes Compact, preferring instead to send the agreement back to the states for renegotiation - - the procedural equivilant of sending a bill back to committee to kill it.)

Located in Pewaukee, and without a single Milwaukee-appointed commissioner among its 21 members, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) has a structural and policy bias in favor of sprawl development.

Its recommended highway expansion plan, on which the state is spending $6.5 billion, does not include a penny of money for any rail or bus component.

That's the case even with the next $1.9 billion construction phase - - Milwaukee to the Illinois state line, even though there is a commuter rail plan ready to break ground in the same corridor.

These points are made strongly in Barrett's speech, too.

This all means the very communities in the six counties surrounding Milwaukee will be obtaining more highway access into undeveloped areas - - bringing along development, housing and jobs - - without providing access and benefits to less-wealthy, City-based transit-users.

Thus any reviews and decisions to approve water transfers to SEWRPC counties will be done deals if SEWRPC is permitted to then carry out their technical reviews.

That is monumentally unfair, discriminatory and just plain wrong. It will essentially turn SEWRPC into more of a special interest group - - helping subdivision planners and highway lobbyists and annexation-happy suburbs - - that it is now.

Add to that reality SEWRPC's unwillingness to provide a housing study with recommendations for the region since 1975, and the anti-Milwaukee biased regional trifecta at work within SEWRPC's offices comes into sharger focus:

No housing study for 33 years.

No transit in the multi-billion highway expansion plan.

Enabling water transfers away from Lake Michigan to the SEWRPC region's faraway suburbs, exurbs and remaining agricultural land.

So kudos to Mayor Barrett for highlighting and redefining the Great Lakes Compact issue.

We in Milwaukee need to hear from our legislative delegation, alderman and county supervisors, too - - and what we need to hear is those decision-makers applaud Barrett's leadership and will follow his lead.

The Milwaukee County Board does not need any more justification to yank SEWRPC's annual appropriation, for example.

It's the largest automatic transfer of operating money from the seven SEWRPC counties every year, and for Milwaukee County and the city, the return on that shift of hundreds of thousands of property tax dollars is now a net negative.

Milwaukee residents would get more bang for those bucks if they were air-dropped over Downtown Milwaukee, retrieved, spent at local restaurants and stores, or tucked into a Money Market account earning 0.5%.

Our elected officials have to stand up against this serious powershift away from the city - - if more power to SEWRPC on water transfers sneaks into the Wisconsin version of the Compact.

It will further disenfranchise urban residents and wall them off again, much as they are blocked from full access to the suburbs by the boundary-freezing 1955 Oak Creek Law, from an equal share of the benefits of state action, public spending and planning.

That's making a bad situation worse, and is certainly not what the Great Lakes Compact was intended to do.

Focused on water, the agreement - - rolled out today at the State Capitol later today for state approval - - the Compact is a conservation and stewardship agreement among eight states.

It should not be used to earmark water for suburbs, enriching them while while harming Wisconsin's only big city.

George McGovern's Moving Speech, Appearance At Turner Hall, With Audio

Sen. George McGovern spoke in Milwaukee's Turner Hall Tuesday night: A story about his talk there, and link to the speech's audio and post-speech remarks are below, from WisPolitics.com.

The event was the highlight of a day of family politcking in Milwaukee for Sen. McGovern on behalf of his grandson Sam McGovern-Rowen, my son.

Sen. McGovern gave his endorsement for Third District Alderman to Sam - - and also discussed national politics, and the wars in Iraq and Vietnam.
A long-time peace activist, and foe of the war in Vietnam, Sen. McGovern recently wrote a widely-read op-ed-piece for The Washington Post in which he called for the impeachment of Pres. George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

WisPolitics.com also posted links to remarks following the speech by both Sen. McGovern and Sam McGobern-Rowen - - again that is provided below.

From WisPolitics.com:

McGOVERN SAYS DEMS MUST WIN AT MILWAUKEE RALLY

It is “imperative” for Democrats to win the White House and solidify control of Congress this fall in order for the United States to get out of Iraq, former Dem presidential nominee George McGovern said during a campaign appearance for his grandson, who’s running for the Milwaukee City Council.

“I think it’s absolutely imperative that the Democrats win this election, that we get the White House, that we get the House and the Senate by larger margins than we now have it, and then bring this tragic war to a conclusion,” McGovern said at yesterday evening’s rally at Turner Hall.

During his talk before the crowd of about 80, McGovern compared Iraq to the Vietnam War, saying the only real difference is that the current war is being fought in a desert instead of a jungle.

McGovern, who served as a U.S. senator from South Dakota, said the current war is in some ways worse, because leaders had the Vietnam War as a lesson.

McGovern nearly came to tears when discussing “the loss of 58,000 wonderful young Americans” in the Vietnam War and remarked that he cannot visit the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., and see the names and ages of those who died without similarly losing his composure.

“And yet here we are going down the same road again, 4,000 wonderful young Americans,” McGovern said.

McGovern spoke well of Sen. John McCain, but faulted him for supporting the Iraq War and said his plan for Iraq resembles the approach to the Vietnam War, in which the U.S. kept sending more and more troops in an effort to win.

“That’s the John McCain remedy; if you get into a bad war just keep sending in more troops and eventually you will kill more of them than they kill of us,” McGovern said. “It’s on of the reasons I don’t want him in the White House.”

McGovern said he had nothing personally against McCain. “I don’t have any personal malice towards John McCain. I served briefly with him in the Senate, and he’s a decent man who probably believes all this stuff he puts out,” he said to chuckles. “But there’s a limit to what even a great country like the United States can stand in the way of using its resources for destructive purposes.”

In a conversation with reporters later, McGovern described McCain as an “incurable hawk.” Also in his conversation with reporters, McGovern agreed that the primary this year has parallels with 1972.

“The transcendent issue in '72 was the war in Vietnam,” McGovern said. “This time it's the war in Iraq.” And although McGovern said some consider the economy the top issue, the nation’s economic difficulties are rooted in the war.

“The economy is in trouble partly because of all the wastage in Iraq,” McGovern said, adding that if the money for the war was spent on transportation, health care, education and the environment, “we wouldn’t have this sag in the economy that we're seeing today.”

McGovern has endorsed Hillary Clinton, but said he is happy with both Barack Obama and Clinton. “I'll have no problem endorsing and working for which ever one wins.” McGovern said. “But I did endorse Hillary, and I stay with that.”

McGovern, 85, stood through his entire 21-minute speech and stayed for nearly an hour after his talk to chat and sign autographs. McGovern, who became a history professor following his service in WWII as a bomber pilot, joked about how he managed to recently get the opportunity to write a book on President Abraham Lincoln for a series on American presidents.

“So here I am working on a book about the founder of the Republican Party,” McGovern said to laughs. “I wish to God we had Republicans like that now.”

McGovern’s grandson, Sam McGovern-Rowen, is seeking the 3rd Aldermanic District seat being vacated by Ald. Mike D’Amato. He is currently D’Amato’s legislative assistant.

Listen to McGovern’s presentation: http://blogs.wispolitics.com/multimedia/audio/2008/02/080212McGovern1.mp3

Listen to McGovern and McGovern-Rowen speak with reporters: http://blogs.wispolitics.com/multimedia/audio/2008/02/080212McGovernWithReporters.mp3


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Smart Wisconsin Legislators, Contemplating Water Legislation, Should Look South

Wisconsin legislators and the public will get their first look at the proposed Great Lakes Compact implementing bill on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., at an informational State Capitol hearing.

Details here.

After more than two years of delay, we'll see what legislators, various lobbyists and Department of Natural Resources staffers have come up with.

Happy Valentine's Day.

And while certain special interests have been campaigning for months to weaken the bill, so Waukesha developments and municipalities outside the Great Lakes basin might have easy access to Lake Michigan water - - regardless of the regional and national consequences - - there's a new Southern wrinkle that should give the Compact weakeners pause:

A federal appeals court has just ruled that drought-ravaged and over-developed Atlanta cannot make a side deal to get certain waters because the Federal Government holds the ultimate water transferring permission.

That message should not be lost on the City of Waukesha, or State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and others who have either tried for a side deal, or who might delay the Compact for so long that the feds might tempted to step in and take control of the Great Lakes.

In other words, don't try and set up a sweetheart deal for yourself to access a shared resource - - say, the Great Lakes - - if there is federal law in place that says certain water transfer and management procedures must be followed.

The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 provides no exceptions to all eight Great Lakes' states governors approval of diversions out of the Great Lakes basin - - a law that doesn't parse diversions into categories - - so it would be foolhearty for Wisconsin legislators to bless back-door applications or insert language tweaks spun into Wisconsin law just to get water to out-of-basin suburbs.

Or to weaken, or remove altogether, that lynchpin eight-state approval diversion provision in the pending Great Lakes Compact.

That's the argument made by Lazich, the WMC, the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Builders Association, and even Waukesha County Exec. Dan Vrakas and others who have said just that, in one form or another.

As I written repeatedly on this blog, ignoring the federal law is a very bad idea. All this and more about water law was spelled out in a crucial Wisconsin Attorney General opinion now 14 months old, but which has been ignored by the rest of the media and dismissed by DNR officials.

Those who ignore it, or who are out to sandbag the Compact in Wisconsin, could inherit a boatload of consequences:

Wisconsin could end up stirring up the other Great Lakes if the badger State trys to delete Compact language, or to add special exceptions for Wisconsin that the other seven Great Lakes states and their attorneys generals would not accept.

Worse, the Congress, which could look at the appeals court ruling and take back control over the Great Lakes.

So it's time for Wisconsin leaders and legislators to stop playing games with the Great Lakes, and to get serious about passing a good bill for Wisconsin.

An excellent argument by Steven Schmuki of the Waukesha Environmental Action League, (WEAL), for the Strong Compact is here.

Huge Brookfield Development Takes Shape As Regional Growth Again Avoids Milwaukee

Everytime I read about a massive, mixed-use project in the area - - this time in Brookfield, with everything from housing to retail to a corportate headquarters - - two questions come to mind:

Does the Milwaukee 7 encourage this growth so far from downtown Milwaukee - - in areas disconnected by transit from the rest of the region?

Do Milwaukeans understand the scope, depth, breadth and repetition of such projects planned or under construction beyond the limits of their land-locked City?

That's the challenge facing Milwaukee - - both the awareness of the movement of capital and jobs away from the City, and the consequences of that growth.

Senate Bars Waterboarding: The Vote That Should Never Have Been Needed

The US Senate has banned waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning.

That the Senate needed to formally ban the technique is a powerful reason why the November election must be a complete repudiation of the Bush administration.

Soglin, Picketers, Target WMC's Negative Ads

Protestors took to the streets in Madison to picket the headquarters of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

A variety of interests, including former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin are shining the light of disclosure on the WMC, which will raise and spend millions to knock incumbent State Supreme Court jurist Louis Butler off the court.

The WMC helped elect Annette Ziegler last year with a multi-million blizzard of "independent expenditure" ads: Madison's protestors seem to be set on making the WMC's role a little more public, especially for WMC members who may not know the extent to which their dues are funding sharp-edged, right-wing political tactics.

If Lake Mead Runs Dry, They Will Come For The Great Lakes Supply

Lake Mead supplies much of the parched UW west with water: if the new predictions about its possible drying-up come true in the near future, there better be a tough Great Lakes Compact in place, or that water will move west.

Waukesha Environmental Group Advocates For Strong Great Lakes compact

The Waukesha Environmental Action League (WEAL), fighting the good fight for conservation from the heart of Waukesha, again lays out the merits of a strong Great Lakes Compact - - this time in an op-ed in the Waukesha Freeman by Steve Schmuki.

The Compact is an eight-state water resource management agreement: Wisconsin will soon consider whether to approve and implement the Compact, and forces in Waukesha County's business community and political leadership want to weaken the Compact.

The op-ed is a response to a previous piece by the Waukesha County Executive, Dan Vrakas, who was arguing for the exact opposite, and, in fact, argued for changes to the pending Compact so radical as to kill it.

I say, advantage WEAL. Thanks to Steven Schmuki for writing it.

Great Lakes Compact Draft Bill To Be Aired In Madison Thursday

I don't have the draft in hand, but the Great Lakes Compact bill will get aired at an informational hearing at 1:30 p.m. at the Capitol.

So we are hours away from learning if the bill is strong on conservation and resource manaagement - - or if opens the floodgates for easy diversions tp extend sprawl throughout southeastern Wisconsin at the expense of lakeshore communities' development and Lake Michigan stewardship.


This release was issued by State Sen. Mark Miller, (D-Madison), whose Environment and Natural Resources Committee will host the hearing:

Senate INFORMATIONAL HEARING Committee on Environment and Natural Resources

The committee will hold an informational hearing onthe following items at the time specified below:Thursday, February 14, 2008 , 1:30 PM, 412 East State Capitol.

Informational Hearing on draft Great Lakes Compact legislationLegislative Council will provide a briefing to the committee regarding the contents of upcoming legislation on the Great Lakes Compact.

Department of Natural Resources staff will be available for questions.Invited testimony only.

A preliminary draft of the legislation will be available prior to the hearing. An amended notice will be issued when the legislation is available for distribution.

Senator Mark Miller, Chair

Milwaukee At The Crossroads

In a piece I wrote for the Madison Capital Times op-ed page, I argue that Milwaukee is at a crossroads.

Will the state and regional planning commission begin to link public spending and decision-making on transportation and water access to Milwaukee's urban priorities, or will there be a focus on suburban growth that keeps legally-land-locked Milwaukee isolated, and relatively less successful?

Gableman Raises Less Money Than Butler: But...

The WMC will raise 25-to-50 times Gableman's paltry $125,000 kitty-to-date if that's what it takes for the state's largest rightwing business front group to unseat incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.

One Wisconsin Now's Simplified Website Has Great Functions

The newly-redesigned website for One Wisconsin Now is a gem.

There are easy buttons for sending letters to the editor, comments to public officials, and a host of additional simplied features: blog links, news links, communications and networking linkages - - the entire proverbial political/media/organizing ball of wax.

Check it out.

(Disclosure: for the umteenth time, I am on a One Wisconsin Now board, but had no role in the website's redesign. That's why it's so good!)

Michael Horne Follows The Golf Interstate Interchange Brouhaha

Michael Horne, at the Milwaukeeworld blog, advances the story of our state's obsession with road-building by reporting about plans to build a special interstate highway interchange for golfing events near Kohler.

That would be used about once every five years.

Regional Economic Planning - - Around Sustainability

Business and government officials in the Washington DC metro area - - and all the way to Northern Maryland to Southern Virginia - - are setting up a regional effort to conduct economic planning around environmental sustainability.

Is that approach on the radar over at The Milwaukee 7?

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission?

Or are we doomed here to planning agendas that don't even include modern rail transit as adjuncts to highway expansion, for instance?

Five Acres Of Organic Farming Can Provide A Middle-Class Income

If you can plant five acres with organic crops you can create a middle-class income, according to Maryland officials.

I wonder how this up-to-date information would work its way into the land-use studies and other demographic plans and goals out at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission?

DNR Wants To Give Sprawl Planners Even More Power

According to the Daily Reporter, the state Department of Natural Resources wants to give organizations like SEWRPC (the suburban-leaning southeastern Wisconsin regional planning commission) power to recommend approvals for water extensions to undeveloped areas in the counties for which they plan.

If the state permits an unrepresentative body like SEWRPC to help greenlight water transfers from Lake Michigan water to out-of-basin, undeveloped regions (read: enabled sprawl), the result would the additional, government-imposed-and-sanctioned impoverishment of Milwaukee - - a reckless and discriminatory state government act not seen at the Capitol since the Legislature land-locked Milwaukee more than 50 years ago.

The DNR would have the final say, but the SEWRPC seal-of-approval would give water transfer schemes all the cover that final decision-makers would need to give them the go-ahead.

In our region - - Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington Counties - - SEWRPC is heavily biased already in favor of job, housing, and highway growth in the out-of-Milwaukee suburbs.

It's an agency where the prevailing culture is to do things the way they've always been done - - using a small cadre of consultants, rocking no boats, - - as sprawl eats up much of the region's open space, and even SEWRPC's once-sacrosanct environmental, green corridors.

Goodbye, Kettle Moraine, Pabst Farms, Ruby Farms, as The Road To Sprawlville gets another lane all the way to the Jefferson County line.

SEWRPC recommended spending $6.5 billion to rebuild and add capacity to the area's major highways, including adding eleven miles of lanes to the Marquette Interchange and knocking down scores of homes and businesses in and around Milwaukee.

The state transportation department, which gave SEWRPC a million bucks to write the plan, graciously accepted it, and recently announced that the next, transit-free expenditure of $1.9 billion would rebuild and add a lane from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line.

That's what they call planning in southeastern Wisconsin.

And SEWRPC is finishing up a 'regional' water supply study with a committee whose 32-person, all-white membership is heavily tilted away from Milwaukee.

While each county has three commissioners, the City of Milwaukee, with 625,000 people, and populations larger than any of the other six counties, has none.

So do you think SEWRPC will take into account Milwaukee's predominantly low-income population, and its economic development needs, if the issue is whether suburbs should get more water to expand into their undeveloped areas?

The DNR plan, according to the Daily Reporter, would require regional commissions to consider their existing data and plans to determine whether water transfers are needed - - but in SEWRPC's case, its plans are written piecemeal and are inadequate.

For example, SEWRPC has not written a regional housing plan since 1975. Gerald Ford was President then. The Milwaukee Brewers were seven years away from the their only World Series appearance. A generation ago, and more.

And while SEWRPC advocated on behalf of the highway expansion plan it wrote a few years ago for the state, it completely left transit out of that plan.

And the DNR wants to give this agency more power?

What a ridiculous and dangerous circular approach, because SEWRPC already has signaled over and over again that it has little interest in genuine planning to bring about things Milwaukee needs - - transit, housing options, and related job growth.

Milwaukee began to lose clout and wealth when the state locked it out of further annexations in 1955.

White flight accelerated that trend.

SEWRPC has helped marginalize the City: Now the state wants to boost suburban annexations by making it easier for those communities to get more water - - all of which works to the detriment of the largest city in the state.

That's not insightful planning with a city in mind.

It's planning to keep the city out of sight and mind.

Here's a question:

Will the state and SEWRPC recommend and implement tax sharing, so that the water wealth get distributed throughout the region, and particularly to Milwaukee, the most likely source of water diversions, given the city's water intake and pumping capacities?

I doubt it.

Tax base sharing is not one of the issues being explored by the water study committee.

And let's be honest just this once:

The suburbs are interested in walling themselves off from Milwaukee as the focus on their own growth.

They are not interested in sharing.

State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) has even called such wealth-sharing programs "extortion," so let's not expect the suburbs to offer anything to Milwaukee except a miniscule premium on top of a water gallonage charge. If even that.

Housing agreements. Transit connections for workers or commuters? Forget it. They've ducked these options for decades.

And what is the state's response"

The Daily Reporter piece lets us know that it is apparently OK with the state if Milwaukee gets left further and further behind as the powers-that-be concoct legislation to make sure that it is the suburbs that are taken care of.

Yes, first thing first.

And the City of Milwaukee? Well, it will come into play relevantly during the water debate in the region if SEWRPC - - a body on which it has no representation - - decides to drain off a little more of its resources and transfer them to the suburbs?

Like what was done with land, homes, businesses and tax-base for the Marquette Interchange project, and which will be repeated in the other highway plan segments for the next 25 years.

This is going too far.

If legislation to approve the pending Great Lakes Compact that will probably be introduced next week for a hurried special session includes this extension of power to bodies like SEWRPC - - power fatal to Milwaukee given these commissions' counties-only structures - - then Milwaukee's Mayor, Common Council County Board and legislative delegation have got to demand that it be removed.

And sseriously think about whether this is a version of the Compact that can be supported if.

Because that's not a Compact. It's a suburban-enabling piece of special interest legislation, and one that completely trashes the notion of stewarding commonly held resources.

Additionally, Milwaukee County supervisors should strongly consider withdrawing their annual contribution - - it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and is by far the largest of the counties' shares to SEWRPC's operating budget - - if SEWRPC becomes a formal partner in moving water westward.

The Compact is supposed to be a water management agreement among the eight Great Lakes states to further conservation and limit diversions to those absolutely necessary.

And the regional planning commission is supposed to be a collaborative, neutral body, or at least should try to be one, and not continue to define itself as a special-interest adjunct to suburban developers and the road-builders.

Wisconsin officials at the state and local level are constantly looking for ways to subvert the Compact by finding or creating loopholes, principally for Waukesha County suburbs that have overdrawn their wells, yet continue to annex land, pushing development far to the west.

Giving SEWRPC a strong say in whether water should be moved to undeveloped areas - - and calling it planning when the outcome (wink-wink) is so predictable - - is like giving the Tavern League a strong say in whether new bars and restaurants should allow smoking...then calling it public health planning.

Does Highly-Paid Get You High-Quality?

I'm fascinated by the language in the headline on this Wisconsin State Journal story about the 66% proposed increase in pay for the next UW-Madison chancellor:

"Let UW invest in quality leaders."

Is there a correlation between quality and pay?

If there was, then why have there been scores of scandals on Wall Street, at the CEO level of big corporations, and even in professional sports, where highly-paid only meant devious, sneaky, corrupt and felonious.

I'm not saying that's where the UW is headed.

But let's drop the fiction that there has to be a relationship between pay and quality.

Experience, OK.

But quality?

Way too subjective, and often, way too wrong.

France Now Has A Pro-American Leader, Faster Trains And Smoke-Free Dining

Sounds better than ever, mais non?

Let's Highlight Here The Wisconsin Initiative On Climate Change Impacts

Richard Lathrop, co-chair of The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change (WICCI) left this important information on an early blog post, and I want to put it up as a separate posting so it gets more publicity.

I had urged the WICCI and other state activities aimed at climate change to make sure there were Milwaukee components, and Lathrop, a limnologist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, is way ahead of me, explaining:

The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) was created to assess climate change impacts on specific natural resources, ecosystems and regions, as well as industry, agriculture, tourism, and human health in Wisconsin.

An important outcome of these assessments is to develop adaptation strategies that can be implemented by businesses, farmers, public health officials, municipalities, resource managers and other stakeholders.

One of the primary responsibilities of the Science Council of WICCI is to create working groups that will conduct the particular impact assessments on statewide topic areas such as water, forests, wildlife, human health, and tourism.

Working groups are also being created to conduct integrated assessments in particular geographic regions such as Milwaukee and the northern forests.

A “Milwaukee Working Group” is particularly compelling given the region’s economic importance to Wisconsin and the region’s large population. This effort also recognizes that Milwaukee has unique challenges as a dense urban center located on the shores of Lake Michigan.

The formation of a comprehensive working group within WICCI is in the works, led by Dr. Sandra McLellan of the Great Lakes Water Institute at UW-Milwaukee.

The goal will be to look at a full range of potential climate-related impacts on human health, air quality, water quality and quantity, the urban economy, etc.

So far there has been an overwhelmingly positive response from the region’s key leaders in water resource management, urban sustainability, urban planning, the business community, and public health willing to participate in this working group.

In the weeks ahead the Milwaukee Working Group will hopefully take shape where it can be soon launched.

A summary of activities to date will be given by WICCI Science Council Co-Chair John Magnuson as part of a keynote presentation entitled “Identifying and Adapting to Climate Change Impacts in Wisconsin” at the UWM Conference on Climate Change and Sustainable Development being held in Milwaukee on April 24-25.

Richard Lathrop
WICCI Science Council Co-Chair
email: rlathrop@wisc.edu

1,000-Foot Wall Will Greet I-94 Motorists At The Pabst Farms Mall

A 1000-foot screening wall is now proposed for the planned upscale Pabst Farms mall where it will face a $25 million Boutique Interchange off I-94.

This is the improved mall design? Are you kidding?

Who's in charge: The East Berlin Public Works Department?

Here's A Water Diversion Solution: Redo States' Borders

Powerful special interests in Waukesha County trying to undo key cooperative provisions of the pending Great Lakes Compact - - an eight-state agreement to manage Great Lakes water - - are being outdone by their states' rights counterparts in Georgia:

To access more water, drought-stricken Georgia wants to redraw its border with Tennessee to, voila! - - turn a Tennessee lake into Georgia water.

Setting aside its unconstitutionality, and sheer gall, it's instructive to see the lengths to which water-hungry, over-developed parts of the country will go to get their hands on more water.

Rather than focus on sustainable development and conservation.

Out in Waukesha, County Executive Dan Vrakas, leading business interests, and other elected officials are trying to get key language removed from Wisconsin's eventual approval of the Compact - - while calling themselves Compact supporters.

If they succeed, they would it kill the Compact that has to be approved in eight states without major changes, invite litigation from other Great Lakes states and set off a scramble for uncontrolled diversions that would make the Georgians envious.

And maybe get them thinking about a big diversion south down the Mississippi River, then piped east towards Atlanta.

Sen. George McGovern's 2/12 Milwaukee Appearance: A Family Affair

As readers of this blog may recall, I am in my personal life A) the father of Milwaukee 3rd District candidate Sam McGovern-Rowen, and B) the son-in-law of former US Sen. George McGovern.

I'm proud to be known as these folks' relatives. I've been called worse.

And I also was once a candidate, too, (for Madison Mayor), way back in another life, so that is why people say we are a political family, even though it is Sam's campaign this winter that has re-energized that identity.

Most of the time, I am just a humble blogger, shoveling snow in my spare time, playing peek-a-boo with my twin grandsons, and waiting for Opening Day.

Campaigns for families, shall we say, are busy times, and occassionally, with luck, in the midst of the work and hyper multi-tasking, moments arrive that can be memorable, even fun.

And I think George McGovern's Tuesday, 2/12 speech about the issues of the day at a rally for Sam at Turner Hall should be one of those moments.
I can remember when I was a mayoral candidate, my parents had a coffee for me in the house I grew up in out east, with long-time family friends in the living room, and it was an emotional experience.

Later, my Dad flew out to Madison, stood with me in deep snow out at Lot 60, and handed out leaflets as people got off campus buses.

That I can now do much the same for Sam is extremely rewarding: being the parent of a candidate, I discover, generates pride that is overwhelming.

George and Eleanor McGovern also came to Madison for a series of coffees for my campaign (for the record, I lost by 1,018 votes out of 65,000, but who remembers these details?) and again, those were memorable events because of the teamwork, and the love.

I didn't live in Milwaukee in 1972, the year that George won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, but I am hearing that many of the McGovern volunteers are planning on coming to the Turner Hall event.

That should be a nice reunion.

My wife Susan and I were in Milwaukee for the primary, with our infant son Matt in tow. I remember getting to spend a day campaigning in the area with Leonard Nimoy.

Top that!

Anyway.

I'm happy that George is on Sam's schedule.

Details about the rally are on Sam's campaign website, here.

Major Changes At The Capital Times

Thursday's announced changes at the Capital Times are huge.

The historic daily paper will soon become primarily a digital, online production, with a twice-weekly hard copy.

That leaves the Wisconsin State Journal as the only daily paper in Madison, but also positions the new Cap Times as a news organization that will publish with immediacy.

Given its twice-weekly hard copy editions, and continuing tie-in with the State Journal, the Cap Times will soon be something of a prototype, and one that could deliver instant news and opinion in a way that other media can't, won't...but might.

It is another indication that the future of news is on the Internet.

Not as the sole news and information format or platform, but the one that is growing.

One of its two weekly hard copies will come out on Thursday, this competing directly with Isthmus.

I have loyalties and histories with both these publications. Each is valuable. I hope they both succeed.

The Road To Sprawlville, Chapter XII: Dead End In Brookfield

Seems there's not enough money in Brookfield to get the last half-mile of a road project done - - and really, the amounts in dispute are relatively small - - but you can't help noticing that not far away, you have this underway or on the books:

• $810 million for the Marquette Interchange rebuilding and expansion.


• $1.9 billion for the I-94 North/South rebuilding and expansion.


• $3.8 billion for other regional highway rebuilding and expansion.


• $25 million for the I-94 Boutique Interchange for the Pabst Farms (not built) mall.


• $5 million (give or take) for an I-43 Boutique Interchange near Kohler for golf tournament access every five years.
  

That's where the money is going, folks. Not for transit. Not for local projects that need a relative pittance.

The big bucks are going for what they call in the industry "The Majors," and in southeastern Wisconsin, it's The Road To Sprawlville.

And it will bypass Brookfield as easily as it is leaving Milwaukee behind, too.

Courtesy of the road-builders and their friends in state government.

Gretchen Schuldt Calls Out WisDOT On The Wacky Golfing Interchange

I wrote about it, but Gretchen Schuldt does far better with it.

While Milwaukee Region Shuts Out Minorities, Seattle Leads

Seattle regroups to include its minority populations in its plans, says The New York Times.

Around here, the Milwaukee region is going the other way.

And you wonder why the region is always behind the eight-ball.

Its hyper-segregation, making it one of the less-desirable and slowest growing regions nationally, isn't an accident after all.

It begins with Milwaukee being a landlocked city, via a special, discriminatory state statute ("The Oak Creek Law," so Oak Creek could gain the tax benefits from a Wisconsin energy power plant, along air pollution and all the other sad ironies, 50 years later).

That action by the legislature froze Milwaukee's borders in 1955, stunted the city's growth, and kept the state's largest minority population encapsulated where the job base would decline.

White Flight nationally was gaining strength at that time, leading to the Iron Ring of growing, but segregated suburbs around Milwaukee turned it into a regional policy.

Census figures indicate that patterns of suburban segregation are strong today, but fresh government planning, transportation and water policy are making them ever more permanent.

Additionally, while restrictive covenants in housing deeds to keep out African-Americans and other minorities have been banned, clever local zoning codes that prohibit modest-sized homes, or multi-family, market rate apartments create the same effect:

Upper-income populations that are predominantly Caucasian continue to expand in the suburbs, while lower-income residents, predominantly minority, remain concentrated by in the city.

Add to that A) the seven-county highway reconstruction and expansion plan crafted by the regional planning commission - - where the City of Milwaukee has no vote among 21 commissioners - - and B) pressures to divert Lake Michigan water to many of those highway-enhanced suburbs, and the region's decision-makers are willfully excluding its minority residents from the very areas where growth will accelerate.

And excluded likewise from participation in these substance and process of many critical decisions: the regional planning commission's water advisory committee, for example, has 32 members, all Caucasian.

And, I'd argue, this exclusion and diminuition of minority participation retards the region's appeal, and full growth potential, by its institutional evasion of equity in public resource distribution/

You remember equality? That key part all the due process, equal protection, and life, liberty and property language that anchor our law and democracy?

I have written extensively about these trends for years, including a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday Crossroads op-ed piece, here.

Top Ten Reasons To Oppose I-94 Expansion, Again

1000 Friends of Wisconsin's listing of the Top Ten Reasons To Oppose I-94 Expansion south of Milwaukee to Illinois is so good that I decided to post a link to it again.

State, Suburbs Need To Heed Southern Water Court Decision

Wisconsin legislators and the public will get their first look at the proposed Great Lakes Compact implementing bill on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., at an informational State Capitol hearing.

Details here.

After more than two years of delay, we'll see what legislators, various lobbyists and Department of Natural Resources staffers have come up with.

And while certain special interests have been campaigning for months to weaken the bill so that Waukesha business and municipalities might have snap access to Lake Michigan water - - regardless of the regional and national consequences - - there's a new wrinkle that should give the Compact weakeners pause:

A federal appeals court has just ruled that drought-ravaged and over-developed Atlanta cannot make a side deal to get certain waters when the Federal Government holds the ultimate permission.

That message should not be lost on the City of Waukesha, or State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and others who have either tried for a side deal, or who might delay the Compact for so long that the feds might tempted to step in and take control of the Great Lakes.

In other words, when you try to set up a sweetheart deal for yourself to access a shared resource - - say, the Great Lakes - - and there is a federal law in place that says certain diversion procedures must be followed in all cases (The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 provides no exceptions to all eight Great Lakes' states governors approving diversions out of the Great Lakes basin) - - it would be foolhearty to try through back-door applications or language tweaks to get water to Waukesha's out-of-basin suburbs.

Or to weaken, or remove altogether, that lynchpin eight-state provision in the pending Great Lakes Compact, as Lazich, the WMC, the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Builders, and even Waukesha County Exec. Dan Vrakas and others have said, in one form or another.

As I written repeatedly on this blog, this is all spelled out in a crucial Wisconsin Attorney General opinion now 14 months old, but which has been ignored by the rest of the media and dismissed by DNR officials.

If those who are out to sandbag the Compact in Wisconsin get their way, they could end up stirring up the other states, and worse, the Congress, which could look at the appeals court ruling and take back more control over the Great Lakes.

That would show Mary Lazich and her states' rights allies in Ohio who are also trying to stall the Compact through an absurd effort to send this seven-year, US and Canadian negotiation back for more drafting that it is the Congress that has the ultimate say in major US water policy planning.
Time for Compact supporters to get serious about passing a good bill for Wisconsin that is also mindful of the risks the other side is taking.

An excellent argument by Steven Schmuki of the Waukesha Environmental Action League, (WEAL), for the Strong Compact is here.

WMC Bemoans Our Courts: Soglin Corrects, With Facts

In this round of Soglin vs. the WMC, "Court Performance," advantage Soglin, since he has the facts.

No Money For Health Care, Domestic Programs? Here's Why

Here's a big number: the Pentagon says next year the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will exceed $685 billion.

More than $51 billion a month.

Special Interests Want Another Boutique Interstate Interchange

First it was Pabst Farms' developers partnering with the ever-compliant state Department of Transportation to throw $25 million into a brand-spanking new, full-boat I-94 "Diamond" interchange.

That's so shoppers could get themselves into the parking lots at a proposed upscale shopping mall in Western Waukesha County, with the developers paying just 7% of the cost, and hometown Oconomowoc less than 2%.

Sweet!

Now the golf tournament people up in Sheboygan County want a special I-43 interchange near Kohler to get drivers to big pro tournament events held there - - oh, about every five years or so.

Seems too many people were using State Highway 57 to get there.

Imagine: drivers using a state highway!

We can't have that: so the proposed solution to once-every-fives' congestion is the construction of a duplicative, $5 millin-or-more Interstate interchange instead.

Looking at if from the transportation department's perspective:

What's $5 million when just down the road in the Milwaukee area, you've penciled in $6.5 billion is penciled for the region's highway improvement and expansion plan.

Note I didn't say "freeway," as surely we all know now that freeways ain't free, and unless we begin levying tolls, the gas tax is going to have to go up about 20 cents per gallon to pay for the plan.

The $1.9 billion I-94 North/South leg from Milwaukee to the Illinois State line is set to begin later this year, through 2012.

Experts say the special interchange for golf tournament attendees would be a development killer in the area, but with Kohler Co. executives putting up half the study costs, what do you think the outcome will be?

(Could be a new Wisconsin state motto emerging here: "Wisconsin: We'll Build You A Boutique Highway."

For many millions of dollars less, fleets of TV-equipped, beverage-laden luxury shuttle buses to these occassional events could be run to Kohler from destinations like Milwaukee, but transportation spenders in this area are biased towards getting single-vehicle drivers everything and anything, regardless of the cost to the taxpayers.

In other words, bank on this one being par for the course.

(Thanks to Michael Horne for tipping me off about this.)

Polarized Parties Offering Real Choices In The Post-Bush Era

It's easy to play pundit after Super Tuesday: the parties are as factionalized as is the general electorate.

In the GOP, conservatives disagree on which candidate is acceptably, certifiably conservative.

In the end, McCain will get the nomination over a fading Romney, and people like Rush Limbaugh and Charlie Sykes will have to decide if a conservative who is right and Right 80% of the time is right enough to obtain their support.

Let's hope that enough true believers on the GOP side sit it out, because the Democrats are heading for a nomination even more deeply divided.

Obama and Hillary Clinton could come into the convention far short of a majority.

And even if a deal is done to select one over the other on the convention's floor and in the proverbial back rooms (many of which are now virtual), the hard feelings and disappointments in the base, particulary with Obama's army of first-time or passionate voters, will make the Democratic party hard to effectively unify before the election.

So the 2008 campaigns reflects the deep divisions in the country, too.

A final thought:

I see each of the three most probable nominees with special advantages;

McCain can present himself as a centrist, the non-Limbaugh.

Clinton has tremendous appeal among female voters and Democratic party traditionalists who feel she has earned the right to be the standard-bearer.

Obama appeals to younger voters and racks up big majorities in African-American communities.

Somewhere among that mix, once vice-presidential selections are made, is a winner, and if the country is lucky, we'll choose a Democrat who can extricate us from the mess - - war, deficits, recession, the world's disdain - - left behind after the eight catastrophic years of Bush-Cheney.

Racine Does Not Want To Be Waukesha's Toilet

I've been writing for some time about water diversion planning by Waukesha that could include discharging some of its wastewater down the Root River.

One example here, just for the record.

Now some Racine politicos are realizing that if the procedures and standards for that wastewater's discharge and treatment aren't specified, Racine could become Waukesha's toilet, as State Rep. Cory Mason, (D-Racine) puts it.

This is one of the many issues that will play itself out as the Great Lakes Compact hits the legislature for debate.

And it illustrates why people who look at communities across the Lake Michigan boundary that are seeking water, and who say, 'just give them water,' have to grasp that their are huge downstream and region-wide issues that have to addressed transparently before the Compact is approved, and before any diversion application gets approved, too.

Here is a sample of the unresolved water quality and quantity questions:

• Will the Compact specify standards for returned diverted Great Lakes water?
• Are current treatment and dischargestandards adequate?
• Would the Department of Natural Resources' current standards protect its fish hatchery not far from Lake Michigan, and the Root River's value as an angling and recreational locale?
• Does a discharge plan meet the Compact's return flow mandate if Waukesha is permitted to return only a portion of the 24 million gallons daily it wants to move in from Lake Michigan, with the rest being flushed away forever down the Fox River to the Mississippi River and finally to the Gulf of Mexico?
• With so much remedial work ongoing in the Meonomonee and KK Rivers and watersheds, is this the time to take a step backwards on the Root?
• Will the other Great Lakes states accept that partial return, or a partial return that meets relatively low water quality standards.
• Will the DNR try to call the diversion a withdrawal, and not a diversion, to help Waukesha escape rules and standards that apply to diversions under the Compact and existing Federal law?
• Can the shoreline and river bank, along with nearby basements, survive unscathed during major rain events if there is a fresh downstream torrent of new wastewater from upstream Waukesha?

Rep. Mason is right to raise these questions before the a Compact bill, delayed by Waukesha County business and political leaders for about two years, finally moves into legislative debate.

Illinois and Minnesota have approved the Compact: Wisconsin is coming to the debate later than the others seven Great Lakes states, and the same forces that have delayed it want to remove diversion approval procedures that would weaken the Compact and cause the other states to walk away from has been nearly seven years of collaborative negotiation and work.

Counting on the DNR to be the outspoken champion of a strong Compact, in the grand Wisconsin environmental tradition?

The DNR has said that it does not necessarily feel bound by existing diversion law , so people will have to hold its feet to the fire if the agency is to be a strong advocate for Wisconsin's waters it manages under the State Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine.

Rush Limbaugh, Failing Kingmaker

Every primary US Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ) wins is another loss of sorts for Rush Limbaugh, who, along with many other righty talkers, is trying to salvage the fading candidacy of Mitt Romney.

If McCain wins the GOP nomination in the face of the Limbaugh Machine, the talkers will be weakened - - but will come away with an even more solid base of far, far, far rightwing listeners who believe that McCain is some sort of ideological traitor.

That means a smaller audience for some talkers than they enjoy today - - devoid of moderates - - but with enough true believers to talk among themselves and keep advertisers happy.

Bush To Leave Country With Huge Debt

President George W. Bush wants to drown taxpayers in red ink as he leaves office.

It'll take a Democratic President and Congress to set things right again.

Remember the Clinton administration, and the record surpluses it left behind?

Let's see how fast our Republican friends weigh in with comments that claim Bush is somehow a better budget manager than was Bill Clinton.

The Political Environment Enters Year Two, Hits The FM Airwaves

I feel pretty good about the blog after a year.

It's more work than I anticipated, but I'm happy that the issues I've tried to emphasize - - the Great Lakes Compact, the lack of fair transit in the region, exclusionary planning, suburban sprawl (in my continuing series, "The Road To Sprawlville")- - are gaining traction on the Internet, and in media in Wisconsin.

Usually the tone and content of most of the discourse on or surrounding the blog has been useful, so I'll stay with it and see what happens.

Coincidentally, Jane Hampden of WUWM-FM, 89.7, had taped a "Lake Effect" segment with me last week about blogging, the environment, and family politics (my son Sam is running for Milwaukee 3rd District Alderman), and that show aired the morning of the 4th.

A blog's birthday present.

Here is an archived link.

The program repeats at 11 p.m. the rest of the week, too.

State Climate Change Response Getting Organized

Wisconsin's climate change initiatives are getting organized, with a focus on coordination in the agricultural, industrial and university sectors.

A website about the iniative collaboration is here.

I've said earlier that Milwaukee, urban interests and city workforce goals have got to be included.

Mad Magazine, Emulating The Onion, Discovers Global Warming

Mad Magazine has figured out a unique way to blend environmentalism and commentary on George W. Bush.

Details here.

Tavern League, Special Interests Killing Smoking Ban

Wisconsinites want it, writes the Madison Capital Times' Judith Davidoff, but special interests are going to keep us what Gov. Doyle has correctly says will be our new identity:
Ashtray Of The Midwest.

When Regional Non-Cooperation And Sabotage Masquerade As Regional Cooperation

Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas raised Double-Speak to a new high in these parts, saying that he supports the Great Lakes Compact...but sides with the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce which calls for gutting the Compact of its underlying principle:

All eight Great Lakes states must approve diverting water outside of the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin.

That requirement is also embedded in the applicable federal law passed in 1986 - - The Water Resources Development (WRDA) - -because the Great Lakes belong to all the eight Great Lakes states (and two Canadian provinces), so a cooperative agreement assures stewardship of this unique fresh water resource through ral management - - by unanimity.

Vrakas, the Chamber, the Metropolitan Builders Association, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) and other Compact obstructionists know this full well:

Trying to delete such a major provision would void Wisconsin's approval, preventing the unanimous ratifications among the states needed to send the Compact to Congress for its adoption - - and after wrecking the Compact's planning dating to 2001, the gutting would open the Great Lakes to reckless and unmanaged drawdowns.

More information about the WMC's role, here.

Quite the risk in this era of water awareness and shortages, eh?

Saying, as does Vrakas, that he supports the Compact minus the eight-state diversion approval procedure is the opposite of supporting the Compact.

It is a knowing and willful effort to undermine, even destroy, the Compact, a spinning, headline-hunting passive-aggressive feint, but devoid of content, credibility and courage.

It is also designed to pressure the Doyle adminitration to support a Compact too weak to be accepted by his gubernatorial counterparts - - but to make him the bad guy in Waukesha County if he won't.

This is how cynical politics is orchestrated by Waukesha game players.

Their ideologically-based sabotage extends even to a willingness to undercut their own efforts to win water deals with Milwaukee.

If Waukesha County leaders try this end-run around the law and the heart of the Compact (following two 2006 secret failed efforts), growing anti-diversion positioning in Milwaukee and across the Great Lakes will accelerate.

More and more, I believe the ultimate goal of certain Waukesha political and business states', us-firsters/states' rights conservatives is the side-tracking or death altogetherof the Compact (I've said this before), followed by litigation to nullify WRDA - - an act of imperious and self-defeating selfishness.

The fallback plan is prodding the regional planning commission, (SEWRPC), to createa new regional authority to distribute water across Waukesha County to its outer bounaries through a Compact loophole.

I Discuss Blogging, Politics on WUWM-FM, 10 A.M. Monday, 2/4

Jane Hampden is running a series on Wisconsin bloggers on "Lake Effect," her 10 A.M. program on 89.7 WUWM-FM.

I'm her Monday morning guest.

Again - - Why Density, The Opposite Of Sprawl, Is A Solid Environmental Path

A Michigan blogger again notes our polar US planning opposites - - density vs. sprawl - - with their differing effects on environmental sustainability.

But with a twist: the European example, perhaps anathema here, but a model worth studying.

One Wisconsin Now Website Gets Super Upgrade

The website of the statewide progressive organization One Wisconsin Now has had a tremendous reconstruction - - better design, upgraded features, easier access.

The site is now even a more required stop at least daily by Internet news seekers, bloggers, political organizers, media and other opinion-makers.

(Disclosure: I am on the One Wisconsin Now board, but did not participate in the site's redesign, so I am seeing it for the first time this morning.)

Another Dirty Air Alert, Sunday, For Entire State

Remember as you read these alarmingly repetitive alerts about bad quality air in Wisconsin that the state has petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency to weaken air quality standards in southeastern Wisconsin - - where the largest share of industrial and vehicle emissions are produced.

Here is the text of Sunday's all-state alert:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution effective Sunday, February 03, 2008 12:01:00 AM through Sunday, February 03, 2008 11:59:59 PM for all counties.

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller.

These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires.

The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups.


People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities during the watch period..

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms.

Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.

To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.

There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.

Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.

Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.

Minimize outdoor wood fires.

Conserve electricity.

For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions today and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!

For more information:

Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov/

DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards

for local DNR air management program co
ntacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm

California Leads In Alternative Energy Investment

California is leading the way in alternative energy investment, far outstripping Wisconsin.

Granted it's a larger state, and let's acknowledge Wisconsin's fledgling efforts - - outlined recently by Gov. Jim Doyle in his State of the State speech, here.

And there is more evidence of collaboration among university, business and agricultural interests, through a climate change initiative, here.

But Wisconsin could be a lot more aggressive, establishing something approaching a state-level Marshall Plan, focusing on its northern forest resources, agricultural and water availability, academic leadership - - and here is the key, which seems to be missing in all the talk, planning, activity and promising:

Milwaukee's industrial and employment base.

That's how you make Wisconsin a national leader in the alternative energy revolution, and a destination for national capital looking for a home and a good return on itself - - by making sure there is a jobs' component in the work that means something to the state, its workers and job-seekers, too.

Wisconsin could set start, and then implement, an historic merger and working partnership amont the state's urban and rural sectors, its academic staffs and blue-collar workers, its farm production and industrial output.

It's time to think bigger about all the green there is in Green, and about the good that can be done for individuals and the state's economy at the same time.

It's time to Green Up the Wisconsin Idea, and the state's identity, so the next media splash about alternative energy initiatives has nothing to do with California, but instead has Wisconsin focus and a Milwaukee dateline.

More Relics From Waukesha's Watery Past

There was a time that Waukesha had dozens of springs and water bottling operations, a far cry from today's realities of dried up springs, overdrawn wells and impending applications to pipe in replacement water from Lake Michigan

A developer has found a supply of old bottles from that era; today, bottled water usually comes by the truck load from Michigan, and as for "springs" in Waukesha, the best known is the Country Springs Hotel and conference center west of the city on I-94, complete with water park.

Environmental Web Experts Rate Politicians Worldwide

The entertaining and informative website Grist.org lists its top 15 Green politicians worldwide, and an interesting mix from US makes its way into the group.

Push For More Independent DNR Gathering Steam

Conservation and some environmental groups are pushing hard for reform in the selection of the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.

This time around, the effort to roll back what began in the Tommy Thompson era - - Secretary by gubernatorial appointment, not by the Natural Resources board - - could pass both houses of the Legislature.

Waukesha Likes What It Hears About The Compact Bill

Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson says he likes what he is hearing about the bill being prepared to have Wisconsin endorse and implement the Great Lakes Compact.

That means Waukesha and other Wisconsin communities will probably be allowed to use diverted water to fuel development in land it plans to annex.

While that sounds good for Waukesha, the homebuilders and other business interests, it could mean that without strong conservation measures and a commitment to planning that includes housing, transit and land-use protections, the Compact becomes a tool to enable sprawl at the expense of Milwaukee's land-locked city population.

We'll see if any of that big-picture, inclusionary vision is in the Compact.

Urban Agriculture Advocates To Convene In Milwaukee, 2/28-3/1

Milwaukee will be centerstage for a national meeting of activists on the cutting edge of an important and growing movement nationally: urban agriculture.

Details of the conference, planned for February 28-March 1 at the Hilton downtown, are here.

And a session of the 4th St. Forum, scheduled for noon at Turners on Friday, February 29th, will focus on the issue, too. Preliminary details are here.

Urban agriculture makes sense on so many fronts, summarized below (a great site is provided through Growing Power, long a local leader in hands-on projects and education in the field:

• Locally-grown food is fresher.


• Consumers can support area producers, or get involved in growing and sharing their own food through neighborhood gardens and coops.


• Locally or homegrown foods are more likely to be organically-produced.


• Energy is saved through minimized transportation and shipping expenses.


• Green planning and participation is infused throughout the community, from individual action to neighborhood action to governmental support. Absolutely no one loses, and everyone wins.

It's significant for Milwaukee that that this national conference, with local support, is being held here.

Here is a jpg of the conference flyer. Pass it along.

More on this topic to follow.

Feds Unsatisfied With State's I-94 Plan

Critics of the state transportation department's plan to rebuild and widen I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line have a new ally: the US Environmental Protection Agency, according to information posted on Gretchen Schuldt's blog.

In its rush to get the $1.9 billion highway plan into the ground beginning this year, it seems the state has overlooked critical air pollution and wetlands standards.

Imagine: George Bush's EPA is our environmental watchdog!

The City of Milwaukee is on record against the plan because it leaves out any transit components, and several organizations had filed formal comments with the project's planners about land use and civil rights deficiences.

Let's see...pollution and wetlands problems (environment), transit and cost issues (urbanity), civil rights shortcomings (basic equality): sounds like a trifecta of flaws that are the very opposite of publicly-spirited planning.

Is there any justification for such half-baked work on what will be the most expensive road project in state history, and perhaps the most expensive public works project since statehood?

Small Business Times Editor Continues Dialogue About Milwaukee

Steve Jagler, editor of The Small Business Times, continues the discussion about Milwaukee's business climate that he began a few weeks ago - - and which led to his condemnation by some local talk radio hosts.

Jagler's piece, like his earlier commentary and reporting, is filled with good data and examples of where Milwaukee's business base is expanding and diversifying - - undercutting the negative reviews offered by the talkers and corporate CEO's whose Milwaukee bad-mouthing got Jagler correctly annoyed in the first place.

Definitely worth a read.

When The Great Lakes Compact Bill Is Rolled Out, Look For The WMC's Fingerprints

Legislators are being pressured on all sides of the Great Lakes water debate as they put their finishing touches on legislation that would have Wisconsin approve and implement the Great Lakes Compact.

The Compact is a pending eight-state agreement designed to improve water conservation in the Great Lakes region, and also to produce first-ever rules and standards for the diversion of water to communities outside of the Great Lakes basin.

With water supply now a hot issue worldwide, all eyes will be on Wisconsin when the legislation arrives, because our state has a long favorable environmental history, yet is the only one of the Great Lakes states without a Compact bill adopted or debated.

For more than two years, efforts to get the Compact introduced for debate in our legislatures have been thwarted, principally by business interests in Waukesha County who want easier access to Lake Michigan diverted water than would be permitted by the Compact, as well as by existing laws.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was part of that resistance.

Speaking for the state's largest businesses, the WMC sent the legislature last year an eleven-page critique of a first draft of legislation to approve and implement the pending Great Lakes Compact.

The WMC called for the gutting of that draft, which never moved into the legislature for a debate.

Too restrictive, said the WMC. Too many new hoops to jump through. Too much regionalism.

And as the Compact rollout approaches, there again has been a concerted effort behind-the-scenes these at the Capitol recently to weaken yet another draft Compact bill - - and again, sources say, the WMC is carrying water for the crowd that wants a watered-down Compact for Wisconsin.

When the bill comes out in a few days, it will be interesting to see how many times the WMC's "delete" key got hit as final trade-offs' were made and were committed to paper.

Will Wisconsin debate a bill that genuinely seeks to approve this historic, Great Lakes management agreement - - a document and plan already compromised substantially during four years of negotiation and containing major loopholes permitting bottled water exports and some easing of Great Lakes diversions - - or will Wisconsin go further down the WMC's path to an even weaker bill?

Here's that link again to the WMC's arguments. Bookmark it and put it side-by-side when the Compact bill sees the light of day.