WisDOT Says There Has Been No Ghost Blogging

A couple of weeks ago, citing records of a WisDOT meeting about the Zoo Interchange, I wrote this post about ghost/anonymous blogging:

Thursday, February 21, 2013

WisDOT Record Raises Questions About Agency "Ghost" Blogging, Monitoring

In the tradition of government communications speaking for themselves through publication in media outlets like the old I. F. Stone Weekly, or in the The Washington Monthly "Memo of the Month," I offer quotes from the minutes of a Zoo Interchange planning meeting at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation SE Regional office in Waukesha on July 16, 2008...

MEETING NOTES No. 00002
DATE and TIME: 7/16/2008 at 1:00PM SUBJECT: PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT MEETING...

WEB BLOGS AND WEBSITES

Emlynn [Grisar]is looking for a new policy informing how and when to respond to blogs regarding the Zoo IC project. Is a ghost blog (anonymous blog) a good way to handle this, this has been done in the past. Also, how often are we monitoring? She is looking for advisement from the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)

I also added this comment from a WisDOT spokesmam, Michael Pyritz;

"I'm completely unaware of anything like that being done on any project," he said, and WisDOT agreed to check further.

WisDOT spokewoman Peg Schmidt subsequently told me by phone that WisDOT did not use anonymous or ghost blogging, and that it would violate WisDOT policy to do so.

In an email earlier this week, Schmidt said:

When we spoke via the phone last week, I indicated that we do not believe there are records responsive to your February 22, 2013, record request below. The use of ghost or anonymous blog comments is not a department practice.

 

I indicated that I would provide a written response that detailed the extent of the WisDOT search for records in response to your request. I explained that the search would be restricted to records in the possession of Emlynn Grisar and the Office of Public Affairs. This search for records included:

·        Emlynn and I reviewed personal files relating to all records of web sites, blogs and articles.

·        Emlynn and I reviewed personal e-mail and sent items for records relating to web sites, blogs, articles. Emlynn also reviewed personal e-mail and sent items for responses to constituents.

·        I reviewed meeting minutes from coordination meetings and conference calls with all region communication staff during 2008.

·        Emlynn reviewed meeting minutes before and after the July 16, 2008 meeting noted in your request (minutes from June 19, 2008 to August 12, 2009).

 

I am providing a copy of conference call notes from August 6, 2008, where an item notes, “blogs/websites – continue to use discretion on whether to respond to correct misinformation on sites.”

I’m providing this because it confirms my recollection that in 2008 there was discussion related to the need to respond to blogs as we often had to take steps to get unblocked to access sites.

 

Emlynn previously provided a copy of our most recent Transportation Administrative Manual (TAM) 112 policy where it is noted that Internet users “may not conceal their identities or misrepresent someone else by any means.” With this email, I am also providing a copy of the TAM 301 policy on social media where it is noted that “all authorized social media sites must be identified as official department sites through the use of the department name or acronym or approved department, campaign or project logos.”

If you need anything further on this let me know.

 

Peg Schmitt – Office of Public Affairs

Notable Wisconsin/Walker Firsts And Lasts

While we lead the nation in the number of governors' legal defense funds financed by fat cat donors, we're dead last in percentage change in job growth among all 50 states, with an actual decline of 15,900 jobs since January, 2011 - - better known as the Scott Walker era - -  the Capital Times reports:

The job statistics have taken on political significance in Wisconsin following Gov. Scott Walker's well-publicized vow to add 250,000 jobs to the state total during his four years in office.

To track that progress, The Capital Times has created a new database that will be updated on a monthly basis as new figures are released.

As Fresh Billions Are Headed For Wisconsin's 'Freeways'...

Consider that a small portion of that politically-inspired funding excrescence could fill the industrial sized potholes now emerging from beneath the snow.

Irked By Zoo Interchange Congestion? Think 2018, And Beyond

WTMJ-TV 4 took a break from its snowcastic overkill and noted all the darn road work in our area.

Missing from the discussion: that that Zoo Interchange overhaul to cut a few seconds off Waukesha commutes in and out of Milwaukee won't end until 2018.

In fact, if you click through the links in the story to "all the changes to the interchange," you get a mere five graphic slides that take you only into 2014. All changes: hardly.

And the best part of the WisDOT supplied graphic of the final result?

Virtually no traffic. Over more green space than Central Park.

Also missing from the discussion is that the congestion could have been minimized by the light rail line planned in the same corridor but killed by anti-city right wingers including Tommy Thompson, Waukesha officials and talk radio hosts more than ten years ago.

During which time also there may be connecting work underway at Story Hill just west of Miller Park, VA graves and two Jewish cemeteries the state pledged never to disturb - - but expanding I-94 at or above that spot is a Walker priority stick-in-the-eye to neighnorhoods that voted heavily for Tom Barrett.

Mining Bill Removes Any Doubt - - The State Is In Extremist Hands, And In Extremis

It began with Walker's imperious derailing of passenger rail, continued with Act 10, gathered speed with proposed expansion of voucher schools and refusal of Medicaid funding - - but the mining bill's decimation of environmental regulation to enable open pit iron ore mining at the Bad River clarifies that GOP extremists are fully in charge of Wisconsin state government and are willing to attack a native culture and the state's constitution for political and partisan hegemony.

I think we're entering a long period of crisis, and an even longer recovery.

Waukesha Diversion Questions: Three Years, Status Quo Ante

Three years ago to the day:

Sunday, March 7, 2010

National Wildlife Federation Sees Problems With Waukesha's Diversion Plan

The latest draft application from the City of Waukesha, raises more questions than answers.

And...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Serious Questions Raised Over Waukesha's Diversion Request

Ann Arbor, Mich. (February 27, 2013) – A new National Wildlife Federation report raises questions on whether a Wisconsin community needs to divert water from the Great Lakes to meet its water needs.

Question Of The Day For The Journal Sentinel

I posted the question at the newspaper's Purple Wisconsin blog site, and repeat it here:

Democratic amendments to the mining bill aimed at assuring public health, clean water and meaningful citizen involvement in mine permitting have and continue to go down to swift and one-sided partisan defeat in the GOP-controlled Joint Committee on Finance, State Senate and now in the State Assembly.

What's coming, for Wisconsin, is a massive open-pit iron mine larger than any excavation in the history of the state likely to leak sulphuric acid as it replaces hills and wetlands at the edge of a water-based, rice-growing Ojibwe reservation near Ashland.

Bad River, WI, headwaters. Photo by Pete Rasmussen

Open-pit mining, Kalgoorie, WA

So on the cusp of the bill's approval today, I wonder what the editorial board of this newspaper will have to say tomorrow in light of the paper's reasoned admonition to legislators on legislative process a couple of weeks ago about a two-session charade that saw pro-mining campaign donations pour into the Capitol, and that began with industry influences behind doors closed to other stakeholders?

As the paper said:

"...and there's a good chance some legislators will attempt to add more safeguards. They deserve a fair hearing; we hope the Republican majority - which has made this measure its No. 1 priority in jobs bills - doesn't rush the bill through at the expense of sound amendments."

Walker, Legislature Deface Wisconsin

The hole that Scott Walker and the industry-subservient Legislature will blow into the state's relationship with its Bad River Band of citizens near Ashland, overall credibility, Lake Superior watersheds and civic sanity will expand from four-and-a-half miles to a full 22 miles, 1,000-feet deep and more than a half-mile wide, replacing this...

Bad River headwaters, by Pete Rasmussen

with this

There Will Not Be A 'Moderate' Scott Walker

There was news this week that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer had joined fellow fringe Republican Gov. Rick Scott signing on to the expanded federal Medicaid funding provided by the Obama administration.

Leaving fewer right-wing GOP governors like Scott Walker who refused the funding and put ideology ahead of sane health-care funding for lower-income and out-of-work residents in their states.

So let's be clear about the message he was sending: there is not, and will never be, a moderate Scott Walker.

That is not who he is.

That is not why he ran for Governor.

That is not how he won re-election in the 2012 recall and intends to govern.

He was put into office and embedded there by far-right advocacy groups and corporate donors to turn Wisconsin into an anti-labor, anti-transit, anti-environmental, anti-public education laboratory for reactionary, private-interest -friendly and regressively-funded governance.

Period.

Whomever and whatever is in the way of that agenda gets rolled: women served by Planned Parenthood, Amtrak patrons, public employees, Native American culture, municipal transit systems, voting rights, urban school districts, Medicaid-eligible, working poor, publicly-owned wetlands, and air quality near sand mines, publicly-owned power plants and expanding, road-builder enabled freeways.

And just about anything in Milwaukee or associated with the Mayor who twice had the temerity to run against him.

Walker is in office to serve the wealthy, expand their class advantages and spend their campaign donations on his personal and party ambition.

He is there to implement Grover Norquist's blueprint to drown a dismembered government and reward the private sector and its managers with the consequences of intentionally shrunken, weakened, enervated government:

Lower taxes, greater power and more privilege, like iron mining company officials being invited in behind closed doors to write a mining bill that will let the company fill public Wisconsin wetlands and create acid mine drainage and air pollution in the watershed that has supported the Ojibwe rice-culture downstream, and connects to Lake Superior, for centuries.

Nowhere in that extremist, insider-managed, dollar-driven reactionary agenda is there room for, or any interest in anything approaching moderation.

Any campaign, candidate, consultant or commentator who tries to spin you otherwise is flat-out lying, and is after something that belongs to you.

Ron Johnson Is Pining For The Good Old Days - - I declare...

It was back in the 1830's...when the south had slaves, women couldn't vote, and the US Senate was a place for actual leaders.

Hat tip, Jud Lounsbury.

Opponents Spell Out Case Against Mine Bill

Public interest attorneys spell out in writing to Wisconsin State Assembly members why the mining bill is a horrible piece of special interest legislation. Worth a read and redistribution, as the Senate already approved the bill and the Assembly's vote is Thursday, or as the the letter puts it: 

 " the last step in a broken legislative process throughout which the voices of citizens and the weight of scientific evidence have been ignored."

         March 6, 2013

TO: Wisconsin State Assembly

FROM: Kimberlee Wright, Executive Director, kwright@midwestadvocates.org, (608)251-5047

RE: Considerations for protecting our water rights, abiding by the rule of federal law and strengthening our Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 

Wisconsin State Assembly: 

As an organization that works every day to help citizens use the power of the law to protect our heritage of healthy water, air, land and government, Midwest Environmental Advocates strongly urges the Wisconsin State Assembly to reject AB 1, a bill that would pose a grave threat to Wisconsin’s natural resources and its people’s shared right to water. 
 
Thursday’s vote is the last step in a broken legislative process throughout which the voices of citizens and the weight of scientific evidence have been ignored.

We were there at the single hearing in Madison where a majority of citizens who testified traveled a great distance to have two minutes to share their wisdom with legislators on how to promote a sustainable local economy instead of boom and bust. 

We were there to hear the testimony of leaders of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa who were never invited to consult government-to-government with our state leaders, who instead allowed industry to write this done-deal legislation in their own interests. 

And we were there to hear geologists and a representative of the Army Corps of Engineers give their two minutes of testimony, even though they were never invited as guest speakers to offer their scientific expertise.

Now the Assembly faces a final vote on a bill that exempts a mining company from critical environmental protections. 

Assembly Bill 1 would prohibit the WDNR from stepping in to stop activities they found to be dangerous to public health and the environment. Current law would allow the WDNR to take immediate action to stop activities related to the largest proposed open-pit iron mine in the nation.

Further, the size and scope of a proposed mine in the Penokee Range demands an autonomous and science-based review of the impact a mine would have on the landscape and on the water. 

Unfortunately AB 1 puts an unreasonable limit to what this science costs. From the beginning, legislators have steered a broken process in a rush toward a finish line where the people lose. 

But Assembly Bill 1 is just another step in weakening the state’s important regulatory agency that works every day to enforce the laws that protect our environment and public health.

Representative Erik Severson authored AB 23 in 2011, (and subsequently Act 19 was passed and was signed into law by Governor Walker) and now the WDNR is prohibited to require local municipalities to continuously disinfect their public drinking water supplies. 

The WDNR’s permit enforcement capability was eroded after Governor Walker signed Act 118 which weakens protections for wetlands. Act 21 gives the Governor too much power to override science-based standards developed by qualified specialists, such as WDNR staff, who have the professional expertise to implement complex standards on which public health depends. 

And since former Governor Doyle vetoed an attempt to make the WDNR Secretary an independent office, the leadership of the agency is too often subject to political

whims rather than a long-term commitment to our state’s environmental health. We need a stronger WDNR with more staff and more resources. But AB 1 will only take us another step backwards.

We recommend that legislators who issue press releases on their commitment to our environment or make speeches about how AB 1 protects our natural resources should instead take action to correct the fact that our WDNR water pollution permitting program (WPDES) is on the failing end of an assessment by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency with regard to their consistent incompliance with the federal Clean Water Act.  

The WDNR now has between 30-40% administrative backlogs in permit renewals for facilities that discharge waste water.

The gap between federal requirements and many of the permits issued by the WDNR don’t protect public health and expose the regulated community to unnecessary delays when deficient permits are open to legal challenges. 

The law is clear, the EPA has been clear in its expectations, yet the WDNR continues to issue permits that don’t meet Clean Water Act standards. 

Midwest Environmental Advocates has assisted citizens all over the state who have had to turn to the courts to protect the water they drink and the air they breathe. 

While citizens shouldn’t have to bear the cost and the burden of legal actions, our Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources does not have the funding, staffing or autonomy to issue and enforce routine permits, let alone properly review and approve the largest open pit mine in the nation. 

Without an independent, autonomous WDNR that has the resources it needs to enforce the Clean Water Act, our shared right to water is in jeopardy. When people turn on their faucet, they want their water to be safe to drink. 

It doesn’t matter if it comes from a well or from a municipal supply. It doesn’t matter who they voted for in the last election: water isn’t a red or blue partisan issue.

All life is dependent on access to clean water and needs constant vigilance by people who are trained and qualified to enforce science-based standards designed to protect public health. 

In addition to clean and abundant drinking water, as Wisconsin citizens, we have a constitutional right to the waters of the state.

The law of the land clearly establishes WDNR as the people’s trustee of our natural resources. Assembly Bill 1 violates that trust relationship by requiring WDNR to approve the filling of lakes and streams with mining waste, elevating the economic interests of a mining company over the public trust. 

The people of Wisconsin have opposed this bill by a wide margin. It is out of step with our Wisconsin values for our elected representatives to use unbridled power to strip us of our heritage. 

The legislature should return to our Wisconsin tradition of non-partisan protection of our state’s natural resources. 

Rather than further diminish the capacity of a critical public agency, they should invest in a strong WDNR with the resources and autonomy to protect the health and economic opportunities of future generations.

Assembly Bill 1 elevates corporate interests over public health and the environment and should be rejected. 

Kimberlee Wright,
Executive Director
Midwest Environmental Advocates

Highlights From Sheriff Clarke's Radio Show Today

He's not interested in finding common ground or playing "patty cake" with his opponents.

Some unnamed official who disparaged him is "a puke politician."

Unnamed "they" at the Journal Sentinel have a strategy to undermine him that they learned reading Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.

More, here.

David Clarke Gives Air Time To Controversial Scholar

Sheriff David Clarke is fighting crime today from the WISN-AM 1130 studio in Greenfield subbing for Mark Belling (on his annual cruise, this year to Tahiti), and put the pro-gun researcher and author John Lott on the air.

You should Google John Lott.

You'll find that his 'guns-make-you-safer' scholarship has been challenged, and his creation on the Internet of the pro-John Lott defender "Mary Rosh" makes Lott a curious guest.

David Clarke Jumps The Shark...Again

He's really got the media bug. Maybe he's angling for a Fox News show?

Where Gov. Walker Is 'Open' To Compromise

With his own Senate caucus.

Yeah, there's an opponent.

Proposed Wisconsin Iron Mine Operator Facing IL Pollution Claims

The same corporate group allowed to write the iron mine bill pending in the Wisconsin Assembly, and that plans to open a massive open pit mine at the Bad River headwaters in Northwest Wisconsin will have its coal mine operation in Illinois referred to the Attorney General there over continuing ground water pollution, the Journal Sentinel is reporting.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency formally notified Macoupin Energy in December that it believes the company is dragging its feet with the cleanup at the Shay 1 mine in Carlinville, Ill., according to government documents.

The agency said it plans to refer the case to the Illinois Attorney General.

Macoupin is one of four mines owned in Illinois by billionaire Christopher Cline, who is proposing to build a $1.5 billion iron ore mine in Ashland and Iron counties if the Wisconsin Legislature rewrites mining laws to the company's satisfaction.

Waukesha: 'Can I Get An Earmark? Government Haters...RoJo, F. James...Anybody'?

Out Waukesha way, in the heart of Red State country, the water utility is looking for a $50 million federal handout.

Waukesha has been on the track of a bailout for its overblown water plans (current Lake Michigan diversion plan, through Oak Creek/cost estimate is, with inflation, etc. etc. at $200 million), for years. Oh, the ironies.

In fact, Waukesha has a long history of chasing after federal dollars, and has employed contractors specializing in federal funding - - so facing a big diversion piping cost has sent
Waukesha to shake the DC money tree, for years, as this 2010 report indicates

The project right now calls for $164 million, an early estimate, and Waukesha is hoping to get a piece of a $100 million, Cong. Jim Sensenbrenner(R) - supported federal package to transfer much of the cost from water rate-payers to federal taxpayers.

I haven't reviewed Waukesha's many legal, funding, public relations and technical consultant contracts for some time, but water utility records show two "Federal Funding Contracts" running between 2004-2009 with Donald F. Roecker, based in Wisconsin, for annual amounts from $32,500 to $42,500, and with Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, in Washington, DC, for between $42,500 and $64,000, on various Waukesha water matter.

Utility correspondence in 2008 cites efforts to obtain various sources of federal funding including "additional EPA earmarks" and US Army Corps of Engineering funding for long-term infrastructure needs.

More from 2010 about efforts to defray some of the diversion infrastructure costs, here:

As Daniel Duchniak, the Waukesha Water Utility manager said in a report quoted by Waukeshanow.com:

"We will be actively seeking federal grants and other financing options that would help defray the cost," Duchniak said in a separate memo distributed Tuesday to the Common Council.

Without any federal grant assistance, a Milwaukee water supply would cost residential ratepayers an estimated $142.28 each quarter of the year, up from the current quarterly water charge of $66.85, Duchniak says in the memo.

Quarterly charges for an Oak Creek water supply, with no federal grants to offset construction costs, would be an estimated $191.83. A Racine connection would cost residents $211.39 per quarter."

To the Daily Reporter, Duchniak said he hoped Waukesha might get between $25-50 million of a $100 million US Army Corps of Engineers' pot, and that along with the office of US Sen. Herb Kohl, US Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was helping write the grant application, too.

If Only Robin Vos Would Tell Robin Vos More About Milwaukee

Robin Vos, a GOP legislator, popcorn business owner and social critic from the  Racine County metropolis of Burlington, Wisconsin, (pop. 10,400, and, by the way, 0.9% African-American) has been elevated by his colleagues to the rarefied position of Assembly Speaker.

And it is from that perch from which he can see clearly what the people outside of Milwaukee expect from the lesser City of Milwaukee (pop. 600,000) and Tom Barrett, Mayor.

Speaker, speak!

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Monday that he is open to talking to Mayor Tom Barrett about the challenges facing the city, but noted that Milwaukee needs to find new ways to save money and become more efficient.

Vos said making that effort "would be a good faith way to reach out to fiscal conservatives in the suburbs."

Vos is right.

Milwaukee needs to make folks in River Hills and Brookfield and Chenequa and Greenfield feel better about Milwaukee, and Milwaukee needs to do something about why governance and programming in Milwaukee costs so darn much money.

* Like those police and fire personnel payrolls. Spending there makes up the biggest piece of Milwaukee's operating budget - - 59.7% city officials tell me - - including city payments for employee benefits kept artificially high by Act 10 exemptions enacted by Vos' party for partisan, political reasons.

* And like Milwaukee public school costs - - the biggest piece of local property tax collections (about 40% of the total levy, as I read this chart) - - which are inflated for property tax payers by the transfer of state funding through private school vouchers expanded by Vos' party for partisan, political reasons.

* And Vos, as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Finance, knows something about fiscal discipline (if you overlook the taxpayer meter that's running to pay lawyers in the continuing struggle to exact records on redistricting that GOP-hired lawyers just can't seem to complete, and the huge costs coming in litigation the GOP is inviting over the industry-written, treaty-trampeling, constitution-crushing mining bill).

If there was only something Vos could tell Vos about why the biggest ticket items in Milwaukee public budgets cost so much money.

Maybe Vos could have some of this fixed in the budget process. If there were only some true fiscal conservatives from the suburbs in the Legislature willing to make "a good faith effort to reach out" to Milwaukee.

Get Ready For GOP Tax 'Reform' In Wisconsin

Oh, boy: Here's a story and headline with an unmistakable signal:

Assembly Republicans aim to reform Wisconsin's tax code

These are the same Walker water carriers who immediately upon his inauguration handed out tax breaks to businesses and high earners, paid for, in part, with a series of tax increases that hit the working poor - - particularly by reducing the value of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

When you see the oxymoronic association of "Republican" and "reform" - - like the mining bill's reform in the name of 'certainty" that overturns environmental protections and allows wetlands filling, or Walker's Act 10 'reforms' - - you know that middle-class citizens are about to get screwed while corporate and upper-income types are looking at private-interest or class-based windfall.

WI Republicans Could Care Less About Costs Of Mine Lawsuits

The same so-called GOP fiscal conservatives who are running up a giant tab at taxpayers' expense defending their secretive redistricting 'process' know there will be an even bigger tab defending the indefensible mining bill.

Calling All Copy Editors

Something is missing here.

Mall of America still missing, feared dead

Updated later to "Minnesota woman..." Never mind. 

A Walker Video That Must Be Seen To Be Appreciated

Kudos to the folks who found and distributed this.

Call it The Two Faces Of Scott.

Wisc. PSC Likes Fossil Fuel Industries; Wind - - Not So Much

Or...Some citizens' input is OK, some isn't.

The Public Service Commission kills jobs and kisses up to the fossil fuels' industry by blocking a wind farm - - stopping piecemeal what Scott Walker had tried but failed to do statewide through rule-making meddling on behalf of the coal/gas/fuel oil providers when he came into office.

To hear the PSC tell it, nearby residents objected.

Rural voters shall be served.

But the same agency green lights a long overhead, visually-polluting transmission line through Wauwatosa and above Underwood Creek Parkway to which residents, schools, churches and the cities of Wauwatosa and Milwaukee had objected - - another favor to big utilities and the fossil fuel suppliers.

Hey - - stick it to those urban voters.

Public Service Commission?

How about instead the Private Service Commission?

Major WI Sustainability Conference Is Next Week

After The Senate Vote, The Truth Comes Out

Despite all the denials and phony bluster to the contrary, there will be damage to the environment, says State Sen. Tom Tiffany, (R-Hazelhurst), the lead GOP sponsor, and the bill rewrites the law to help make environmental challenges fail in court:

 “If the law is challenged and ends up in court, the judge needs to know it was the Legislature’s intent to allow adverse (environmental) impacts. That way, a judge can’t find fault if the environment is impacted.”

File at #despicableGOP.

And hat tip to State Journal reporter Ron Seely for the story.

River Alliance Quotes Wisconsin Environmental Heroes

With the exception of State Sen. Dale Schultz, (Richland Center), Republicans pushed the mining bill through by a one-vote margin, but there were plenty of senators standing up to this historic Wisconsin environmental and legal depredation. The River Alliance of Wisconsin has posted some of the highlights:

Here are some of the group's quotes:

River Alliance of Wisconsin 306 E Wilson St. 2W Madison, Wisconsin 53703

What Was 'Equalized' At Azana Spa, Sikh Temple, Newtown?

David Clarke says guns can be the "equalizer." 

Even when shooters make the rules?

700 Million Reasons Why Walker's Budget Is Out Of Whack

Another pay day for the road-builders:

I-90/39 Interstate expansion project still set to start in 2015

Here's a few billion more.

On The Closing Of The John Doe Probe

I can't second-guess the DA on ending the John Doe without further charges, as reported in the Journal Sentinel.

Walker will have to explain in upcoming election campaigns why he hired close aides who broke laws on the public's time right outside door in his office suite.

Mining Bill Signing Presents Challenges

I can guarantee that as you read this there is a team of officials and gofers from the Governor's office, both houses of the GOP-run Legislature, mining interests and corporate lobbying operations debating where to hold the signing ceremony to celebrate the mining bill's adoption.

Also on the planners' to-do-lists: who gets to be positioned where, as there are Republican campaigns to run beginning later this year that will want these holy pictures for TV and Internet ads, but also lobbyists who want to be able to show their clients that they delivered the goods.

I think you can rule out the site with ceremonial shovels into the ground, as many of the opponents are right there.

Besides, turning over the earth calls attention to the scientific fact ignored by the bill's ramrods: the iron ore to be mined sits below hundreds of feet of other rock formations containing sulfides, which, when exposed to air and water, create sulphuric acid runoff.

A Milwaukee mining equipment executive who threw cold water on the mining bill's jobs narrative a few days ago might have eliminated that stage, too.

The Governor's suite has a nice conference room, but events there are a dime a dozen and doesn't offer the optics the bill's backers prefer.

It'll be interesting to see how the people who rammed through this bill squeeze out of it the political and partisan perks they believe are there.

WI = W. VA: Strong Statement On Mining Bill

The iron ore company-written mining bill looks a lot like coal-industry bills written in West Virginia, says one Wisconsin resource expert's op-ed:

The West Virginia model is clear: 1) Mining laws are written by the mining industry. 2) The primary function of government, in relation to mining, is to ensure the profitability of mining as a means to create jobs. 3) Overzealous environmental professionals in state agencies are re-educated by their politically appointed bosses. 4) The process to obtain a state permit avoids open hearings in front of an impartial hearing examiner and thus avoids testimony from objective scientists. 5) Legal challenges are directed to a court likely to be sympathetic to the mining company.

The letter of the mining bill is long and seems complex, but the spirit of the mining bill is simple and crystal clear. Thus, the public policy question is concise: Do the residents of the Penokees and the citizens of Wisconsin want West Virginia-style mining?



 

Scott Walker Grandiosity Alert

No shortage of self-praise:

'I'm a friend of the taxpayers, I'm a friend of the people, I'm a friend of the job creators," Walker said during a wide-ranging interview with Journal Sentinel editors and reporters.

Plaudits like that have more meaning if they are said by others.

Various Talkers Giving Sheriff Clarke More Air Time

The David Clarke Guns-And-Media Express is in high gear:

* Fill-in Mark Belling show host Jerry Bott (actually, as I understand it, Bott is Belling's boss, or one of them), tells WISN-AM 1130 listeners this afternoon that Sheriff Clarke will be launching phase two of his pro-gun crusade.

More radio ads, which Bott had been brilliant? Not clear.

* Though Bott said Clarke will phone into Sean Hannity's show tonight along with a crime victim (sounds like a guns-for-self-defense segment).

* And Bott disclosed that Clarke will guest host the Belling program next week, though I missed which day the Sheriff fighting Countywide crime on-the-air.

Wednesday or Thursday, as I recall.

Bott was doing his best Belling imitation today, labeling Milwaukee police chief Ed Flynn a "lefty" whom some said had made "hysterical" remarks before a US Senate committee yesterday; the Newtown massacre "an unfortunate incident;" and, in a fit of stereotyping, the near South side of Milwaukee as a place where Bott could buy "blow" in 20 minutes.

Same Day Dissonance: Mining Bill Passage, Aldo Leopold Announcement

Hard to miss the ironies (sorry) yesterday, as the State Senate sacrificed the legacy of Wisconsin environmental champion Aldo Leopold on the same day that UW-Madison officials were announcing the annual event celebrating Leopold's environmental achievement and reputation.

Leopold's seminal work was A Sand County Almanac.

Most Wisconsin references to "sand" these days note the rapid export out-of-state of Wisconsin sand for fracking operations.

In 2010, the state had five sand mines. Today, 60, reports the LA Times.

The DNR under Scott Walker has declined to expand rule-making to govern such operations.

A recent sand spill into the St. Croix River by a mining operation that went undetected until citizen reporting suggests the need is there.

Hope Does Not Change Mining Bill

A few days ago, the Journal Sentinel editorial board hoped that GOP legislators managing the mining bill towards a speedy approval - - and Wednesday night's 17-16 State Senate vote makes that a certainty, given Republican domination in the Assembly - - would be reasonable and open to improving a bill the editorial board was liking more and more :

...we hope the Republican majority - which has made this measure its No. 1 priority in jobs bills - doesn't rush the bill through at the expense of sound amendments.

At the time, I had this to say about the editorial board's argument:

*  The editorial board says it hopes the GOP legislative leadership does not rush the bill through to passage without fair consideration of sound amendments.

In fact, that has been exactly what has been happening because the bill is Scott Walker's #1 priority, and he and the GOP are still smarting over the bill's defeat last year.

On the matter of credible consideration of substantial changes, ask Democratic State Sen. Tim Cullen how his alternative proposal, created with public and scientific input, fared in final bill drafting.

And there would be little need for amendments if the bill-drafting process hadn't been open to the mining company and closed to officials and experts representing environmental issues and Native Americans living downstream from the mine site with a water-based rice-growing culture. 

Well, power is as power does, and the GOP leadership kept the pedal to the floor, as The Journal Sentinel reported:

Democrats sought changes to the mining bill on Monday when the bill came before the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee and again Wednesday on the Senate floor. Republicans rejected all their proposals.

Senate Passes Mining Bill

Good statement from Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm, commenting on a process that has shut out the public interest:

 

Midwest Environmental Advocates on Passage of SB1

Media Advisory

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 27, 2013

 

CONTACT:        Kimberlee Wright, Executive Director, (608)251-5047

 

MADISON, WI – Today the State Senate narrowly approved a bill deregulating iron mining in Wisconsin.  The following can be attributed to Kimberlee Wright, Executive Director of Midwest Environmental Advocates:

 

“The vote in the Senate today marks two years of state lawmakers ignoring the majority of their constituents who are opposed to environmental roll backs, in order to push through a bad bill written largely by an out-of-state company to exempt themselves from our state’s environmental protections. It has been deeply disappointing to see how the power of special interest money so blatantly trumped the voices of Wisconsin citizens. The majority has thumbed their noses at science and the democratic process in voting for this legislation. Worse, they didn’t even bother to engage the sovereign nation whose health and way of life are put at risk by the largest proposed iron mine in our state’s history.

 

“The area where the mining company wants to create a massive, open pit mine by blowing up the Penokee Hills and filling lakes and streams with the waste, is one of the most extensive and pristine landscapes remaining in the world.  The vast wetlands on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians’ reservation function as kidneys for Lake Superior: the billions of gallons of water that flow through the Bad River homeland refresh the largest freshwater lake in the world.  Over 40 % of all the wetlands in the Lake Superior basin are on Bad River Tribal lands and it is truly due to the Tribal leadership and continuing conservation efforts that the Bad River watershed has been recognized as an internationally important wetland ecosystem.

 

“Despite the threats to their land, Bad River Tribal chair, Mike Wiggins, Jr. told a supportive crowd in the state capitol today, ‘although this has been a long and difficult two years, it is the equivalent of the blink of an eye for our people.  We aren’t going anywhere and we have a long history of defending our way of life.’

 

“As this legislative proposal moves forward to certain passage in the State Assembly, there is still not a clear path to an open-pit mine in the Penokee Hills. Our state’s proud history of non-partisan protection of our natural heritage is still cherished by the people of Wisconsin. This fight has just begun and the numbers of people standing together to protect the rights of future generations grows every single day.”

 

Midwest Environmental Advocates is a public interest organization that uses the power of the law to support communities fighting for environmental accountability. Learn more about the Midwest Environmental Advocates on the web at midwestadvocates.org, like MEA on Facebook or follow @MidwestAdvocate on Twitter.

Lindsey Graham No Match For Ed Flynn

Nice to see the Milwaukee police chief make Lindsay Graham appear small and ineffectual.

And Craig Gilbert gathered strong Flynn comments after the chief had finished spanking Graham:

"Here's what just frosts me," Flynn said in the interview. "I'm sitting up there and I'm hearing this smarmy crocodile tears (from the ban's opponents): 'Oh, we respect law enforcement, but we can't keep AK-47s from being shot at you.' 'Oh, we're so sorry your children are dead. But we wouldn't dream of inconveniencing gun owners to reduce that.' "

Flynn went on:

"I mean it is fraudulent. OK, there's a lot of money and a big industry that buys political support. It's that's simple! There are 2,000 guns exempted by this bill from its provisions. And believe me, this business about the magazine capacity? Please! If you can't hit your target after 10 rounds, you're a menace to society. I mean, stop it."

Serious Questions Raised Over Waukesha's Diversion Request

This is likely to be the first among several reports from out-of-Wisconsin groups raising questions about Waukesha's plan to divert Lake Michigan water out of the Great Lakes basin:

Ann Arbor, Mich. (February 27, 2013) – A new National Wildlife Federation report raises questions on whether a Wisconsin community needs to divert water from the Great Lakes to meet its water needs. The City of Waukesha is applying to divert Lake Michigan water.

The application is the first since the passage of the Great Lakes Compact which bans diversions of Great Lakes water and promotes wise water use within the eight states and two Canadian provinces bordering the lakes. Many conservation groups view Waukesha’s application as precedent-setting. 

 

“Our analysis finds that Waukesha might not need to divert Great Lakes water to meet its water needs,” said Marc Smith, Senior Policy Manger with National Wildlife Federation.  “The city has options on the table that may satisfy their water needs. In short, they have not justified their need for a Lake Michigan diversion.”

 

The report, “An Analysis of the City of Waukesha Diversion Application,” authored by Jim Nicholas, a scientist and retired director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Michigan Water Science Center, finds that Waukesha’s demand for water has been decreasing since the late 1980’s. 

However, in their diversion application, the city projects a much higher demand that is inconsistent with historical trends.  

Moreover, the report identifies that existing alternative sources of water are available and may be feasible to meet existing and future demands - opening up questions over whether or not a Lake Michigan diversion is necessary. 

The report’s scope did not include costs associated with various alternative sources of water, nor the environmental impacts of infrastructure and return flows to Lake Michigan.

 

“Our goal for this report is to provide the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources an objective scientific evaluation of the Waukesha diversion application.” said Marc Smith, Senior Policy Manger with National Wildlife Federation. “The report focuses on conservation measures, demand forecast, and environmental impacts of withdrawals.”

Among the key findings of the report:

• Waukesha’s water conservation efforts have been successful in reducing water usage.  If their plans are fully implemented and successful, then the amount of water used per person each day should decrease;

• Waukesha does not justify why they need so much water:
• Waukesha’s per capita water use or demand is declining and has been declining for about three decades; 

• Waukesha’s demand forecast for 2050, however, assumes a significant increase in per capita water use, despite planned implementation of conservation measures aimed at reducing water use; 

• No explanation/justification is given for assuming that ongoing declines in water use will stop, much less reverse and increase.

• Regional groundwater levels in Southeast Wisconsin are stabilizing or rising;

• Each of the potential water sources analyzed could provide some of Waukesha’s future water needs.  Some could meet all; and

• Waukesha does not provide sufficient analysis of the environmental impacts of the potential water sources. 

For more information and to read the report, visit: www.nwf.org/greatlakes

 

The diversion application is the first since the Great Lakes Compact passed in 2008.  Waukesha is eligible to apply for Great Lakes water because it lies within a county that straddles the Great Lakes and Mississippi River divide. That county, Waukesha County in southeastern Wisconsin, is located 18 miles west of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan.

 

“The Great Lakes Compact is clear on what is expected of any diversion application. We support the thorough review of the application by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.” said Smith.  “Our report indicates that as of today, Waukesha does not show the burden of proof in this application.”

 

The precedent-setting application must not only stand up to the scrutiny of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, but must undergo regional review by the governors of the seven Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and the Canadian premiers of Ontario and Quebec.

Applications for exceptions in straddling counties must also be approved by all eight of the governors.

 

For Immediate Release:

February 27, 2013

 

Contact: Marc Smith, National Wildlife Federation, 734-255-5413 (msmith@nwf.org)

 

Marc Smith

Senior Policy Manager

National Wildlife Federation

734-887-7116 work

734-255-5413 cell

 

Milwaukee Exec Says Few New Local Jobs In Mine Bill

Remember the PR spin that the iron mine projected for Northern Wisconsin meant jobs at Milwaukee-based Caterpillar?

Unlikely, says a company's VP:

A proposed iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin is unlikely to create jobs at Caterpillar Global Mining near Milwaukee, and even if it did, those workers would likely come from out of state, a company executive said Tuesday.

John Disharoon, vice president of industry relations for Caterpillar, told the Milwaukee Rotary Club that mining is a vital industry that produces the minerals and fuels needed for the world's rapidly growing and increasingly urbanized population. He noted that the Caterpillar products being made right now in Wisconsin are destined to be exported....

What tends to be imported by Caterpillar, however, is workers...

Disharoon told WisBusiness.com afterward that it's impossible to predict if the proposed Gogebic Taconite mine would mean new welding jobs at Caterpillar's Wisconsin plants, which employ about 2,000 people, mostly in Oak Creek and South Milwaukee.

"Mines open and close every week," he said... 

GOP State Senators Should Seize Their Profiles In Courage Moment

The State Senate, with an 18-15 Republican majority, is on the cusp of a defining vote and larger moral moment in state history:

Will the Senate allow the public's constitutionally-protected rights to clean water and natural beauty (see the Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX) to be sold off to special interest influence over a bill to exempt massive open-pit iron mining from statutory environmental standards and Wisconsin's conservationist traditions?

Think of all the routine business that has moved across one's desk, and the meetings, caucuses, fund-raisers attended, and the votes that career Republican state senators have cast on officers, resolutions and bills - -  good, bad, indifferent, some even sent over the dam on party-line auto-pilot - - and think also of the relative rarity of issues they have faced with the physical consequence, historical significance and moral weight of the mining bill. 

Is there another GOP State Senator appreciative enough of the fresh water glacial gift on and beneath the Wisconsin soil, are there GOP Senators - - just one or two or three moved enough by the conservationist legacies left by Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Gaylord Nelson and Warren Knowles - - to stand first for the environment on this mining vote, as did State Sen. Dale Schultz, (R-Richland Center), the sole, widely-respected Republican conservationist to say "no" to a similar bill last year.

How many Profiles in Courage opportunities does a Wisconsin legislator get in a session, a career or lifetime?

David Clarke, Officially Off The Rails

He's armed with too much anger:

Fresh off his interview on a national radio show whose host  has peddled the idea that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were an inside job, Clarke is now accusing Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele of "penis envy" and is playing the race card in their ongoing dispute.

Tax Proposed On Access To Public WI Records

It's hard to keep up with the 24/7 Wisconsin Depredation Agenda being pushed by the current Governor (remember his commitment to "transparency?") and his legislative allies, but this alert from veteran media and policy watchdog Bill Lueders shines the spotlight on a hearing tomorrow on legislation that will curb through new taxes public access to public records in the possession of public officials whom we pay to create, maintain, provide and not disabuse public information.

From: Bill Lueders [blueders@wisconsinwatch.org]
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 3:30 PM

Subject: Hearing set on bill to create new tax on public records

I'm resending the Action Alert I sent several days ago, with an update: This bill has been scheduled for a hearing next Wednesday, Feb. 27, in Room 225 of the state Capitol, 10 a.m. It is one of two bills set for a hearing that day. Council members and supporters are encouraged to attend and testify. A copy of the meeting notice is attached.

As we were expecting, a bill to allow custodians to impose a new fee for the time they spend reviewing and redacting records has been introduced in the current legislative session. It is AB 26. The text is here: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2013/related/proposals/ab26.

The bill has nine listed cosponsors, eight Republicans and one Democrat. It has been referred to the Assembly Committee<https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2013/committees/1098> on Government Operations and State Licensing.

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council considers this bill a serious threat to the public's ability to obtain public information.

It will allow custodians to make some records unaffordable to some requesters, and it will inevitably lead to abuse. The state of Wisconsin got along just fine for many years without these fees being imposed. Custodians only began charging them in the wake of a 2002 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision known as Osborn v. the Board of Regents (http://statecasefiles.justia.com/documents/wisconsin/supreme-court/2000AP002861-(2002-07-02).pdf).

In that case, the Supreme Court included some imprecise language regarding the charges that custodians could impose. (See Osborn ruling, P. 3, last line of introduction, and P. 39.) Some custodians seized on this language to begin charging for the time they spent reviewing and redacting records.

When these fees were challenged in a case decided by the court last year, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. the City of Milwaukee (http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=84155), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the law did not allow for these costs to be passed on to requesters.

Having been caught imposing what were determined to be illegal fees, custodians have now enlisted the support of some state legislators to change the law to permit these charges.

We urge our members and supporters to stand in opposition to this troubling new tax on the public's right to know.

The state's open records law states, in the second sentence of its Declaration of Policy (19.31, state Stats.), the following: "Further, providing persons with such information is declared to be an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of officers and employees whose responsibility it is to provide such information."

The law clearly says that providing records is part of public officials' job. Why should public officials be allowed to charge extra for doing it?

--
Bill Lueders

Bill Lueders, president

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council

Environmental Lawyers Refute WMC On Mining Disinformation

Midwest Environmental Advocates and the Sierra Club set straight the record on mining legislation distorted in favor of environmentally-destructive practices by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

CONCLUSION

Review of the language in AB1/SB1 and the Wisconsin Legislative Council’s official summary of the bill confirm that its passage would drastically and dramatically weaken legal protections for Wisconsin’s water resources.

In overwhelming numbers, citizens from every corner of the state have stated their opposition to weakening those protections. So have local elected officials and Native American tribes from the areas of northern Wisconsin that would be most immediately affected by the proposed changes in our laws.

Their concerns are real, and they are well-founded.

It is Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Gogebic Taconite, the drafter of the bill and its intended beneficiary, which have been spreading misconceptions. 

Wisconsin citizens need to demand that the legislators who have been elected to represent them in the Wisconsin Senate and Wisconsin Assembly actually read the bill and determine for themselves before they vote on it whether it maintains Wisconsin’s current environmental protections, or whether it is an unprecedented and scandalous giveaway of our state’s most precious treasure, our clean and irreplaceable water.

The WMC-backed mining bill is racing towards approval in the GOP-led Legislature.

Conservative Amnesia

GOP conservative legislators and Gov. Scott Walker are forging ahead with a bill that would exempt iron mine operators from current environmental protections in Wisconsin law, and allow the dumping of excavation rock and ground cover by the hundreds of millions of tons into bodies of water and on land elsewhere near the Bad River Lake Superior in Northern Wisconsin that will surely lead to lead to the formation of acid mine drainage.

Somehow these conservatives forgot or gloss over the fact that the word "conserve" is the preservation-centered root of the name of their political philosophy and actions on its behalf, and is also the root of the word "conservation' - - a rather substantial contradiction, don't you think, since the bill's goal is to speed along a mine unlike anything in the state that will remove a range of hills and replace it with a broad open pit mine about a half-mile wide, 1,000 feet deep and up to 22 miles long.

You'd think conservatives - - true to their foundation and loyal to its principle - - would be leading the charge for Wisconsin water and land conservation, as did, for example, the former GOP Governor Warren Knowles, when he partnered with former Democratic Governor Gaylord Nelson to create the state's stewardship fund.

The fund keeps land and water access in the public domain, conserving unspoiled Wisconsin for future generations and today's active conservationists - - hunters, anglers, hikers, farmers and other respectful neighbors.

Conservatives unconcerned about conservation.

Sounds like a political movement in search of a more accurate name, or a reboot to its origins.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.

Milwaukee Media Veterans Launch African-American Men's Health Site

Props to local media figures Eric Von and Faithe Colas for launching BrainBrawn&Body, a web-based publication with local content and clearinghouse health, fitness and financial information aimed at African-American men.

From the publishers:

Helping African American men become healthy and well informed are the primary purposes of Brain Brawn & Body. Actively advancing men's health is our mission.

We believe if you feel better you can perform better.

Brain Brawn & Body promises to provide the optimum in total self development. From stress management to financial management, Brain Brawn & Body will offer strategies that will help you and your family thrive in this ever changing economy.

Just How Distorted Are Republican Politics?

When it is said that US Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Texas), has room to move to the right.

Props In Canadian Media For John Norquist

Good ideas endure, cross borders:

New Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has repeatedly stressed the importance of reducing gridlock, welcome news to a Toronto region increasingly paralyzed by congestion. One day after a Throne Speech in which her government pledged serious infrastructure spending, newly minted Transportation Minister Glen Murray sat down with The Globe and Mail to discuss transit, road tolls and the fate of the Gardiner Expressway...

What do you think should be done with the Gardiner Expressway?
A few years after the Embarcadero elevated freeway collapsed in San Francisco, property values were up a couple of hundred per cent. It was such an ugly dysfunctional piece of infrastructure that it depressed the value of property and the livability of the city. Now there’s a greenway – it looks like the Champs Élysées – which carries almost as much traffic.

John Norquist, who was the mayor of Milwaukee, said, if I take our expressway down, what would that mean as far as the tax base downtown? He wrote a wonderful book about the experience called The Wealth of Cities, which I highly recommend. I have a copy of it in my office, so I may send it to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and see what he thinks of it.

Weather Turns Weekend Weather Hysteria Irrelevant

I remember the good old days, when local TV news blocks went in this order:

News, weather, sports, instead of the relentless White Death hype served up these days  - - Weather, news, weather, sports, weather.

So I love this Monday story headline and lede:

Weather service downgrades snowstorm advisory

The National Weather Service has cancelled a 10-county winter storm watch for southeastern Wisconsin, instead issuing a winter weather advisory for snow from 3 p.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties.

Water Advocates Need Support Of Green Bay Republican

I noted the other day that "sometimes moderate" GOP state senators like Luther Olsen, Neal Kedzie and Rob Cowles could be persuaded to oppose the mining bill that exempts iron mining from important state water preservation procedures and standards.

Cowles, from Green Bay, has a good environmental record and stood steadfast on Great Lakes and other water issues.

He is also on the Board of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, formed in response to ALEC efforts to weaken environmental laws.

NCEL was conceived by state legislators for state legislators in 1996 as an informal, non-partisan response to a well-funded and highly organized effort of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is an organization of conservative state legislators and corporate lobbyists who, together, craft legislation that in many instances seeks to weaken existing environmental regulations or enact polices that benefit polluting companies at the expense of the environment and public health.

So I am pleased to see the Madison Capital Times editorially calling on Cowles to vote "no" on the mining bill:

Sen. Rob Cowles, the Green Bay area Republican who has been a voice of reason on environmental issues, must reject the mining bill...

Wisconsin Gazette Calls Mining Bill Process 'Corruption'

The Wisconsin Gazette on the mining bill:

Wis. corruption so obvious it's blinding

Wis. corruption so obvious it's blinding