Wisconsin's partisan double-standard on corporate migration

When Kimberly-Clark moved its corporate headquarters from Wisconsin to Georgia in the mid-1980's, Republicans blasted and blamed incumbent Democratic Governor Tony Earl, used the issue to drive him from office and moved in a replacement - - Republican Tommy Thompson.

Because Republicans are supposed to be better at job retention - -  after all, they added some new self-aggrandizing language to the mythology - - "job creators" - - and no one else is allowed to use the term because they're so good awesomely best at it. As they will always tell you, even if you are not asking.

Also "job creators" sounds way better than "fat cats." Or Scrooge. Job Creators might even be the lead in a modern remake of "It's a Wonderful Life," instead of the villain.

But in the last few months with Republicans controlling all three branches of state government and every Wisconsin taxpayer-funded incentive and perk, Madison-based Oscar Mayer moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago and its production line to Des Moines, while South Milwaukee-based Caterpillar - - formerly known in these parts as Bucyrus Corp., and as iconic here as was Oscar Mayer in Madison- - announced it was moving its white-collar work force to Tuscon, and perhaps some manufacturing jobs, too.

To which Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his failed agency of job creators - -  the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. - - have collectively said, 'meh.'

And when pushed on their job creator role, Republicans have another self-serving fall-back, so let's give the last word on this broad subject to that well-known job creator and temporary US Senator Ron Johnson

“Well, in a free-market capitalist system, there are always winners and losers,” preached Johnson. “It’s creative destruction. That just happens. It’s unfortunate. But let’s face it, if it weren’t for that we’d still have buggy whip companies.”

Ron Johnson disproves critics, will briefly do his job

This just in: Wisconsin GOP Senator  Ron Johnson, missing in action and relevancy for the last five-and-a-half years, stuns political observers with an announcement…that he will have a meeting. 

WI GOP legislators want more wolf killing

How you can tell it's election season in WI:

Two Republican lawmakers from northern Wisconsin said Monday they would convene a Great Lakes wolf summit this fall involving public officials, scientists and citizens from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan to push for state management of wolves... 

And, with that Wisconsin twist - - being 'hunted' with dogs.

A 'sport' justified, in the legislators release, with the obfuscatory language "state-led management" of wolves - - a departure from the wolf-killing lobby's normal language of 'harvest' for 'killing' or 'ensnaring with leg traps before being shot in the head at closer range.'

And who thinks this summit will be any more honestly inclusive than the Wisconsin DNR's wolf advisory committee rigged to approve the very 'hunt' now forbidden by a federal judge:

DNR Secretary Confirms That Wolf Hunt Opponents Were Removed From Advisory Committee

Trump taps transition team leader's bridging experience

Whom else has the requisite bridging experience?

Chris Christie Will Start Planning the Trump Administration

Waukesha downplayed radium's importance in diversion application

Interesting items about Waukesha's diversion application:

Held just weeks ago, a town hall meeting hosted by a city alderman, the Waukesha Water Utility Manager makes a not so stunning announcement, the need for Great Lakes water is not about radium and a contaminated water supply - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfzzwNdyrHA 1:29 –

One clip about that at roughly the 1:30 mark.

Trump rolling over last of three WI GOP young guns

I see that House Speaker and GOP party convention chairman-to-be-Paul Ryan is folding in the face of Dona'd Trump's takeover of the not-so Grand Old Party by offering to turn that chairmanship - - and all its power and prestige to Trump - - a bullying outsider whom many conservatives call a fake: 

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday that if Donald Trump wants him to step down as a co-chairman of the GOP convention, he will respect his wishes. 

 "He's the nominee. I'll do whatever he wants with respect to the convention," Ryan said when asked about that scenario in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Trump already flattened WI GOP Gov. Scott Walker in the primaries, and has reduced GOP national committee chairman Reince Priebus, another of the GOP's supposedly invincible WI-based leadership team, to a punchline irrelevancy.

Remember when The Atlantic anointed Ryan, Walker and Preibus as the trio to watch? 

Ryan, Walker and Priebus are three of the GOP's brightest national stars, and Wisconsin -- the state that helped birth the Progressive Movement and shape the New Deal -- is suddenly the leading exporter of a hard-charging, sharply ideological brand of conservatism. The Republican trio sometimes dubbed the "Cheesehead Mafia" have made their state "the capital of the Obama-era Republican resistance," as one writer put it. And they are reshaping the Republican Party.

As the trio lets Trump kick sand in their face, Priebus' boast is self-parody now:

Priebus...said their success is proof that voters want politicians who stick to their guns, know what they believe and are willing to fight for it. "My general view is you have to be on offense all the time," he said.

Or as this Slate.com piece had gushed: 

Wisconsin is the home of bold GOP thinking and Republican superstars...

"Reince [Priebus] talks about candidates who are true to their word and campaign on issues and govern as they campaigned," says RNC political director Rick Wiley, quoting his party chairman—who also happens to be from Wisconsin. "Scott Walker and Paul Ryan are poster children for that."

Proposed Kohler golf course laden with Native American artifacts

You'd think the discovery reported by the Journal Sentinel Sunday of more than 25,000 Native American artifacts and additional important historical items spread across a 247-acre wooded, wetland and dune-rich site ticketed for a high-end golf course along Lake Michigan would finally put an end to that already-controversial proposal.

After all, the property is known to contain at least one native effigy or burial mound - - noted not long ago when the state nearly passed a law to allow development on such sites.

But don't jump to such a logical conclusion because we're talking about Scott Walker's special interest-managed Wisconsin, and a property owner - - the politically powerful Herbert Kohler, Jr. - - a hefty Walker donor.

.

The golf course proposal is under review by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the same agency which would have to give up several acres of public land to the project because it abuts Kohler Andrae State Park which the golf course planners say they need.

Don't assume that the DNR would fight to keep the popular state park intact, because the DNR is as we speak selling off 10,000 acres - - as directed by the Legislature and Walker - - which it owns and holds for the people. And is also proposing more logging on state park land - - furthering Walker's private-sector driven agenda.

Walker has remade the Wisconsin DNR into something of a state-sponsored chamber of commerce and rewarded real estate interests with legislation and permissions to encroach into waterways, wetlands and shorelines formerly protected by state law and overseen by the DNR in the public interest

More plans are in the works to steer control of land and water to private interests - - the overlap among state agencies is continual and deep - - and even includes the State Supreme Court and its much-criticized conflict-of-interest rules.

Walker also signed a bill into law that made it easier for schools to retain their Native American logos and mascots, and created a wolf hunting season, despite the cultural importance of the animal to the state's Ojibwa tribes, which became the nation's only sanctioned wolf hunt in which hunters were allowed to use their dogs.

And pushed hard for an open-pit iron mine near Lake Superior that, if built, would have threatened Ojibwe drinking water supplies and traditional wild rice-growing estuaries downstream from 35 years and up to 21 miles of blasting and excavation.

The iron mine's owner also routed a secret $700,000 donation to Walker's 2012 recall campaign - - so I'd say that Walker and his DNR management team will probably justify shoehorning the golf course somehow onto the site rather than treat it as the sacred land we now know it is.

I also think the need for a permit for the golf course project from the US Army Corp of Engineers got even more unlikely now that there is evidence that the acreage is hallowed ground which should be honored, studied and preserved, not turned into mowed and fertilized fairways, with a clubhouse and parking lot, too.

This all becomes a test for the soul and reputation of the Wisconsin DNR, and the entire state government's relationship with its people.

Waukesha's water diversion review 'findings' watered-down

Bear with me for a few observations as reviewers of the City of Waukesha's application under the terms of a 2008 US/Canada Great Lakes water management Compact wrap up their study of a precedent-setting diversion of water beyond the boundaries of the Great Lakes region - - an application which also proposes to send diverted water to several of Waukesha's neighboring municipalities which never asked for Great Lakes water in the first place - -  and are getting closer to a recommendation.

The reviewers' analysis is generally favorable to Waukesha's bid, though they have cut back somewhat on the application's bid to send some diverted water to an expanded service territory outside of Waukesha's city limits - - always a flaw in the application. 

Other than that, the reviewers appear comfortable with most of Waukesha's assertions and plans to pipe water in from Oak Creek and send it back as treated waste water through the Root River, the City of Racine and into Lake Michigan at Racine's harbor.

*  One of the great shibboleths about the Waukesha application is that this historic move in an era of drought, global warming and climate change could be or would be free of politics - - as Wisconsin's 24/7/365/always campaigning Politician-in-Chief himself recently averred, presumably with a straight face - - though 11,000 citizens in the US and Canada (almost all comments were negative) accepted an invitation to comment on this proposed use of a shared, finite and life-giving resource.

And eight US governors from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast - - political animals, all - - and with assorted advisers and competing interests in their ears have been delegated the responsibility by the US Congress and the President of the United States to make the final up-or-down diversion ruling.

If that's not a political process, then what is it? 

*  I've been reading documents posted on an official website about the diversion application review, and I'm pretty sure I'm seeing evidence of what one would call "politics," or editing of some sort with political implications, to wit:

A close reading on the website of two drafts of the reviewers "findings" written within a week of each other, and which Great Lakes governors say they will use to guide their final diversion decision-making shows that language referencing a crucial Wisconsin water preservation legal standard  - - known as the Lake Beulah ruling, a unanimous 7-0 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion explained here - - has been dropped from the latest version of the diversion reviewers "findings."

The Lake Beulah decision and a companion case affirmed the Wisconsin DNR's strong role in groundwater regulation in the public interest.

My guess is that the language was taken out less because of any direct or significant bearing on the diversion's potential approval, and more, in my opinion, because Wisconsin officials in the Walker Era of Great De-Regulation, do not want to see in the official diversion record anything like an affirmation of the Lake Beulah ruling that undermines special-interest-driven Walker-era water policies and the Walkerites' ideological distaste for anything they believe smacks of resource conservation or environmentalism.

So read some of the reviewers documents along with me:

Start at the official website about the diversion review process and open the link "Preliminary Discussion Draft - - April 27, 2016" - - 

Now scroll down to Section III, page 10, for this language:

9. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in Lake Beulah Management District v. WDNR (2011 WI 54) held that WDNR, “should use both its expertise in water resources management and its discretion to determine whether its duty as trustee of the public trust resources is implicated by a proposed high capacity well permit application, such that it must consider the environmental impact of the well or in some cases deny a permit application or include conditions in a well permit.” (2011WIat¶39). Pursuant to the holdings of the Lake Beulah decision, WDNR shall consider its public trust duties implicated by any water supply well permit application within the Southeast Wisconsin Groundwater Management Area and conduct any necessary environmental evaluations required to prevent such impacts. 
   
   
10. WDNR shall use all of its available legal authority to prevent any new wells for Public Water Supply Purposes within the Southeast Wisconsin Groundwater Management Area that would result in the withdrawal of radium-contaminated groundwater and the dispersion of that radium throughout the environment. Pursuant to the holdings of the Lake Beulah decision, WDNR shall consider its public trust duties implicated by any water supply well permit application within the Southeast Wisconsin Groundwater Management Area and conduct any necessary environmental evaluations required to prevent such impacts.

As the DNR itself says about W]water access, as a right: 

Wisconsin's Waters Belong to Everyone 

Wisconsin lakes and rivers are public resources, owned in common by all Wisconsin citizens under the state's Public Trust Doctrine. 

That affirmation of the Public Trust Doctrine noted in the preliminary diversion review findings came at a time when the Walker administration, GOP legislators and major trade associations were continuing years of work to do just the opposite - - weaken the Public Trust Doctrine - - by backing and passing new laws and rules and actions - - a documented summary, here - - that encourage:

*  The pumping of more groundwater to sand mines and big animal feeding operations;

*  Enabling the filing of wetlands or development on shorelines;

*  De-coupling legal or regulatory connections inherent in the Public Trust Doctrine which link groundwater quality, preservation to surface water quality, preservation and oversight.

Big business interests like Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce ripped the Lake Beulah ruling - - here is a great summary by lawyers on the decision's winning side - - and more than a dozen major state trade associations last year sent a joint letter to legislators that demanded more permissive water laws and DNR actions.

Some big-water users and their advocates have also cited a State Supreme Court ruling subsequent to the Lake Beulah decision - -  but did not overturn it.

The latest ploy to limit the reach of the Public Trust Doctrine and to free up groundwater with few restrictions is a move to have the pro-business Wisconsin Attorney General issue an advisory opinion in the big water users' favor.

The request - - full text - - was made by GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. 

Color that political.

With all this history in mind, go back to the diversion application reviewers' documents and read the revised Final Declaration of Findings - - May 4, 2016 - - a week after their April 27th posting - - and read again the language about the Lake Beulah decision and the Public Trust Doctrine.

Spoiler alert: It's gone.

I don't know at this point (transparency alert!) if the deletion was benign, accidental or intentional  - - but if I had to guess I'd surmise that a Wisconsin official with access to the application's reviewing process and perhaps heard from opponents of the Lake Beulah ruling wanted language like this excised from the final "findings":

Pursuant to the holdings of the Lake Beulah decision, WDNR shall consider its public trust duties implicated by any water supply well permit application within the Southeast Wisconsin Groundwater Management Area and conduct any necessary environmental evaluations required to prevent such impacts.

And emailed something like 'get that crap outta there. And delete this, too.'

Because the Wisconsin DNR run by Scott Walker's "chamber of commerce mentality" senior team, or other key GOP Wisconsin leaders do not want to be directed by outsiders about when or how to honor the Public Trust Doctrine..

Remember that Matt Moroney, a current senior Walker policy adviser and former Deputy DNR Secretary. had argued as a building industry representative that the Great Lakes Compact under which the diversion is being reviewed was an overreach into Wisconsin's affairs and economy.

The last thing which policy-makers in control of Wisconsin these days want to see in any official document about water and its oversight is anything that dictates to the state about its Great Lakes Compact responsibilities or that is supportive of the Lake Beulah ruling and the Public Trust Doctrine.

WI DNR wants huge increase in Kettle Moraine State Park logging

As the Walkerites ramp up sweetheart deals, special-interest favors and other giveaways of Wisconsin's public waters, land and clean air, and with the Wisconsin DNR intentionally run by a Scott Walker team chosen for its "chamber of commerce mentality," I note this item on the DNR website and wonder if "a variance" calling for a more than seven-fold increase in some timber cutting in a popular state park is completely science-driven: 

EAGLE, Wis. -- The annual allowable amount of timber that could be harvested from the Southern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest would be increased under a proposed master plan variance that is currently open for public comment. 

The forest's 1991 master plan calls for approximately 50 acres of hardwood and 100 acres of softwood annually. The proposed variance would allow for approximately 360 acres of hardwood stands and conifer plantations may be harvested each year.

That sure sounds like the removal of an awful lot of habitat which serves and preserves plants and wildlife - - and which belongs to the public, by the way - - so color me skeptical.

Especially since this comes on the heels of another Walkerite plan to increase logging on private lands formerly open to the public, yet which are subsidized with public tax breaks.

Vos maneuver could give corporations more WI groundwater

While Wisconsin is abusing, over pumping and contaminating our groundwater, the Legislature's GOP Assembly Leader Robin Vos - - a leading Wisconsin corporate water-carrier - - is seeking an opinion from GOP Attorney General and fellow corporate water-carrier Brad Schimel that could turn over more groundwater to corporate control and away from public oversight:

Since taking over state government in 2011, Republicans have made significant changes to natural resources laws, but they have failed to remove obstacles for frac sand mines, farms and food processors that want to dig more wells able to draw 100,000 gallons of water a day.

And big business hasn't been shy about its demands, noted in October:

A pretty stunning memo was sent last week by multiple trade groups and corporate special interests to the State Legislature in advance of today's hearing about the fast-tracked Wisconsin water giveaway bill I wrote about yesterday that puts groundwater and downstream users' access in private hand

Here is the full text of the Vos request.

AG opinions do not carry the force of law, but they can influence legislation and public opinion - - and elected officials usually do not ask for these kinds of opinions unless they are confident of the outcome.

Remember - - the State Constitution says the waters of Wisconsin belong to everyone and the DNR is obligated to put the public's rights first.

Energy and irony in the Waukesha County wind

Screaming irony alert:

The Journal Sentinel has a nice feature on a successful wind energy business in Waukesha County - - where Scott Walker's gets his largest county voter turnout - - which was founded about the same time Walker was first elected (2011) and immediately began stalling wind energy expansion in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Realtors prompted Walker’s wind restrictions

Which put hundreds of millions of dollars investment dollars at risk:

"We shouldn't have the Realtors Association dictating energy policy in this state," said [Dan] Ebert, senior vice president at WPPI Energy in Sun Prairie. "This puts a stake through the heart of wind development in the state of Wisconsin."

Though one wind farm looks like it will get off the ground in a year to join several modest developments, the overall policy failure during Walker's tenure been noted by national business media:

Scott Walker's Record on Wind and Solar Power Leaves Renewables Industry Fuming

New vaping rules might give Joel Kleefisch the vapors

As the US Food and Drug Administration moves against the health hazards of e-cigarette vaping let's not forget - - thanks to our one-person staff blogging time machine -- that Wisconsin State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, (R-Oconomowoc), in his inimitable style, has long been a vaping defender:

Vapor devices contain nicotine without the tar, old mattresses and rat poison contained in tobacco cigarettes and cigars. In the body, nicotine has virtually the same effects as when caffeine is consumed...

Right in Lake Country, the electronic vapor device industry is booming at Johnson Creek Enterprises...Businesses like this have opened the door to a flourishing industry that's mission is providing consumers a choice other than smoking tobacco products... 

It's not governments job tell people of the legal age that they are not allowed to partake in a legal activity... 

The nanny state needs to stop interfering in our daily lives. It's no longer a matter of whether there will be efforts for government to step in and start up the vapor patrols. 

Don't let Trump distract from Walker's routine ugliness

It's important to resist Donald Trump's behavior and the huge risks posed by his capture of the GOP presidential nomination and party, but let's not lose sight of the harsh daily realities playing out in Wisconsin where Scott Walker and his legislative allies are continuing a systematic attack on fair play and progressive policies.

Walker's latest combination of base pandering and misuse of power: - - approving rules he first communicated with an ugly dog whistle during his 2014 re-election campaign to require a drug test of Wisconsin recipients of unemployment compensation. 

Walker is moving ahead with a drug-testing plan dressed up as compassion for the drug-addicted unemployed - - actually a degrading scheme to further cut benefits and humiliate the poor into moving away - - though similar plans have been ruled unconstitutional - - twice - - and have wasted substantial public funds.

The New York Times recently let a Walker rep claim our Governor had a "visceral negative" reaction to Trump's character.

Talk about letting Walker off the hook.

Another day, another WI groundwater health hazard story

I've lost track of the number of these stories:

Tests find salmonella, rotavirus in Kewaunee County wells

As I wrote a few weeks ago:

Another day, another WI groundwater crisis story

Bring in the US EPA: Wisconsin has dropped the ball and that's fine with the business-drive, special-interest obeisant Walker administration.

Evictions - - nightmare book, and Milwaukee County DA candidate backstory

I'm reading the bestseller 'Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City' - -  a brutally honest hard read about poor Milwaukeeans trapped in a morass of poverty, unemployment and crushing eviction after eviction.

And now we learn that a candidate for Milwaukee County District Attorney was knee-deep in that mess. 

Verona Swanigan, a Milwaukee lawyer running for district attorney, filed eviction lawsuits against nearly 300 people on behalf of a landlord who owes about $70,000 in Municipal Court fines and has a history of offering substandard housing, court records show.

Ugh. 

Now Trump has to go through with it

So he's won the GOP presidential nomination...

and is in a reality show through November produced by many other people from which he could be - - should be - - fired and sent home.

And about Cruz...

Walker's Cruz, #NeverTrump badly thumped

Down goes the singularly unattractive Ted Cruz - - Wisconsin's righty talk radio's #NeverTrump alternative, despite the best op-ed efforts of Scott Walker - - 

he without long coattails:

…join me and vote for Ted Cruz.

Caterpillar continues Milwaukee jobs excavation

Caterpillar Inc. is again cutting or moving more jobs and payroll out of the Milwaukee area, perhaps outsourcing to Arizona what remains of the venerable and iconic Bucycus presence it took over a few years ago in a combination company officials touted in 2010 as "a unified team unlike any other in the mining industry"" 

Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday it is moving engineering and technology jobs from its mining equipment headquarters in South Milwaukee to Tucson, Ariz...The company's mining machine division consists largely of the former South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International that Caterpillar acquired for $8.8 billion in 2011.

Like so many mergers and takeovers, the real story after the hoopla is over and the golden parachutes and champagne bottles are popped open is the predictable downsizing that strips employees of their paychecks and communities of institutional memory, leadership, energy. and optimism

So let's review what was published on this blog in January, 2015:
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Caterpillar is laying off more mining and earth-moving equipment assembly workers in Milwaukee...

I'd written about Caterpillar's rosy 2010 entrance into the Milwaukee labor market when it bought Bucyrus Erie, and Caterpillar was all smiles and assurances when the takeover was complete:

As we combine the proven strengths of each organization, we’re creating a unified team unlike any other in the mining industry.

But then came the payroll cuts - - a move called "crazy" and antithetical to the Bucyrus Erie ethic and history by its former CEO - - a change underscored also by Caterpillar's ruinous disrespect for the workforce, as Dom Noth documented in May, 2013:

Soon after Caterpillar took over Bucyrus in 2011, a worker was crushed to death by mining equipment not hooked up to safety specifics—the company's first workplace fatality in decades. Horrified co-workers couldn’t move fast enough to save Jeff Smith, 30, a popular fitness buff and musician in his spare time.

Workers at the plant realize that industrial accidents can happen at even the best-run plants, but they remember the cold response to Smith's death by the new Caterpillar management.  Caterpillar brought in lawyers who refused to allow USW's investigative team into the building, resulting in a federal complaint that the company ultimately lost. The new managers also left it to the USW to provide comfort and financial relief to the family in its grief. 

Then there was this follow-up story six months later:

Caterpillar cuts more jobs in Milwaukee area

Caterpillar Inc. has laid off another round of employees at its southeastern Wisconsin operations, a company spokeswoman told The Business Journal Monday.

The Peoria, Ill.-based equipment manufacturer (NYSE: CAT) is cutting “support and management” positions at multiple locations, the Herald & Review newspaper in Decatur, Ill., reported....

[Caterpillar spokeswoman Rachel] Potts said the latest local layoffs are in addition to 260 production jobs cut in South Milwaukee during the summer.

Which brings us to this Journal Sentinel January 18, 2015 story online:

No bottom in sight for mining equipment companies, workers

Caterpillar Inc., which has its mining equipment division in Oak Creek, has cut hundreds of jobs at its factories that manufacture some of the world's biggest machines. 

More than half the company's blue-collar employees at the South Milwaukee plant, members of United Steelworkers Local 1433, are on layoff, said Ross Winklbauer, a Steelworkers subdistrict director. 

Last week, Caterpillar announced another 25 layoffs here, which Winklbauer says brings the number of people off work to roughly 450, or about 55% of the workforce. The additional 25 layoffs are scheduled to take effect beginning Monday, the company said.

Your "unified team unlike any other in the mining industry" at work.

On Lake Michigan diversion map, can WI DNR & Waukesha backtrack?

Reviewers from eight Great Lakes states and advisers from two Canadian provinces have made it clear through a revised, recommended diversion map that Waukesha's application for piped-in Lake Michigan water cannot include major portions of a proposed, expanded service territory that would extend into neighboring towns sought by the City of Waukesha's diversion application produced by years of expensive research, consulting and pressure:

The new map which excludes the towns of Delafield and Genesee and most of the town of Waukesha from the service area — was created April 27, a few days after Great Lakes Regional Body officials met in Chicago to the discuss the service area and Waukesha's original request to divert up to 10.1 million gallons of lake water per day by 2050.

The revision would reduce the average Lake Michigan water draw from a proposed, maximum 10.1 million gallons daily to 8.76 million gallons daily, cut the service territory by about 43% and thereby limit the use of diverted water to fuel development.

Which is what the business community has been arguing - - for years - - and recently.

A revised service map does not address critics' concerns about Waukesha's need for the diversion and rejection of potential water source alternatives, nor does the map fully address critics' questions about using the Root River through the downstream City of Racine in another county as Waukesha's new discharge route for treated waste water. 

It was clear since 2010 that the expanded service territory and its sprawl opportunities were going to be problems once the application made its way to the other states and provinces for analysis and a decision, but Waukesha and the DNR forged ahead and kept this obviously controversial portion in an already-controversial, precedent-setting diversion application.

Contrast the now-shrinking proposed service territory to what was declared as an iron-clad, non-negotiable extended service territory laid out several years ago by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary and chamber of commerce water-carrier and mouthpiece Cathy Stepp when she said that any potential water supplier of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha was required by state law to supply the entire expanded service territory.

Period:

The state Department of Natural Resources will require any municipality, including Milwaukee, selling Lake Michigan water to the City of Waukesha to supply its entire future water service area and not just the city, Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp said Thursday in a letter to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines.

You have to wonder if Waukesha and the DNR are willing to back the new map before the Great Lakes governors vote in a few weeks on whether to approve Waukesha's application - - a unanimous vote of the governors is required for implementation - - or will Waukesha and the DNR try and negotiate further for a larger service territory, or go to court over the revision and basically put the entire US/Canadian Great Lakes protective Compact at risk?

Final questions:

If Waukesha and the DNR accept the revised map and reduced water ask, how much of the original plan was credible, how much was overreach and how much of the remainder is justifiable?

Jindal wanted climate change silence, feds paying the bill

Remember when then-GOP Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2013 urged Republicans to quit being "the stupid party?"

So how ironic is it that Jindal asked President Obama not to mention climate change during a 2015 presidential visit to Louisiana, but today we learn that the federal government is about to spend nearly $50 million in a first-of-its-kind expenditure to move Louisiana citizens from low-lying areas where climate change is elevating sea levels and forcing them off their land.

Ironic, and stupid, and expensive, and for the Louisiana residents losing their homes and roots - - tragic.

Another Walker Know-Nothing highlight

I'd been listing Scott Walker's evasions and non-responsive deflections over the years - - here's one 2015 compilation with more than a dozen shoulder-shrugs all the way back to 1988 - - 

Walker adds to his 'I don't know list':

Let's put it this way; the more you know about Walker, the more you know that he doesn't know - - or will not give you a straight story: why else would his extensive PolitiFact file contain three times the fully "False" and "Pants on Fire" ratings than fully "True?" 

Here's a comprehensive and documented list of Walker facts people outside of Wisconsin may not yet have heard about.

And this new word-salady dodge is a keeper:

Governor Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) struggled Friday to explain why the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) has failed to recover any taxpayer money given out to companies that have outsourced Wisconsin jobs, despite past claims he'd asked them to do that... 

"Again - that's a question you'll have to direct to them," said Gov. Walker. "The bottom line is the expectation, but if it's a company that - for legal reasons or otherwise - they'll have to answer the questions. They're the ones that handle that process." 

When hunters go crazy

The list of recent high-profile wildlife and domestic animal kills is growing:

A famed grizzly bear beloved by Yellowstone tourists shot dead, according to developing reporting:

Death at Yellowstone: Feds probe shooting of ‘Scarface,’ the park’s most famed grizzly

Beloved canine pets:

Multiple charges filed in Dane County dog killings

An iconic African lion:

No Prosecution For Dentist Who Killed Cecil The Lion

A popular deer in Milwaukee County park: 

Well-known buck killed illegally in county park

Famous California wolf: 

Grand Canyon Wolf That Made Epic Journey Shot Dead in Utah

In Wisconsin, smokestacks and smokescreens

While the Wisconsin DNR today is offering clean air PR and a poetry contest for elementary school kids:

The department celebrates Clean Air Month and a decade of Air Quality Awareness Week

The real powers-that-be which are driven by power and ideological corporate influence are already taking the state in the opposite direction:

The president's climate change initiative known as the Clean Power Plan aims to cut CO2 emissions from existing power plants by about a third over the next 15 years. The plan formally took effect Friday morning, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker quickly followed through on his threat to sue to try to stop the rule.

With a recent win for Walker and the state attorney general, with the obvious effects: 

Only WI is without smokestack emission compliance plan 

 

More reporting on Wisconsin's contaminated drinking water

Ron Seely at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism unearths and organizes more information about Wisconsin's drinking water crisis and cuts to various safe drinking water programs and laws since Scott Walker was elected Governor and special-interest-water-carrier-in-chief in 2011.

DNR well-testing photo

My take on this has been that there will be no real progress on clean water as a priority in Wisconsin until the US EPA comes into the state, shines a bright light on waterborne health hazards and public enforcement failures and takes program and implementation control from Walker on behalf of state citizens and people in other states downstream.

Walker tax cuts worth more to upper-income earners.

You can slice and dice the Walker administration tax cut data released by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau anyway you want, so here's my cut:

For filers earning $50,000 annually, the cut was worth $160 a year, or $3.08 a week/one-cup-of-coffeeshop-brew-money-in-your pocket.

For filers earning $300,000 annually, the cut was worth 8.17 more, or $25.13 a week/coffee-every-day-or-take-the-kids-to-dinner-every-Friday-night money.

Walker administration caught screwing with truth, WI Open Records law

The Wisconsin State Journal offers up a revealing Sunday story which tells you all you need to know about the systematic ideological dishonesty which the Walker administration has embedded deep into state agencies, the legislative process, relations with media and, in this case, the century-old state civil service system, documents show.

Note also that the Walkerites stonewalled the State Journal by withholding key documentation sought under the Wisconsin Open Records statute until long after the civil service changes were passed by both legislative houses and signed by Walker into law.

The personnel agency in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration privately blasted changes to the state’s civil service days after they were proposed, telling his office the overhaul would slow hiring, turn away qualified job applicants and trigger more lawsuits against the state, public records show...

The memo was provided to the State Journal as part of a larger response to a December public-records request…at the time of the request, the Assembly had passed the bill but the Senate had yet to vote. 

The State Journal received the records April 1, seven weeks after Walker signed the bill into law. 

The newspaper should sue the agency and depose everyone remotely connected to such an unacceptable process to force some consequences and accountability on the administration and to see how high up this recklessness goes.

Also interesting that the author of the internal critique a) didn't sign it, b) isn't working for the state and Team Walker anymore.

Walker on Trump; yea and nay

The New York Times finds that potential Donald Trump running mates are not interested in the #2 spot on a ticket with him and a Scott Walker adviser puts Walker in the 'No' camp saying that Walker has a "visceral negative reaction" to The Donald.

Visceral enough on Walker's behalf for a fourth paragraph mention on page one in the Sunday Times!

But less than two weeks ago, Ted Cruz backer-Walker said he could support Trump for President.

So The Donald is good enough for you, America - - and the planet - - but too upsetting for The Walker.

Now that's principled.