WI's GOP conservation opponents want legalized wolf poaching; hearing Wed., 1/10

Here comes the Wisconsin wolf-killing caucus again.

Despite a drop in confirmed losses of livestock and pets to depredation by wolves, the anti-DNR tag team of GOP State Sen. Tom Tiffany and GOP State Rep. Adam Jarchow are leading an effort to end all prohibitions against wolf hunting in Wisconsin and stop any DNR scientific or law enforcement role in wolf 'management.'

I wrote about this "whiff of vigilantism and secession" in November when the proposal surfaced, and, regrettably, it is coming up for a committee vote next Wednesday, January 10th, at 10 AM, in Room 412 East of the State Capitol.

The committee, Natural Resources and Sporting Heritage, is chaired by Waukesha County State GOP Rep. Joel Kleefisch, the highest-profile hunting enthusiast in the Legislature and original lead proponent of recent state-approved, dog-assisted wolf hunts.

Fuller history, here:

How the Wisconsin wolf hunt came into being three years ago speaks volumes about the victory of politics over science over public-interest conservation policy-making.

It's an ugly history about a reality that is at odds with the state's strong environmental traditions - - a partisan, politically-prescribed failure visible elsewhere in deliberately-weakened enforcement, fresh pollution and other abuses now routine across the state's waters, land and air since Republicans and their corporate sponsors took control of the Legislature and the rest of state government in the Walker era...

Remember that the wolf-hunt was implemented by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources quickly at the Legislature's behest, and in part by the agency through its "emergency" rule-making authority that shortcut obviously important assessment of all the issues - - a ploy that allowed the controversial use of dogs against wolves in the hunt and in pre-hunt, disruptive hunting dog training sought by special hunting-and-gun interests.

Dogs in wolf-hunting - - which puts both animals in fighting positions - - is a Wisconsin-only practice among the states.

Except there was no emergency facing the DNR, as noted at the time - - except if that's how you define it to please the conservative, pro-Walker special interests that pushed for the hunt defined by little science and few restrictions.

The pending wolf-poaching bill should not be seen in isolation, as it is being pushed by the same special interests and some of the same GOP legislators who gave Foxconn permission to fill wetlands and alter the landscape at will, fast-tracked the toxic, sulfide mining bill to Walker's desk, want to privatize state wildlife and greatly restrict the authority of DNR wardens and open a million acres of state-protected wetlands to development, since what's good for Foxconn will now sought by the private sector statewide.

And these special interests and their legislative bellhops want break up the DNR to bury its mission, legacy and accumulated expertise, wisdom and practical science which, like the water and the wildlife and clean air are being given away and otherwise degraded belong to all the people.

You can't correctly call this wrecking crew "conservatives." They are for conserving nothing, for passing along nothing. 

To them, from Walker on down, they are exploiters, destroyers of the commons, seizing and consuming what is not theirs to filch.

Why don't these public sector nihilists be consistent, return their taxpayer-paid salaries and resign?

Wolf hunting in Wisconsin has been barred by a federal court since 2014, and earlier sanctioned Wisconsin wolf hunting seasons and practices raised a host of questions.

Wisconsin was the only state in the US to allow dogs in the hunt, and allowed kills which exceeded the quotas which had been established, according to this news story.

Here is the heart of their bill. 

This bill prohibits a law enforcement officer from enforcing a federal or state law that relates to the management of the wolf population in this state or that prohibits the killing of wolf in this state. The bill also prohibits DNR from expending any funds for the purpose of managing the wolf population in this state other than for the purpose of making payments under the endangered resources program to persons who apply for reimbursement for certain damage caused by wolves and prohibits DNR from taking any action to inform or support federal law enforcement officers regarding the enforcement of any federal or state law relating to wolves. 

An Associated Press account of the bill late last year said this:

The Republican lawmakers — Reps. Adam Jarchow, Mary Felzkowski and Romaine Quinn, along with Sen. Tom Tiffany...said...in a memo to their colleagues seeking co-sponsors that wolves “have taken over northern Wisconsin.” “They are depredating our deer population, killing livestock and attacking family pets,” they said in the memo...

Online DNR records show that so far this year there have been 39 confirmed wolf attacks on hunting dogs, cattle, sheep and one pet dog. The DNR recorded 76 confirmed wolf attacks in 2016.

The DNR has also debunked the belief that wolves are causing a shortage of deer available to Wisconsin hunters, noting that winter weather and collisions with vehicles kill many more deer than do wolves.

Fresh facts, analysis and expert commentary, here:

Wolves obviously eat deer. According to most experts, an adult wolf will consume the equivalent of 20 adult-sized deer annually.

But when compared to other sources of deer mortality in Wisconsin, wolves rank down the list...

The leading causes of deer mortality in the state, as Wisconsin wildlife managers have long said, are human hunters and severe winters.

Also undermining the claims that wolves are ruining the deer hunt: the DNR late last year noted that despite a increase in the size of the Wisconsin deer herd, fewer hunters were participating, according to the Journal Sentinel:

In the last 35 years, the only year with a lower nine-day gun kill was 2014, according to DNR officials. 

The harvest that year was 192,111.

The 2017 deer kill was down despite a statewide herd that was likely larger this year, according to DNR preseason forecasts. 

So the question is: Will Wisconsin, without data or science or argument to back unrestricted wolf hunting further extend its status as a wolf-hunting outlier and risk federal funding that supports many hunting, fishing and wildlife habitat programs as the state has withdrawn operating and staffing funds from the DNR budget to approve state-sanctioned wolf poaching?

I strongly recommend reading an analysis of the bill by GreenFire, a voluntary, non-partisan organization of Wisconsin conservationists, as the organization is highlighting consequences of the bill which go beyond obvious problems with its frontal attack on science and the DNR in the name of wide-open wolf-shooting:

This legislative proposal would eliminate DNR research, monitoring and management of gray wolves not directly related to wolf depredation until federal delisting occurs. Scientific work that would be eliminated includes annual wolf population monitoring and winter population estimates, radio-collaring of wolves, and monitoring of diseases in the wolf population. Research into wolf monitoring cost efficiency and improved population estimate procedures would stop. This legislation complicates the work of law enforcement officers, raises the risk of future litigation with Wisconsin’s Chippewa Tribes over co-management status, and could jeopardize Wisconsin’s continued eligibility to receive federal Pittman-Robertson funding: 

This legislation would jeopardize Wisconsin’s ability to receive federal Wildlife Restoration Grants commonly referred to as Pittman Robertson (PR) funds. If enacted, the legislation would prevent enforcement of the illegal killing of wolves, as well as scientific population monitoring and management by DNR. Wisconsin’s eligibility for these funds is contingent on DNR having the legal authority to properly manage wildlife populations within the state. It is likely that the USFWS would need to review WDNR’s ability to properly manage Wisconsin’s gray wolf population. A negative finding would result in Wisconsin’s loss of these important PR-funds.

Pittman-Robertson grants, Wisconsin’s share of the federal excise taxes on hunting equipment, are used to monitor wildlife populations, undertake research, and manage wildlife habitat for a wide range of species. In 2017, Wisconsin received over $19 million grant dollars which was nearly 14% of the total revenue to the state’s Fish & Wildlife Account. Loss of these grant funds would require DNR to lay off staff and eliminate wildlife management activities.

To date the DNR has invested staff resources and funding in citizen science initiatives cited in this paper. These programs help reduce the costs of wolf monitoring and management. Lack of continuity in citizen science training will reduce the effectiveness of volunteers and would increase start up costs in the future. 

You might also read one of many studies showing that wolves as the top predator improve the broader health and stability of the ecosystem.

First Foxconn wetlands fill is big; more to come

It's 26 acres. It's 50% larger than a wetlands fill for a sand mine to the northwest that was described in 2017 as the biggest such Wisconsin wetland loss in ten years.

It's a big fat middle finger to Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution and the principle that the state oversees water in the state in trust for the public, not as broker in a sole-bidder auction.

And it's taking place in a flood-prone county.

So by many measurements, it's a big deal - - and remember, GOP legislators want to exempt another million acres of wetlands statewide from existing protections.

Under a state law enacted last year, Foxconn has no obligation to avoid or minimize its impact on a pond and 42 wetlands that cover about 26 acres within the first parcels of land the company is readying for construction in Racine County.

Last year, the filling of just under 17 acres of wetlands for sand mining operations was described as the largest such wetlands loss in 10 years. 

The first Foxconn fill is more than 50% larger, with more to come.

Foxconn is setting a wetland-filling precedent, and the rest of the private sector in Wisconsin - - multiple examples in this post - - want equal treatment to privatize what is not theirs to grab.

Worse, Trump and his environmental polluters running the EPA want to pull more federal wetlands away from existing protections, leaving the private sector in control, freer to pollute.

Update: There's a good chance this will be litigated, as predicted; once again, citizens will have to fight their own government and big corporations to force the government to stop corporations from privatizing what is not theirs to seize.

As I pointed out in November, the con on water protection extends far past Foxconn:
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Federal and state GOP officials are playing a shell game with public waters - - pretending that Federal law will protect wetlands being deregulated in Wisconsin while working to block or end Federal water and clean air protections, and much of what remains on the books in Wisconsin, too.

It's a classic case of promising one thing while doing the opposite that breaks the original promise, then saying there's nothing to see here.

Begin with the law Walker signed to subsidize Foxconn construction on several thousand acres of rural Racine County land. The new law predictably exempted the company from routine Wisconsin protections for wetlands, streams and even lake beds.

(Full Foxconn archive, here.)

Now look past the purely propagandistic assurances offered by Foxconn proponents that the company would be a good steward of the land, and pay attention to the back-up federal waterway protections Foxconn backers say will compensate for the environmental exemptions Foxconn just got.

And grasp that Wisconsin officials are working overtime to extend the Foxconn water and wetland exemptions to any business that wants them, to wit:

*  Brad Schimel, Wisconsin's pro-business GOP Attorney General, is leading the effort by numerous state attorneys general - - and note they just paid political and literal tribute to Trump at Mar-a-Lago - - to remove significant federal protections from waterways and wetlands nationwide.

*  Scott Pruitt, Trump's pro-polluter EPA administrator, is trying to tie-up the implementation of Obama-era wetland and waterway protections for at least two more years.

* And Wisconsin GOP legislators are out to further shrink Wisconsin wetland and waterway protections statewide, while citing as back-ups, with a straight face the very federal protections that Trump, Pruitt and Schimel are working hard to slow, then end:

Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature want to eliminate state protections for wetlands and air quality except when mandated by the federal government, saying they are costly for businesses.

About a million acres of wetlands could be left vulnerable and as many as 300 hazardous air pollutants could become unregulated under a pair of proposals circulating among lawmakers.

*  All this while the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has just added another 240 Wisconsin waterways to the federal impairment list.

The total number of Wisconsin waterways on the impaired list is now 1,300

*  And as goes Wisconsin waters, so, too, air quality which directly impacts the waters below, too: 

Reps. Jesse Kremer and Cody Horlacher and Sen. Duey Stroebel, all Republicans, introduced a bill on Sept. 20 that would wipe out all state air pollution rules that go beyond federal regulations. 

Note that WI AG Schimel has been organizing and suing to weaken federal air pollution standards, along with his focus on deregulating water, for years. Noted in detail, here:

*   Schimel beat Pruitt to the coal-industry-lobbying-hiring punch by tapping in 2014 a lobbyist for The American Coalition for Clean Coal as the AG's top aide, noted here.

  * Schimel later forced out Tom Dawson, the agency's leading environmental lawyer, created an in-house team in the Attorney General's office that specializes in suing the federal government and installed on the team Dawson's replacement, David Ross, an out-of-state pro-business attorney. 

*  It has been reported that Pruitt will draft Ross from the team as a senior administrator in the EPA's water office.

* Pruitt wants to kill on behalf of Big Coal President Obama's clean power plan, and Schimel is among the Attorneys General in court carrying the ball:  

“I am incredibly proud of our top-tier team at the Wisconsin Department of Justice that is helping to lead this crucial challenge against the federal government,” said Attorney General Brad Schimel.

What do you think will happen to the quality of Wisconsin air and waterways as this rush to deregulation powers on, and as wetlands that act as filters and flood protectors are filled by Foxconn in a flood-prone county, and if Foxconn exemptions are extended statewide with sulfide mining about to begin, and already-weakly-regulated, manure-spilling, groundwater-sucking CAFOs are allowed to expand, and if Pruitt wins the two-year waterways protections blockage he and Trump are seeking, and if Schimel's band of wetland fillers win the permanent rollback of federal waterway protections they hope the US Supreme Court will grant?

The entire effort is right out of the GOP/Koch brothers playbook: Privatize public resources, remove legal, regulatory and scientific protections for public resources, shrink the public sector, cite its ineffectiveness and give big business a free hand.

Why no Walker ribbon-cutting on first Foxconn roadwork

Given Walker's fevered love affair with all things Foxconn, you'd have thought he'd have cut a ribbon when road-graders launched the first of hundreds of millions of dollars of Foxconn-related roadwork this week on a two-mile upgrade of frontage road along the Racine County project's site.

But Walker can't highlight the lavish road spending he's ordered for Foxconn right in the middle of pothole season without drawing attention to the road projects statewide Foxconn will drain of funding or push farther down the priority list - - and which will inevitably get more expensive through inflation, or be forgotten altogether. 

As I noted last month when the first $30 million of new state money for Foxconn-related roadwork was announced - - and that projected total with borrowings for I-94 north and south now exceeds $400 million - - 

I'm sure the Governor will spin the gaudy $30 million for new highway construction his allegedly cash-strapped WisDOT just gift-wrapped for Foxconn as just another win for Green Bay, and I'm not talking about a "w" for the 7-6 Packers.

...Walker is using our money to bet his re-election on convincing taxpayers far from Foxconn's site in SE Wisconsin that what's good for Mount Pleasant there is good for Mount Horeb, Mount Hope and Mount Calvary, too:

Taxpayers paid for a thinly-veiled Scott Walker re-campaign visit to Green Bay last week, as our right-wing Governor and Foxconn bellhop keeps trying to convince taxpayers far from the Racine-to-Chicago Foxconn gravy train that they will benefit from the $3 billion in public subsidies collected from taxpayers statewide that Walker is shoveling to Foxconn at the expense of programs and growth in all 72 counties...

Send Walker back when the winter thaw leaves Brown County with a few thousand new potholes that can't be repaired because I-94 near the Foxconn site needs another lane.

Or, Walker will will duck the road spending disparity altogether, since he's got state-paid drivers to shuttle him around on roads that have crumbled on his watch to second-worst in the country.

Paying for front-end alignments and new tires is for the little people.

And every unfilled pothole, every suspended project, every road that has been allowed to degrade to gravel - - a real thing - - every transit system starved of adequate financing on Walker's watch statewide calls attention to the reality that Wisconsin under Walker has no viable transportation financing plan because Walker has blocked or vetoed every effort to rationalize transportation planning and construction with long-term funding.

Even though non-partisan state fiscal experts said the results of that inertia would be more roadway deterioration.

Why is Wisconsin in this absurd, counter-productive, axle-breaking, motorist-hostile, tourist-unfriendly and development-discouraging position - - long-documented by non-partisan experts in "Filling Potholes" and other studies?

How is that denial of reality has been allowed to be the reality when it comes to obtaining and maintaining reasonable roads and bridges and transit systems in the state, as noted by the American Society of Engineers whose findings I cited this week:

Wisconsin Infrastructure Overview

While the nation’s infrastructure earned a “D+” in the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, Wisconsin faces infrastructure challenges of its own. For example, driving on roads in need of repair in Wisconsin costs each driver $637 per year, and 8.7% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. Drinking water needs in Wisconsin are an estimated $1 billion, and wastewater needs total $6.33 billion. 157 dams are considered to be high-hazard potential. The state’s schools have an estimated capital expenditure gap of $836 million. 

This deteriorating infrastructure impedes Wisconsin’s ability to compete in an increasingly global marketplace. Success in a 21st century economy requires serious, sustained leadership on infrastructure investment at all levels of government. Delaying these investments only escalates the cost and risks of an aging infrastructure system, an option that the country, Wisconsin, and families can no longer afford.

What has happened is that Walker continues to govern through his 'no-new-taxes-ever' re-election talking point in his permanent campaign that guarantees the perpetual proliferation of potholes:

Gov. Pothole has allowed Wisconsin's roads to decay to 2nd-worst in the country, costing motorists repair penalties reaching an estimated $700 annually in the Milwaukee area, data show. 

Walker even got rid of his own transportation secretary, civil engineer and legislative transportation expert Mark Gottlieb a year ago for having the temerity to do his job and recommend after careful study tax and fee increases which contradicted the Walker mantra.

Read this excellent history of Gottlieb's demise, here.

Gov. Scott Walker’s transportation secretary is stepping down less than a month after he told lawmakers Wisconsin’s roads would worsen under the GOP governor’s plans... 

Gottlieb has served as transportation secretary since Walker was inaugurated in 2011. A civil engineer, Gottlieb has at times called for increasing taxes and fees to pay for highways... 

Aides to the governor were frustrated by his testimony, sources told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The 2018 election is the only chance we have to begin to repair the damage caused by Walker's ideologically-driven neglect of the state's infrastructure, to the environment he is supposed to manage as the people's trustee and public finances which are critical to the state's success. 

If he is re-elected, and continues to match his right-wing agenda to Trump's, it will take another generation on top of Walker's twelve damaging years as Governor to perhaps salvage our once-progressive state.

 

I

Walker moves 6 years late on Lincoln Hills humanitarian crisis

Before you get to the heart of the story, remember that Walker was told in 2012 by a Racine County judge that youth were being mistreated at the facility known as Lincoln Hills up north to which Walker's brain trust had decided urban offenders should be sent from SE Wisconsin.

I noted in 2011 that his closing of the boys' facility long-located in Waukesha County to save a few bucks - - the right treats government consolidations as chess board games while human beings and true public policies are risked  and dismissed- - was a mistake: 

Good-bye Ethan Allen School for Boys, a juvenile justice facility at Wales, as I reported earlier.

The workers are stunned. The plan is bad for them, the kids sent there and the community...Walker gave no real warning.

In fact, Walker closed the Ethan Allen School even though the state had just spent millions on improvements there.

But Walker liked moving jobs to the north, and upending a Jim Doyle initiative to boot, regardless of the consequences, which included mass inmate gassings, as WKOW-TV reported in December, 2015 without any reaction, apparently, by Team Walker.

Then roll forward to this report of mine a year ago:

On Walker's watch, Lincoln Hills is a humanitarian crisis

Victimized guard says Walker shares blame for her beating...

Now there is reporting of the details surrounding a suicide attempt at the female unit at the youth prison that has left a teenage-girl in this state facility with permanent injury... 

Do you remember this disgusting story about conditions in the state's youth prison which we the taxpayers pay for?

Lincoln Hills youth had toes amputated after run-in with staff

The allegations have been horrendous and are getting worse:

...teenagers sentenced to serve time at the state’s youth prison in Irma face being taken to a cell no larger than about the size of a gas station bathroom, outfitted with a single metal bed and metal toilet. There’s one window in the cell’s door, as wide as the inmate’s face, that looks across a hallway into another cell... 

Why should it take a federal lawsuit to bring this nightmare more fully to public attention, and to the authorities to bring the nightmare to a close?

Enough.

Well, today Walker finally gets around to announcing a possible solution - - a plan long available but which Walker would embrace - - to the crisis at the Lincoln Hills youth prison which he set in motion during his first budget's meddling that now will take at least two years to implement:

Walker's move comes six years after his office was first notified by a judge of problems at the facility, three years after a sweeping criminal investigation of the prison began, six months after a federal judge put restrictions on how it operates and a month after federal prosecutors notified two former guards they could be charged with crimes. 

So now the taxpayers will pay and pay because of Walker's short-sighted policies which ignore reality. 

Same pattern with our crumbling highways and infrastructure.

And with classroom investments still not fully restored from Walker's early cuts.

Wisconsin, we've been duped.
 

Schimel releases opaque '17 environmental summary

Business-friendly Wisconsin GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel, having previously shrunk his department's once-high profile Environmental Protection Unit and down-graded its institutional memory and former lead prosector, the now-retired Tom Dawson, released a summary of 2017 environmental actions that goes out of its way to be user-unfriendly.

The summary is five paragraphs long, offers no year-to-year comparisons or trends, and does not mention in the release text the name of a single polluter fined or otherwise targeted, leaving the reader to guess, "Jeopardy"-style, at the company's identity.

Corporate names do show up in tiny little type in an attached Judgement Log spreadsheet. Not every media report on the news release is going to include the log or cross-check it with the release. 

The obfuscation is unnecessary.

So reading the text, we assume the company vaguely described as "a manufacturing facility in Marshfield" allowed to install pollution controls without a fine is a 3M plant, as I noted earlier this year, but why should a citizen have to guess or go to log?

Ditto for the "groundwater contamination case in Madison." It is probably related to the lingering problems at the Kipp plant - - and a matter about which neighbors have long complained and looks likely to continue:

The agreement allows the company to indefinitely postpone removal of very high concentrations of PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls — beneath its plant on Waubesa Street. The company is required to establish a bond or other financial assurance of up to $1.65 million within five years for future cleanup of soil under the plant.

Nearly $119,000 of Madison-Kipp’s penalty is in the form of a fine....

Under Republican state Attorney General Brad Schimel and Gov. Scott Walker, fines for polluters have dwindled.

The $119,000 Madison-Kipp fine resembles fines for less serious record-keeping violations under previous administrations, said Carl Sinderbrand, a Madison attorney... who worked in the Justice Department’s environmental unit from 1979 to 1990.

By the way, here is the actual type font and size used in the log. Get out your magnifying glasses.

11/27/17 Madison‐Kipp Corporation $118,960.88

I see little in the details or the structure of AG's release to cheer about, though his kid gloves approach will be welcomed by the toxic mining companies now with permission to do business in Wisconsin, and certainly at the Foxconn project for whom routine environmental reviews and rules were eliminated with the support of Big Business.

All of which has been the aim of Walker and his allies since Day One.

Here is the AG's report, in full:

AG Schimel Announces Environmental Protection Unit Enforcement Results

Jan 3 2018

MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Environmental Protection Unit has released its environmental enforcement results for the fourth quarter of 2017. The unit obtained judgments in 15 state enforcement cases and in one federal Superfund case that was prosecuted jointly with the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of Minnesota. The state judgments totaled $714,540 in forfeitures and related surcharges, plus an additional $17,826,000 in projects designed to protect public health and the environment. The joint federal case secured $332,000 that is intended to be used primarily for wild rice restoration projects on the Wisconsin side of the St. Louis River Estuary near Superior, Wisconsin as part of an overall $8.2 million settlement.

“DOJ continues to prioritize the important work of enforcing the state’s environmental and natural resources laws,” said Attorney General Brad Schimel. “The talented individuals in DOJ’s Environmental Protection Unit are dedicated to helping protect and restore our state’s natural resources. We have made great progress in 2017 working with our federal partners to secure robust financial commitments to clean up some of our state’s most contaminated sites through aggressive enforcement of the nation’s Superfund law.”

The state enforcement actions resolved civil prosecutions for air pollution control violations, hazardous waste spills, pollutant discharges to surface waters, hazardous waste management violations, and improper abandonment of underground petroleum storage tanks. In one case, DOJ secured an $8 million commitment from a manufacturing facility in Marshfield to upgrade an industrial dryer and associated air pollution control equipment, in addition to agreeing to implement an enhanced fugitive dust control program.

In an unrelated case, DOJ worked with a chemical manufacturing company to resolve a decades-long dispute over historic groundwater contamination near Cottage Grove. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to finalize site investigation and remedial design activities at an estimated cost of $6 million and committed to implement a long-term remedy to address remaining environmental concerns; the value of that remedy has yet to be estimated. In other unrelated cases, DOJ finalized a $4 million settlement to resolve a groundwater contamination case in Madison, and secured a $106,000 commitment from a hazardous waste management company in Marinette to reduce hazardous air pollutant emissions on top of paying a $100,000 penalty.

For the year, DOJ completed 49 state environmental enforcement cases resulting in $1,450,026 in forfeitures and related surcharges and secured an additional $18,588,500 for environmental projects, for a total judgment value of $20,038,526. The three joint federal Superfund cases settled in 2017 secured $242,332,000 in future restoration commitments for the state’s natural resources.

Press Release - PDF

Judgment Log - PDF

Record shows Governor Pothole worked hard for the title

It's time for a short course on why Walker is the Pothole Governor.

Let me begin with what an anonymous commenter left me on this recent post:

Walker's starved road budget produces annual $673 driver repair tax

Gee, we agree with your observation, it's bad. Yet this is common public knowlege that has been ou there for quite a while. It's great that you're sensitive, but it sure helps us all when you notice these things as they happen. We all live in a political environment, and have to react to things in real time.
January 2, 2018 at 11:03 PM

The post had been a follow-up to this item examining why Walker is the Pothole Governor:

Potholes, punted planning, postponed projects expose Walker politically  

Now I can't tell if the comment was sarcasm, or criticism from a reader who thought I've been tardy in noticing what's going on out there.

So in case there are people who need a refresher course on Walker, potholes and the state of our under-funded roads, let me point out that:

*  I have often called attention to a move by Walker in his role as then-Milwaukee County Executive that led to more unfunded highway building in SE Wisconsin that inevitably starved road-building and repairs statewide, as I noted in 2015:

Walker motion in 2003 tripped off SE highway overspending

The Wisconsin Legislature is grappling with a state highway budget unsustainably bloated by reckless borrowing and overspending on the so-called SE 'free'way system - - a problem that has helped stall the entire state budget process while preposterous presidential hopeful Scott Walker keeps skipping out to campaign from Iowa to New Hampshire and beyond.

So it's important to remember that Walker - - as Milwaukee County Executive - - played a key role in 2003 on a SE regional planning commission advisory committee which voted, without a companion financing plan, to recommend to state highway planners that Wisconsin add to the SE 'freeway' system the maximum number of new lanes among the alternatives considered - - 127 miles of lanes instead of 108 - - in what ultimately became a $6.4 billion package.

Walker's motion added an estimated $750 million to the ultimate price tag and also increased the number of structures and amount of land removed from the tax base.  

Here is an early 2017 posting, among several, on the same subject:

Walker began highway funding mess with highway financing-free 'plan'

Is any reporter going to ask Walker why he did what he did?

And as to the potholes' consequence?

A 2014 post:

Fix the potholes? Wisconsin pols buying more lanes instead

A particularly tough winter has battered the pavement, motorists' nerves and wallets. Potholes, everywhere, with some worthy of building permits and environmental impact statements, but has the state, awash in surplus dollars, directed added funding to local street repair budgets that have been getting routine, budget-season reductions?

Even in a $43 million supplement of highway spending?

Nope.

The Government/Road-builder Complex run out of the State Capitol, and in satellite offices in nearby trade associations and lobbying shops, has chosen instead to pour extra millions of our tax dollars into more new lanes - - big-dollar projects that will, after a freeze-thaw cycle or two acquire their own axle-breaking-tire-popping cracks, splits and degradation.

Why not fix what we have first?

Because there are bigger profits to pocket and ribbons to cut and news releases to Tweet when adding new lanes than fixing the cracks and holes with lower-profit asphalt. 

A 2015 post: 

With giant potholes, freeway in Walker's Wisconsin hardly free

We've noted on this blog here, and here the degradation of local roads as Walker's budgets starve municipalities of revenue, but yesterday on a warm, but by no means blistering spring day on the regional 'freeway' system north of Milwaukee built and maintained by the state, there were monster potholes damaging vehicles and shutting down traffic that were monsters:

Milwaukee County Sheriff’s officials say on Sunday afternoon, some large potholes [on I-43N] caused at least six vehicles to suffer flat tires. We’re told some of these potholes were six feet long by 18 inches wide by six inches deep.

Walker keeps talking about exporting his model and methods nationally. With Wisconsin's roads falling to third-worst among the 50 states, you might want to boost your auto insurance before heading to the polls:

The numbers mark a dramatic decline in road quality. As recently as 11 years ago, Wisconsin's roads ranked No. 22 in the nation, and their deterioration affects almost every industry and motorist in the state, according to the study commissioned by the Local Government of Wisconsin Institute.

Poor roads in the Milwaukee area cost drivers $700 a year in extra vehicle repairs, according to the study; in the Madison area, road conditions cost drivers an additional $615 in annual tire wear, maintenance and accelerated deterioration. Nationally, substandard road conditions cost drivers an average of $377 per year, the study found.

The primary culprit: State budget cuts that have slashed the amount of money dedicated to repairing both state highways and local roads, which has left fewer than half of Wisconsin's roads rated as "good" or better, the report found. 

Also from 2015:

Fresh pavement fail shows potholes in Wisconsin road priorities

You must live on the International Space Station if you didn't know that Wisconsin roads are sporting potholes which appear to be created by land mines.

Yet while the state keeps building politically-enabled and pricey new lanes and wider ramps - - have you recently driven through the perpetual $1.9 billion 'improvement' to I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois border, or the $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange battle zone? - -  the condition of Wisconsin's roads are now rated third-worst in the nation, data show.

So how telling was it yesterday that busy State Highway 45 north of its connection to the Zoo morass was closed for hours because huge potholes had opened up on the pavement:

The holes grew to nearly five feet by five feet -- a major traffic concern for motorists.

How would you like to run through at highway speed a pothole big enough to hold a couple of refrigerators?

And that's the second time in recent weeks a major Southeastern Wisconsin 'freeway' was closed for emergency repairs because of dangerously large potholes. 

From a 2016 post:

Billions for new freeways in Wisconsin/pothole nation 

The road-builders make a lot more profit laying concrete than they earn filling potholes and repairing existing roads, so our infrastructure continues to deteriorate while Walker and WisDOT are  throwing billions into the SE WI 'freeway' system  - - as seniors and millenials drive less.

Noted in 2013. 

“Wisconsin taxpayers should not be footing the bill for highways that aren’t needed, especially when other urgent transportation priorities like local road repair and transit are being shortchanged,” said Bruce Speight, WISPIRG Director.  “Especially in light of reduced levels of driving, these findings suggest the need to reconsider whether highway expansions are the best use of our scarce transportation dollars.” 

Noted also in 2014. 

Noted also in 2015.

Among several posts in 2017:

For Foxconn, Team GOP bets your farm, breaks you bank(s)

Note, however, that Walker tossed 250 million borrowed dollars into the $3 billion deal for Foxconn via the state budget whenever its approved to hurriedly complete the over-built, under-funded reconstruction and expansion of I-94 though Racine and Kenosha Counties which Vos had been demanding even before Foxconn made the news.

Two things about a quarter of a billion dollars which Walker is treating like campaign support Kohl's cash:

*  Is $250 million in dedicated borrowing for highway work right through portions of Vos' district enough of a concession to get him off Walker's back; Walker will never budge off the no-new taxes bumper sticker he needs to frame his '18 re-election campaign, so maybe it's time for Vos to to take the $250 million bouquet and live with being another modern Wisconsin borrow-and-spend Republican.

*  $250 million could have filled most or all potholes on our state's rutted and poorly-ranked roads, which is why it would be useful to ask the good people of cash-strapped Northfield, Wisconsin across the state from Vos' district where the main road has crumbled back to gravel what they think about Walker and Co. throwing around staggering amounts of public highway borrowing like kids at the county fair ring-toss booth which all the people of the state will have to repay.

And there are more posts. Use the index box, upper left, and insert keywords like Walker potholes roads spending.
 

Walker's starved road budget produces annual $673 driver repair tax

Visualizing Walker as Governor Pothole 

is only part of the picture. If Wisconsin motorists are paying an average annual $673 road-repair tax to fix their vehicles, think of what our individual shares will be to repair dangerous bridges, unsafe water systems and other festering hazards in the public sector which Walker intentionally lets slide. 

The most recent (2017) national and state-by-state infrastructure evaluation by the authoritative American Society of Civil Engineers published this devastating analysis which Scott Walker and the GOP should be invited to defend:

Wisconsin Infrastructure Overview

While the nation’s infrastructure earned a “D+” in the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, Wisconsin faces infrastructure challenges of its own. For example, driving on roads in need of repair in Wisconsin costs each driver $637 per year, and 8.7% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. Drinking water needs in Wisconsin are an estimated $1 billion, and wastewater needs total $6.33 billion. 157 dams are considered to be high-hazard potential. The state’s schools have an estimated capital expenditure gap of $836 million. This deteriorating infrastructure impedes Wisconsin’s ability to compete in an increasingly global marketplace. Success in a 21st century economy requires serious, sustained leadership on infrastructure investment at all levels of government. Delaying these investments only escalates the cost and risks of an aging infrastructure system, an option that the country, Wisconsin, and families can no longer afford.

Another Walker tweet masks another full story

Walker's propaganda machine never stops.

For example, I'd noted that Walker has changed core numbers and what counts as jobs created to make his record on jobs added look better than seven years of measurable middling growth and broken promises.

He's doing the same thing with education funding - - using a few words here and forgetting a few more there to come up with just part of the story.

Yes, Walker's latest budget added a large sum of money to eduction funding, but this tweet - - 

@Scott Walker

Today, Wisconsin’s K-12 students are returning to school for the first time in 2018. Thankfully, we put historic amounts into our classrooms to ensure each child succeeds. #WIForward

*  A) omits any mention of previous education cuts, including a nearly $1 billion slash in his first budget. 

After earlier cuts, Scott Walker proposes spending boost for schools

In fact, PolitiFact has said:

Based on the latest census figures, for 2011-’12, the Wisconsin cuts were the largest based on two measures -- state revenue provided to local schools and overall spending by schools of state, federal and local money.

*  And B) is not the largest sum ever budgeted for education when inflation is taken into account, as Walker has claimed. 

PolitiFact notes that honor - - biggest education boost in dollars adjusted for inflation goes to Walker scapegoat Democrat Jim Doyle for his 2003 budget.

If Walker's new education spending was on top of regular gains, he could take a bow.

But his new spending on education seems more like a re-election ploy instead of the purposeful, strategic policy advance as he's framing it.