Wash Post notices Walker's pre-election tax check giveaway

This blog noted it here and here.

Today the Washington Post says it's odd and unprecedented. 

Starting May 15, parents in Wisconsin can log on to a state-run website, answer a few questions and sign up to get checks worth $100 per child..,

“This is really weird. I have never heard of anything like this,” said Richard Auxier, who tracks state tax policy for the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Walker wants Foxconn as distraction from his 250,000 failed jobs pledge

Foxconn is now Walker's p.r. and career-saving fallback.

It's also at the root of a host of political, fiscal and environmental problems and contradictions that Walker has inflicted on the state which either get better or worse after the November election.

So while we have the long-standing US Clean Air Act.

And decades of proven, efficient, improving technologies that can minimize the release of harmful smokestack emissions.

We also know that:

a) The DNR just OK'ed massive air pollution at the Foxconn site;

b) The US EPA just OK'ed a pitch from Wisconsin to exempt much of SE Wisconsin from strong clean air standards and enforcement;

c) Which, not coincidentally, will exempt Foxconn from buying some expensive air pollution control devices. 

Meaning that there will be kids, joggers and seniors, and fishing holes, trout streams, swimming pools and even a Great Lake shoreline in some Wisconsin counties having to deal with levels of airborne contamination allowed 24/7 at higher levels than in Wisconsin counties and neighborhoods just a few miles away.

So you ask, how on earth - - like, literally Wisconsin's - - did this happen?

To get to the root of the issue you have to work backwards from Walker installation of "a chamber of commerce mentality" atop the DNR.

And certainly before Trump trumped Walker's full-on embrace of his WMC-donors' demands for deregulation did at the state level by putting the unapologetic corporate tool Scott Pruitt atop the US EPA.

Go back to Walker's biggest political self-inflicted wound, amateurish blunder and unforced error: his oft-repeated pledge to create as governor 250,000 new private sector jobs by the end of one, four-year term.

"Error" because elected officials and their strategist know that projecting a big round number into issues, let alone turning it into a promise, is flat-out stupid because so many things are out of an elected official's control.

Unforced and self-inflicted because no one told Walker he had to make bizarro commitment that was part bravado, part fuzzy math camouflaged in unproven assumptions - - that the state with a workforce in the range of 2.5 to 3 million would mirror modest national jobs' growth of, say, 2% annually - - and, well, 250,000 new jobs, there you are, voila! 

Prediction and promise met. Genius!

The promise had been so central to Walker's campaign and fresh gubernatorial persona that he told his cabinet officers they ought to have it tattooed on their foreheads.

I've posted several posts - - a 2012 example, here - - which included quotes and links to the promise taken from Walker campaign webpages, though many of those links are now dead. More genius!

By 2013, the promise had become "a goal," and, apparently, no longer the 'floor, not a ceiling," as the Journal Sentinel noted.

In 2014, I gathered several of Walker's statements into one blog post, including this 2011 Politfact item which made this point: 

It was the central promise of his 2010 campaign, and Walker has mentioned it routinely since taking office....At a recent appearance before the Waupaca Chamber of Commerce, Walker called the 250,000 figure "a minimum, not a maximum.

Then, after the Journal Sentinel said in March, 2017, that he was still almost 65,000 jobs and more than two years short of keeping his promise, Walker shifted gears again, saying his focus had shifted to getting people in job training. 

"I qualify that now saying ... I got more people employed than ever before," Walker said. "You ask people on the street who are hiring, it's not how many jobs are created, it's how many people are there to fill them. And so, I've shifted from that, and said my number one issue is workforce. I need to find those people."

So, Foxconn (full archive, here). 

And here we are, again. An election approaches. Walker's 250,000 new jobs/goal/workforce slots promise is still broken.

And Walker needs to change that narrative.

So, Foxconn! Anything for Foxconn and that helps treat Walker's case of Foxconn fever:

*  The biggest state taxpayer and local government subsidies ever recorded? Approved!

*  Environmental reviews and permits for the biggest-ever Wisconsin factory site  on which Foxconn can fill wetlands, build on lakes and reroute streams without state permissions? Gone.

*  The State Transportation Fund not flush enough to fill your potholes or keep the Zoo Interchange on schedule? Stripped. 

*  Threatened species habitat? Also stripped.

*  Lake Michigan water? So much to be taken out, so little to be returned and that could include so much of who knows what that the other Great Lakes states may have to say, not so fast?

*  And now, all the dirty air you can breathe in Greater WisConn?

All that and more is what Walker needs to make you forget all about that failed jobs pledge central to his election.

Election day looms, Walker 'confronts' CWD

About the epidemic of chronic wasting disease, (CWD), in Wisconsin's deer herd,

A bony, listless wild deer spotted in Wisconsin this spring was euthanized by the state’s department of natural resources. It tested positive for chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness that has spread to 24 states

A bony, listless wild deer spotted in Wisconsin this spring was euthanized by the state’s department of natural resources. It tested positive for chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness that has spread to 24 states

that's spread to Walker's agenda, too:

1. Walker wouldn't be showing such interest in CWD if this weren't an election year.

2. Credit outdoors writer Patrick Durkin for pushing the matter through a heavily-documented expose of Walker's do-little approach to CWD in recent years.

I'd featured Durkin's piece when recounting in a blog post some "lazy, loose" policies which are Walker hallmarks:

There is more evidence that Wisconsin's obligation to protect the natural world needs a strong, principled revival.

*  I urge you to read Waupaca-based Patrick Durkin's latest report on the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state deer herd enabled by lax monitoring and lazy, loose policy-making by state officials:

CWD continues to spread in Wisconsin 

3. Durkin has been gathering and publishing his findings for some time - - here's a 2017 report - - and I've been reposting them.

4. What Walker says he'll set in motion to combat and prevent CWD are things which could have been stronger, or that he could have done earlier:

In a move long-recommended by animal disease experts, Walker said the state would ban the movement of live deer from deer farms in CWD-affected counties...  

In addition, Walker said a rule would be developed to require enhanced fencing at all 376 registered deer farms in the state. In the proposed rule, enhanced fencing would require either a second 8-foot-high fence, an electric fence or an impermeable physical barrier. 

A bill introduced last year by Reps. Nick Milroy (D-South Range) and Dana Wachs (D-Eau Claire) sought to bolster fencing requirements at Wisconsin deer farms. However, it failed to get a hearing in the Republican-controlled Legislature...

As I said in an October piece about Walker's baggage - - including his mutual admiration society with Donald Trump - - heading into the election:

But let's not suggest that all of Walker's campaign trail burdens are Trump's doing. 

Walker is the one whose administration has failed to stem the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state deer herd, and whose corporate servitude has led to an ever-expanding number of bills, laws, one-sided settlements and special favors to businesses that are filling wetlands and giving polluters a green light.

I don't think Walker can campaign in rural Wisconsin this fall on the strength of his ritual deer-stand photo and, then come springtime, his fishing season opener appearance as state natural resources are constantly on his chopping block.

Hold your applause for Walker, please - - but props to Patrick Durkin. 

Milwaukee streetcars spurring growth that anti-rail right kept killing

Milwaukee's long-sidetracked streetcars are already boosting development.

Great to see this piece by Jeramey Jannene at Urban Milwaukee about a major apartment complex planned along the budding Milwaukee streetcar route downtown. 

An almost entirely vacant office building along the route of The Hop, Milwaukee’s soon-to-launch streetcar system, is likely to get new life as apartments. 

Chicago-based developer Paul Dincin is proposing to redevelop the Underwriters Exchange Building at 828 N. Broadway into apartments with first-floor commercial space.

Long blocked by anti-urban politicians, Milwaukee's streetcars are being delivered and tested.

Jannene has been bird-dogging the streetcar's long, winding route through the political landscape for years, as I noted in 2015, here:

The Milwaukee Common Council voted 9-6 today to approve a starter urban rail system.

Barring last-minute legal or political maneuvering, the vote could finally end almost two decades of costly and divisive anti-urban politicking by suburban-focused conservative talk radio agitators and Republican state legislators and Waukesha County politicians who blocked city rail investments and the development opportunities which rail will trigger while continually backing more expensive highway expansions that served commuters and removed Milwaukee properties.

I defer today to local writer Jeramey Jannene's authoritative account of the project and Council vote posted at the Urban Milwaukee website.

Let's add to that history.

I've noted often that the Wisconsin GOP, in league with right-wing talk radio and narrow-minded suburban politicians, repeatedly sacrificed transit-oriented development to score partisan, political points and remain loyal to their highway-building and petroleum-supplying donors.

And whether it's conscious or not, I believe that some suburban pols and anti-urban ideologues historically and repeatedly undermined the city - - dating to the mid-50's promotion and passage of the so-called Oak Creek law by the Legislature which banned further Milwaukee expansion via annexation - - because they preferred a regional narrative and reality that included a city weakened by transit disconnects.

A city separated through frozen borders from more affluent, less-diverse municipalities that at times deployed discriminatory zoning codes which fed and reinforced their prejudices against cities, and Milwaukee in particular:

From 2017:

Wisconsin GOP officials have for years blocked a variety of rail lines and transit services that could have helped create jobs, connect them to desperately-needed development and boost our sluggish, low-wage state economy, 

*  I noted yesterday how right-wing GOP WI Governor Scott Walker's foolish blockade of an Amtrak extension from SE Wisconsin to Madison and the rest of Midwestern inter-city rail expansion removed development-based rail connections which would have fed potential employment for high-tech Foxconn should it build a mega-factory in Racine County:

Right-wing GOP WI Governor and shallow ideologue Scott Walker for the narrowest of partisan and self-serving political motives wiped out the federally-funded Hiawatha Amtrak connection between Madison and Milwaukee and south through Racine County to Chicago.

* [GOP Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos got the 2011 legislature to ban regional transit authorities, (RTAs), a move, by the way,  which has effectively blocked the construction of a commuter rail line (the KRM), linking Kenosha, Racine (Vos' home county) and Milwaukee counties, thus denying his own constituents rail services that also were to include an easy transfer to Chicago's METRA commuter service.

The KRM would have been a great selling point to Foxconn.

*  As I wrote in 2012, after Vos made his move against the RTA's:

Wisconsin legislators, with the full support of the Waukesha County delegations, used the 2011-2013 state budget to wipe out cooperative, cross-jurisdictional Regional Transit Authorities, which affirmed the anti-transit, anti-Milwaukee position taken by Waukesha's County Board when it refused to join such a body that could have more closely aligned services with Milwaukee.

If Foxconn were to build a 10,000-employee factory in Racine County, there would be a need for extensive transit coordination among Racine, Kenosha, Milwaukee counties to help move unprecedented numbers of people in and out of the Racine area.

The very regional transit authorities Vos helped kill are the perfect method for that coordination, and also provide transit options, new development and business opportunities at stations, transfer points and along routes themselves.

It's called common sense, or transit oriented development.

From 2016:

...Walker has long been a champion of spending more than $6 billion on the freeway system in the Milwaukee area which keeps the region heavily segregated by race and income by routinely omitting transit upgrades that could help Milwaukee workers in a city land-locked by state law connect with jobs and other opportunities in the suburbs.

I also want to remind readers of Walker's disinterest in and outright hostility to Milwaukee job creation when he was a GOP state legislator representing suburban Wauwatosa and, later, as Milwaukee County Executive:

From his legislative perch, Walker sided with other suburban politicians and killed and helped kill a light rail system in Milwaukee that would have provided construction work, plus housing and business development at stations and along the rail corridors - - a job-creating phenomenon which has occurred in other cities when light rail was built and expanded.

From 2013, about the Amtrak extension and Tango train plant Walker killed:

5/29/2012: Officials at a Racine meeting say loss of the Talgo train facility will harm Chicago-Milwaukee corridor development.

Turning down $810 million for high-speed rail and not honoring the state's contract with Talgo is killing job creation in the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor. Focusing so heavily on roadways is a "path to nowhere," Racine Mayor John Dickert said... 

What our region needs, he continued, is a complete intermodal system so the region resembles that of other communities with healthy mass transit systems. 

"Look at Minneapolis or Seattle, they're both growing," Dickert continued. "In Iowa, they've seen $1 billion in economic development because of one leg of a commuter train line. We could be like that, too.

From 2010: 

...Walker does not see urban or high-speed rail... as vehicles to move people through congested areas, or stimulate investment along the corridors or at stations, or to employ people or offer transportation choices here or in a large regional economy.

Hence his long fight against the Milwaukee downtown streetcar - - a fight that ultimately cost the County $10 million in federal funds for buses that Walker likes.

From this op-ed of mine in 2008: 

A starter light rail system was recommended for Milwaukee County in a major state-funded regional transportation study in the 1990s that had considerable public and private sector support.

But conservative AM talk radio and opposition in Waukesha County blocked further study of light rail for Milwaukee, even though $241 million in federal funds was set aside specifically for transit improvements in Milwaukee County.

Had plans unfolded on schedule, the starter light rail, with an estimated 21,000 riders on weekdays, would have opened in 2006 and run about 10 miles from the Third Ward to Summerfest, downtown, Miller Park, the Milwaukee County Zoo and the County Grounds.

Talk about a missed opportunity....

The system would have benefited from the city's condo-and-loft boom, a resurgent Milwaukee Brewers' ball club, the successful Potawatomi Bingo Casino and an expanding Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.

Extensions to Milwaukee's north side and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee would have generated support, and light rail could have assisted Waukesha County commuters because years of Zoo Interchange and I-94 reconstruction are planned west of Milwaukee.

WI nixes Corning-to-Foxconn subsidy lure, however...

Yesterday, we learned that glass screen maker Corning would want a giant subsidy to build a plant near the already-heaving subsidized Foxconn project.

Then the WEDC said 'no' - - so big political year land mine avoided - - but good on reporters Jason Stein and Rick Romell for these 'get-some-gratitude,' perspective-focusing lines:

Wisconsin also automatically waives virtually all corporate and income taxes for manufacturers such as Foxconn and Corning. 

Foxconn archive, here. 

Making Wisconsin smoggier again

Longer version: Walker wins clean air exemptions from stronger US clean air rules from Trump for counties already getting "F" for air quality.

Shorter version: Happy Clean Air Month, Wisconsin, from the guys who are turning over your air, water, land, Great Lakes Compact and treasuries to one Taiwan-based multi-mational business. Full Foxconn archive, here.

Pharmacies, ER/ICU facilities win big in latest Walker Gray Skies push

The wins keep piling up for Scott Walker's Brown Waters/Gray Skies/Clogged Lungs Initiative.

And why not: It's Clean Air Month!

Last week it was the DNR's rushed approvals for four air pollution permits to allow Foxconn to emit annually 796 tons of eye-watering, land-and-water contaminating smog and other airborne pollutants.
 
Today it's the US EPA approval at Walker's request to exempt much of SE Wisconsin from clean air standards that will apply to much of the state and country.

The EPA found that portions of Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Door and Kenosha counties along the lake were in violation of a new tougher ozone standard. 

Racine County — the future home of the Foxconn Technology Group — was declared to be in compliance with the standard. 

The EPA also exempted Waukesha and Washington counties from 2015 standards advanced under Obama administration. 

By the way, data from the American/Wisconsin Lung Associations had already graded Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Sheboygan Counties "F" for particulate (read: ozone) pollution, and more data show the thousands and thousands of Wisconsinites in those counties and elsewhere in the state already at risk from pediatric asthma, adult asthma, lung cancer and cardio-vascular disease.

Walker's DNR has posted warning information about ozone as recently as April 26th, but that was so last week: 

Counties that do not meet federal clean air standards for ozone require businesses and residents in those areas to take special measures to reduce ground-level ozone.

No doubt it helped having former WI DNR Secretary and principal Walker/'chamber of commerce mentality' water carrier Cathy Stepp as the recently-installed Great Lakes EPA regional director. 

The dirtier air permissions for much of the Lake Michigan shoreline region 'won' by Walker is just what he needs to convince out-of-state residents to relocate to Wisconsin under what might called his big, bold 'Come For The TV Assembly Jobs, Stay for the Smog program.

And overlook the wee contradiction that the DNR tells us that May is Clean Air Month, and has these chipper reminders up on its web pages: 

May is Clean Air Month  

Committed to clean air

Poetry contest

Calling all parents and teachers. Have your 3rd, 4th and 5th graders submit poems and riddles for the 2018 Air, Air Everywhere Poetry Contest.

Clean air is important to human and ecosystem health. Poor air quality can affect people of all ages, especially those sensitive to air pollution, including people with asthma or heart conditions, people who work and exercise outdoors, and older adults and children. These facts make it all the more important to understand air quality and recognize the importance of clean air.

Get outside, get creative and have fun for Clean Air Month.

• Calling all parents and teachers. Have your 3rd, 4th and 5th graders submit poems and riddles for the 2018 Air, Air Everywhere Poetry Contest. This year's submission deadline is Friday, May 4, 2018.

Walker, AG Brad Schimel and the WMC have been after eased air pollution standards for years - - suing in court, too - - because reduced public information programming now more than seven years old and dirtier-air readings you can ignore moving 'forward' are said to be good for business.

So this is your lucky day if you sell eye drops and allergy medications, run clinics, ICU and ER facilities that treat asthma and cardio-vascular disease, or sell inside-play equipment that the kids can use when EveryDay is Ozone Action Day.

To 'invest' in WI, Foxconn supplier eyes Foxconn-like subsidy

If you want to build flat screen TVs here

you may need Lake Michigan water, Racine's air and maybe even more Wisconsin taxpayer money.

Because what's good for Foxconn - - (oh, Kimberly-Clark, too) - - would be good for Corning, a key Foxconn supplier who might look for another handout from Bucky: 

To locate in Wisconsin, a key glass supplier to Foxconn wants financial help from the Taiwanese electronics giant or state taxpayers that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Corning Inc. could bring hundreds of additional jobs to southeastern Wisconsin but statements by the glass maker's top executive raise new questions about whether the state could have to pay extra to land them...

Corning Inc. chief executive officer Wendell Weeks said last week that his company wanted to "keep 100% of revenues and profits" but pay no more than one-third of the cost to site a glass plant alongside Foxconn's LCD plant.

Walker continues to organize the opposition

Their bromance continues.

Walker says he'd be glad to appear in Wisconsin with Trump this year.

"If he's here, I'd imagine he's probably going to be here for a U.S. Senate candidate, sure I'd be with him," Walker said.

Makes sense, given their mutual hostility to people on Medicaid and food assistance, and to climate change and a strong US EPA.

And they might tour together one of the many rural communities where small Wisconsin farms are going bankrupt at nation-leading-levels, where owners are battling everything from Trump's tariff actions to Walker's cheerleading for industrial-sized bigger dairies which are flooding the market with product. And in some cases, runoff into the groundwater.

Details, here.

So credit Walker with setting aside some of their complicated history:

Donald Trump...[is] a woman-grabbing, race-baiting, Russia-loving loose cannon - - whom Scott Walker, when dropping out of the presidential campaign in September, 2015 urged Republicans to reject. 

Scott Walker Drops Out of 2016 Republican Presidential Race, Slamming Trump

Voters may not recall exactly how Walker ended his brief run for President, or has since done a 180-degree turn and become a strong Trump backer.

So let's understand that. And also that Walker had earlier courted Trump, having presented Trump in New York City with a plaque - - I wonder what's inscribed on it - - and also scored from him a $15,000 in re-election boosting donation.

A favor from Trump perhaps reimbursed in full when Walker went to the Republican Party's 2016 nominating campaign, stood on the podium, disregarded his 2015 anti-Trump call to arms and endorsed Trump's "American Deserves Better" candidacy.

WI DNR is OK with other states reviewing the Foxconn diversion

Here's the important takeaway from Gary Wilson's fine reporting on the WI DNR's quick approval of a Lake Michigan water

diversion for Foxconn:

Wisconsin’s [DNR spokesman] James Dick told Great Lakes Now that a regional review of this diversion application was not a requirement but, “Wisconsin would of course cooperate with a regional review if it were undertaken” by the other states.

The diversion needed only Wisconsin's approval under rules established by the Great Lakes Compact of 2008.

However, as I'd noted last week, an optional "regional review" by all eight states of a diversion application is permitted under the Compact even if initially only one's state's approval is required, and since the Wisconsin's DNR spokesman  says the agency will cooperate with a regional review of the Foxconn plan, let's get that underway.

The diversion would be at odds with the Compact's direction that such transfers must serve a public purpose, while nearly all seven million diverted gallons daily would benefit one private-sector business, Foxconn.

And there are additional concerns about the substantial amount of diverted water that would consumed by Foxconn's production and not returned to Lake Michigan, as well as whether Lake Michigan and surrounding land and waters would be harmed by industrial-grade chemicals used in Foxconn's proprietary manufacturing processes should there be leaks or problems with onsite and/or local government wastewater treatment procedures.

Here is a link to the Compact; I draw your attention to p. 12, where the standards for a regional review of a diversion application approved by a single state are laid out - - it would take five states to make the request, which are long odds - - though a regional review looks to fit the Foxconn diversion perfectly:

Section 4.5. Regional Review.
1. General.

1. It is the intention of the Parties to participate in Regional Review of Proposals
   with the Provinces, as described in this Compact and the Agreement.
   
   
2. Unless the Applicant or the Originating Party otherwise requests, it shall be the
   goal of the Regional Body to conclude its review no later than 90 days after notice
   under Section 4.5.2 of such Proposal is received from the Originating Party.
   
   
3. Proposals for Exceptions subject to Regional Review shall be submitted by the
   Originating Party to the Regional Body for Regional Review, and where
   applicable, to the Council for concurrent review.
   
   
4. The Parties agree that the protection of the integrity of the Great Lakes – St.
   Lawrence River Basin Ecosystem shall be the overarching principle for reviewing Proposals subject to Regional Review, recognizing uncertainties with respect to demands that may be placed on Basin Water, including groundwater, levels and flows of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, future changes in environmental conditions, the reliability of existing data and the extent to which Diversions may harm the integrity of the Basin Ecosystem.
   
   
5. The Originating Party shall have lead responsibility for coordinating information for resolution of issues related to evaluation of a Proposal, and shall consult with the Applicant throughout the Regional Review Process.
   
   
6. A majority of the members of the Regional Body may request Regional Review of a regionally significant or potentially precedent setting Proposal. Such Regional Review must be conducted, to the extent possible, within the time frames set forth in this Section. Any such Regional Review shall be undertaken only after consulting the Applicant.

Take a good look at what Walker's DNR says golf course can take

I finally have obtained great aerial images

of the pending forest and habitat losses in a 247-acre nature preserve for the DNR-enabled Kohler golf course along the Lake Michigan shoreline about which I have only offered words and insufficient photos.

Thanks to Steve Back

for these excellent shots.

Evidence of lost WI citizen rights is piling up

Matt Rothschild at Wisconsin Democracy Campaign wrote this op-ed about Republican attacks on home rule to serve special interests:

Wisconsin Assault on Local Government

...Walker and Fitzgerald and Vos have taken the assault on local democracy to new and dangerous heights. 

They’ve passed more than 160 bills that interfere with local self-government: And this from the political party that championed local control! 

A few days later, without coordination or collusion, I wrote this blog post about Walker's disregard for fair environmental hearings and the rule of law to serve special interests:

Wisconsin democracy is eroding in plain sight

Why should citizens burn up their time and money and energy showing up at a public hearing on something as important as air and water quality (what goes up, comes down in the Lake Michigan watershed) being subjected to more than 700 tons of pollutants annually if such a speedy [permit approval] ruling indicates that decisions had already been made behind closed doors by public officials carrying out Walker's "chamber of commerce mentality" marching orders?

And this kind of sham hearing-and-decision-making in the Walker era is par for the course - - and no pun intended - - as the robotic support by Walker-leg agencies - - the DNR, the Department of Administration, the Natural Resources Board - - for a major Walker donor's bid to fill wetlands and obtain state park acreage to accommodate golf course construction continues to elevate privilege and access over citizen rights and the public interest. 

Similar findings and themes, regrettably, about the corrosive reach of money and one-party GOP rule in Wisconsin.

Walker's lazy, loose 'policy-making' is fouling Wisconsin

There is more evidence that Wisconsin's obligation to protect the natural world needs a strong, principled revival.

*  I urge you to read Waupaca-based Patrick Durkin's latest report on the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state deer herd enabled by lax monitoring and lazy, loose policy-making by state officials:

CWD continues to spread in Wisconsin 

Two wild deer far outside Wisconsin’s endemic zone for chronic wasting disease tested positive last week for the always-fatal disease, and yet the Department of Natural Resources downplayed the news in press releases, emphasizing instead that the discoveries renewed baiting and feeding bans for the areas...

Then again, downplaying CWD has been the DNR’s game-plan since Gov. Scott Walker took office in January 2011...

Meanwhile, the DNR’s communications office also failed to issue its annual CWD recap this month — a report it usually releases in late March to early April. When asked about the missing report Thursday, DNR spokesman Jim Dick said it would be released Tuesday, May 1...

When the DNR tested 9,305 deer in 2007, the infection rate was 1.9 percent (135 cases) among 7,192 deer analyzed in the southern farmlands zone. That area’s infection rate in 2017 was 10.6 percent (588 cases) for 5,545 deer tested. 

*  Then there is the skyrocketing rate at which waterways in Wisconsin are being officially declared "impaired," principally through contamination by phosphorous discharges which were greatly deregulated by Walker and the legislature.

Not to mention the related problem with waste runoff from large dairy operations which Walker and his appointees continue to expand regardless of the harmful environmental and ruinous economic impacts on smaller farms.

Together with Walker's laissez-faire dismissal of strong chronic wasting disease programs, call it Lazy Loose Policy-making 2.0.

I'd added up the numbers submitted by the DNR to the US EPA, and found that during Walker's tenure there had been 804 new impaired waterway listings in Wisconsin, compared to 96 waterways removed from the dirty list.

Then I noticed that the DNR subsequently added two more impairments, hardening the ratio of newly-impaired waterways to newly-repaired waterways to a solid 8:1.

* And speaking of Foxconn, and lazy-loose-'policy-making,' the DNR gave hurried approvals to the company's air pollution permit applications will lead to the release annually of 796 tons of airborne contaminants that can work their way into Southeastern Wisconsin, its waterways, farms, fishing holes, yards, and play pools.

And Lake Michigan. And your kids' lungs. And your grandparents cardiovascular systems, your eyes and asthmatic conditions, too.

Giving a shoulder shrug to the addition daily of more than two tons of polluting emissions in an area already at or failing current EPA standards for healthy air quality - - let alone GOP efforts to roll back the state's role in clean air guarantees - - is actually more than merely lazy and loose: it's ideologically-driven, intentionally thoughtless and predictably harmful special interest favoritism.

And politicians who support these attacks on clean air and water which are at such odds with basic conservation should be stripped of permission to use the label "conservative." 

Before being replaced in office by citizen-leaders who will put public health before campaign donations and private, subsidized corporate gain.

*  It's up to you to believe the guarantees given by Foxconn and public officials that none of the 7 million gallons of daily diverted Lake Michigan water the DNR also speedily-approved to be piped to the company - - visualize 1,100 water tanker trucks in a line 14 miles long to get an idea of what the company may or may not have the right to receive - - won't find its way after being utilized in proprietary, heavily-industrialized LCD flat-screen production processes into Lake Michigan.

Or where it can soak before seeping out the wetlands, lake beds and streams on the company's massive site which the state, as a unique favor to Foxconn, has exempted from permitting reviews and protections which had been considered  routine procedures to guarantee water quality and public health.

Here is a link to a complete archive about the Foxconn project.

* And I loved this story about efforts to try and save a resilient bur oak hundreds of years old from the Foxconn bulldozers. 

So multiply that dedication by the tens of thousands and you have a better understand of why Friends of the Black River Forest is trying to stop the bulldozing of somewhere around half a heavily-forested 247-acre nature preserve in Sheboygan, to which Walkerites had hurriedly annexed it to speed along its deforestation.

* Next up: metal mining, and its acidic runoff.

A Wisconsin whose politics and priorities have been impaired at Walker's direction does not need more impaired waters added to already his already substantial lists.