Pruitt's US EPA looking like WI AG Schimel's operation

If you're draining the swamp, it's good to have a guy on hand who knows how to keep your A/C running full blast:

Trump Nominates a Coal Lobbyist to Be No. 2 at E.P.A.

 
It's also advisable to have allies and aides coordinating to kill federal environmental backstops to state clean air and water rules being gutted in Wisconsin for the heavily-subsidized Foxconn project and other special interests by Trump all, environmental law and wetlands' back-hoe operator GOP Gov. Scott Walker, his GOP legislative allies - - like mining industry bellhop Sen. Tom Tiffany, one among many, here and here - - and GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel.

Schimel-Pruitt are a solid chamber of commerce tag team when it comes to rolling back clean air and water protections:

*   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.

*  And Schimel is the leading EPA ally in the courts against the federal clean water rule, as Gary Wilson, a contributor to Detroit Public TV's Great Lakes Bureau, noted recently:

A 25-state coalition led by Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel including Michigan, Indiana and Ohio has told EPA and the Army Corps that the rule allowed the agencies to “improperly expand their jurisdiction” over waterways and want the federal government to defer to the states.

*  Could help explain what Pruitt sees in the David Ross selection.

*  And it all strengthens what Walker has been doing to the environment since the beginning, and added to 2016:

 Gov. Scott Walker signed wide-ranging legislation on Tuesday that makes changes in regulations of wetlands and navigable waters that supporters say will benefit waterfront property owners. 

Walker signed Senate Bill459, which designates areas as specialized wetlands, allowing property owners to conduct more building activity in these areas. 

The law will also allow dredging in artificial bodies of water; require disputes over piers to be handled by circuit courts, instead of through administrative hearings; and curb the ability of the Department of Natural Resources to block municipalities from constructing storm-water management ponds.

Then Walker created special wetlands-filling/stream-diverting privileges for Foxconn which neither Team Pruitt or Team Schimel will alter.

For the record, the Pruitt-Schimel approach to industry de-regulation has helped produce these outcomes, among dozens, in the Walker-directed/Schimel-validaated Wisconsin I recently called the model hard-right-corporate state:

Climate change & DNR science positions deleted. Regulated businesses, even with fewer inspections, encouraged to write their own operating permit conditions. CAFO size limits overturned and oversight rolled back, contaminated well water tolerated, groundwater for big users privatized, permanently. Clear Power Act/clean air fought. Multiple US EPA clean water policies slowed, fought. State phosphorous rule implementation weakened by 25 years. Forest land owners allowed tax breaks on increased acreages formerly open to public access.

And no doubt Schimel will run into former WI DNR and long-time DNR foe Cathy Stepp - - no, those are not incompatible in Scott Walker's Wisconsin - - on the campaign or dirty air and water trail, since Pruitt named her to run an EPA multi-state regional office headquartered just outside Kansas City.

There had been a rumor that Pruitt would combine the Kansas City office with the Great Lakes office headquartered in Chicago, thus giving Stepp control over EPA activities in Wisconsin, but that has not happen.

Yet.

On, Wisconsin. Or something.

The con on protecting WI waters extends past Foxconn

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.

Scott Pruitt one-ups doppelgänger Brad Schimel

I'd noted the pro-pollution connections between US EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and his special-interest enabling twin, Wisconsin AG Brad Schimel, here.

And I'd written about these Republican leaders' troubling shared penchant for buying personalized, souvenir hand-out coins with taxpayer dollars.

Though from a collector's perspective, it probably makes more sense to chase after, say, a Schimel first-issue coin than the Inverted Jenny stamp or a Honus Wagner tobacco baseball card. 

But now Schimel has been now one-upped by Pruitt's purchase, again, with public funds, of a dozen custom silver pens at $1,560 each. And some other stuff which altogether took $3,000 away from actual swamp-draining work.

 EPA administrator and fancy fountain pen fancier Scott Pruitt

Schimel's coins carried his "Kicking Ass Every Day" motto, shortened to K.A.E.D., but is he going to let Pruitt just run away with the Tone-Deaf Spending Sweepstakes?

A solution: Schimel could spend another $10,000 on a second run of coins, but change K.A.E.D to "Kicking Taxpayers' Asses Every Day" - - K.T.A.E.D - - or add a third issue with "Kicking The Environment's Ass Every Day" - - K.T.E.A.E.D.

Could Schimel Scrabble be far behind?

Your move, E.P.A.A.S.P.

WI AG Schimel is lead Trump court friend toady

Donald Trump not long ago issued one of his signature Sharpie-signed executive orders requiring any federal agency adopting a new rule to abandon two others.

It's far-right, ideological knee-jerk governance-by-first-grade-math that has no basis in sound law or reasonable political science - - let alone other science that Trump is erasing through proposed budget and staffing cuts from federal agencies across the board.

But this approach is sure to degrade basic clean air and water or workplace protections which everyday Americans need to live and thrive - - but which interfere with Trump's 19th-century belief that Captains of Industry should be free to hire, fire, buy, sell, co-opt and otherwise dominate the public and the land as if the only thing that matters is a fatter dividend and another drained wetland.

And none other that our own states-rightist/right-wing GOP Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel - - a known captive of special interests  - is leading a partisan and under-reported effort by fourteen Attorneys General to convince a court that Trump's move is a good and legal one.

Further information and links to Schimel's court filing, here:

AG Schimel, 14-State Coalition Defend Executive Order to Ease Overregulation

Apr 18 2017

“In recent years, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have been expanding their power and reach through regulatory actions, and little has been done to remove unnecessary federal regulations,” said Attorney General Schimel. “This executive order will protect Wisconsin from more years of the same, allow Wisconsinites to operate in a simplified regulatory environment, and protect our state’s sovereignty.”

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed late Monday, defends the “1-in-2-out” rule, which strives to eliminate unnecessary and costly regulation by requiring the federal bureaucracy to do away with two regulations for every new rule it creates.

Schimel, the Wisconsin version of former Oklahoma AG and current EPA administrator-and-mission-destroyer Scott Pruitt, is signaling to Trump tha it comes to the states carrying water for big business - - like these noted by The Washington Post - - he's the man.

This is not Schimel's first connection with Pruitt:

Donald Trump's pick for US EPA administrator is Scott Pruitt, a corporatist, anti-environmental and anti-Obama co-litigant with Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel - - an appointment which couldn't be worse for clean air, clean water and fair play for citizens.

More, here.

Schimel, by the way, has imitated Pruitt's operation in Oklahoma by setting up within the Wisconsin Attorney General's office a new unit of hard-right lawyers under the supervision of a grandiosely-titled Solicitor General, to sue the federal government.

And speaking of Captains of Industry in need of water carriers, note that Wisconsin's leading business trade association wants a consensus plan to get lead out of Wisconsin drinking water piping - - a plan that does not cost the state treasury a dime - - blocked in the Legislature.

With costs shifted to local property taxpayers whose city budgets are already constrained by GOP-inspired caps and further decimated by Scott Walker-created reductions in state shared revenue.

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:
--------------
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.

Schimel, Pruitt, numismatic misfits

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and WI AG Brad Schimel have more in common than right-wing GP allegiances, and servitude to special interests' preferences for greenhouse gases and dirty water.

Commemorative coins!

Schimel had his "Kicking Ass Every Day" medallions stamped out at taxpayer expense for lucky recipients.

The 1.75-inch gold-plated brass souvenirs read "Wisconsin Attorney General Brad D. Schimel" on one side and "Wisconsin Department of Justice: K.A.E.D." on the other. The state seal appears on the medallions.

Records show the state Department of Justice paid nearly $10,000 in taxpayer dollars — $4.75 each, plus other costs — to Lexington Metal Products Corp. in Lithia, Fla., for two shipments of the commemorative coins, which they received over the past 1 1/2 years. Schimel, a first-term Republican, announced recently that he is running for a second term.

Now Pruitt's got the same idea.

The embattled EPA chief wanted the agency's "challenge coin," a commemorative medal used as a sign of one's allegiance, to increase in size, bear his name in large letters around the rim and do away with the EPA logo featured on the current design, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Pruitt's ideas for a redesign, which he floated to EPA employees during his first few months in office, sought to include symbols that represent himself, including a buffalo to denote his home state of Oklahoma and a Bible verse to represent his faith, according to the [New York] Times. 

Embattled EPA boss Pruitt has powerful allies in Wisconsin

US EPA Administrator, Big Polluter's best friend and most prominent DC swamp creature is Scott Pruitt.

Not sure why this man is smiling

Let's not forget that there are several connections I'd reported earlier among Pruitt, Wisconsin GOP Attorney General Schimel and Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker to coordinate the destruction of clean air and water rules.

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.

* And Schimel is the leading EPA ally in the courts against the federal clean water rule, as Gary Wilson, a contributor to Detroit Public TV's Great Lakes Bureau, noted recently:

A 25-state coalition led by Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel including Michigan, Indiana and Ohio has told EPA and the Army Corps that the rule allowed the agencies to “improperly expand their jurisdiction” over waterways and want the federal government to defer to the states.

And, of course, there's Walker's long-time 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp who, after helping Walker debase the DNR, got herself promoted to the top job in the EPA's critical Great Lakes regional office.

Remember, also, that Walker wants the EPA to ease air pollution standards and monitoring so Foxconn can launch its enormous daily projected air pollution belch arcross SE Wisconsin.

Seems like the right time to remind everyone that Walker, Paul Ryan and the rest of Wisconsin's GOP's gerrymandered leadership said Trump was the best choice for the White House.

The WI/Walker/Schimel/Scott Pruitt alliance gets deeper

[Updated from 6/19/18 with the addition of Kurt Thiede, a 4th senior WI official, joining the Trump administration. Thiede is at US EPA.] 

There's more evidence that Wisconsin is the policy shop and personnel pool for Trump deregulatory valet and blatantly pro-corporate US EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.

* Pruitt last year hired Scott Walker's DNR Secretary and lead corporate cudgel Cathy Stepp, eventually naming her EPA's Great Lakes regional director.

* Kurt Thiede, Stepp's deputy, joined her in Chicago as Chief of Staff in February.

The move of Stepp and now Thiede to the EPA comes at a time when Foxconn Technology Group has started to submit environmental permit applications to the DNR for a massive industrial complex in Racine County.

*  Pruitt also hired a GOP AG Brad Schimel staffer, David Ross, to a EPA's key water post. I'd written about Ross and that move, here.

But wait, there's more.

Remember the story in January about Atty. Anna Wildman, a former Wisconsin CAFO lobbyist named by Wisconsin AG Brad Schimel to replace Ross and oversee the AG's environmental unit?

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel’s appointment of a lawyer and former dairy industry lobbyist to lead the environmental protection unit of the Justice Department has drawn objections from the leader of a public interest law firm and concerns from a former secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.

Well, she's already gone.

To the EPA.

And a job under the afore-mentioned David Ross, Pruitt's Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Water. 

Dave Ross is the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Dave has more than 20 years of experience working on water issues in both state government and the private sector.  

Prior to joining EPA in January 2018, Mr. Ross worked as the Director of the Environmental Protection Unit at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. 

Wildeman is now EPA's Deputy Assistant Administrator, according to this EPA web page. 

Anna Wildeman, Deputy Assistant Administrator 

And here's what's managed at EPA's Office of Water:

What We Do 

The Office of Water (OW) ensures drinking water is safe, and restores and maintains oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems to protect human health, support economic and recreational activities, and provide healthy habitat for fish, plants and wildlife. 

OW is responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, and portions of the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments of 1990, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Ocean Dumping Ban Act, Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, Shore Protection Act, Marine Plastics Pollution Research and Control Act, London Dumping Convention, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships and several other statutes. 

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Office of Water works with the ten EPA regional offices, other federal agencies, state and local governments, American Indian tribes, the regulated community, organized professional and interest groups, land owners and managers, and the public-at-large. 

OW provides guidance, specifies scientific methods and data collection requirements, performs oversight and facilitates communication among those involved. 

OW helps the states and American Indian tribes to build capacity, and water programs can be delegated to them for implementation.

And the Office Water runs these, too: 

• Immediate Office of the Assistant Administrator for Water
• Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water
• Office of Science and Technology
• Office of Wastewater Management
• Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds

Walker's 8-year war on Wisconsin's environment. Part 12. Taxpayers pay kleptocracy thrice.

This 21-part retrospective series I'd promised will run with daily updates, ending prior to the Nov. 6 election. This is Part 12.

What's triply-unfair, wrong and plain larcenous is that the war on the environment which Walker and chief sidekick GOP AG Brad Schimel are carrying out for their special-interest donors and allies is being paid for by Wisconsin taxpayers. Again and again and again.

I should add this post to an earlier one about Walker taxes.

The many ways Walker is in your wallet

* The first billing hits when state and local taxes are collected and used to pay the salaries of Walker's special-interest 'chamber of commerce mentality' managers, Schimel's lobbyist-and-ideologue-friendly staffers and other insiders who keep getting bigger and better positions at the public trough. 

*  The second billing hits when taxpayers have to hire their own lawyers (even before Foxconn!) to fight those taxpayer-paid state and local government officials who serve as GOP donors and special-interests' bellhops: 

Such is life in Wisconsin - - whether it's to save the Bad River watershed in the Northwest from open-pit mining, destructive golf course construction along the Lake Michigan shoreline near Sheboygan, or drinking water supplies long-contaminated by feedlot runoff in Kewaunee County in the Northeast - - because right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate servant Scott Walker has installed "a chamber of commerce mentality" atop the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

Here's the bigger picture.

This time the familiar pattern repeats itself because the DNR hurriedly approved a big sand mine where there are wetlands and rare stands of timber, and environmental groups are going to court to force the DNR to do its job on behalf of taxpayers and the environment spelled out here by the DNR itself.

This photograph by former Kohler Andrae State Park superintendent Jim Buchholz shows an early morning jogger where where Walker-run state agencies have said Kohler interests can build for their privately-owned golf course a road and maintenance/storage building. Taxpayers trying to prevent that loss have hired their own attorneys to fight the taxpayer-funded state agencies willing to part with state owned and maintained public parkland.

*  And the third hit takes place when Walker goes to court with his government-paid lawyers on behalf of his special-interest agendas, or when Schimel joins the self-serving, self-perpetuating tag team, and taxpayers face new policy expenses or social costs transferred from the rich to the middle and working classes.

If courts weaken clean air standards as Walker and Schimel seek, for example, you go more frequently to your cardiovascular specialist, or your child's asthma doctor. If Schimel helps an out-of-state fossil fuel company, you pay for their cleanup in dollars and dirty water.

If he and Walker succeed in their joint efforts with the DNR and Natural Resources Board to defeat the people's private counsel and move public park land (photo above) to the Kohler project, some of the cost of that loss is deducted from each Wisconsinite's share of the public trust that's privatized.

Moreover, I point you to a stunning expose by Madison attorney Christa Westerberg about the ideological privatization of the Wisconsin Attorney General's operation which should be front-and-center in every mainstream media outlet in the state: 

Christa Westerberg: AG Schimel's office working nationwide for private interests

Recently, 45 former Wisconsin assistant attorneys general signed a letter criticizing Schimel for “blatantly politicizing” the office of attorney general and failing to discharge its duties. Schimel’s campaign spokesperson dismissed the letter as written by “activists,” though the attorneys who signed it had served under both Republican and Democratic attorneys general. Is it really “activist” to ask your attorney general to spend tax dollars fighting for Wisconsin citizens, instead of defending private businesses and interest groups that can afford their own attorneys? 

This was not always the case. What Schimel is doing with the state's power and public attorneys is a departure from a bi-partisan norm.

And let's lay responsibilities where they truly began - - at the feet of former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.

Tommy began the dismantling of what was a nearly-three decades long Wisconsin Department of Justice effort to somewhat balance all the business sector's legal assets in the state with a small group of public sector attorneys.

That modest operation was called the Wisconsin Public Intervenor's Office. It was to the people's advocate on environmental cases in Wisconsin and expertly advised public officials on fair and transparent policy-making.

GOP Governor Warren Knowles and legislatures through the years supported the office, but Thompson bowed to demands of his special interest allies and stripped the agency of funding and independence. And was finally disbanded in 1995.

Milwaukee-based environmental lawyer Jodi Habush-Sinykin has written an excellent history of the office, and the implications of its loss, here.

And here is the coda to this private, partisan conquest of the Wisconsin public trust that is supposed to guarantee clean air, fresh air and unspoiled land for the common good here:

Tom Dawson, one of the remaining public intervenors, remained on the Department of Justice staff as a career prosecutor after the angry was disbanded.

Some months ago, Schimel demoted and forced Dawson out in favor of a hand-picked right-wing ideologue from its national bullpen to help move Schimel's pro-business agendas forward.

Noted on my blog here, and again here, when Dawson's replacement, David Ross, was selected by Schimel ally Scott Pruitt to run a section of Trump's US EPA. 

And just to make sure anyone else in state government didn't get the message, Schimel used other DOJ staff lawyers to investigate Schimel for having given an interview about a case. Dan Bice of the Journal Sentinel just told that story.

And since he had to hire his own lawyers to fend off Schimel's probe, you could say that Dawson has had to pay a 4th time for the Walker-inspired, Schimel-implemented attack on Wisconsin's environment.

Part 11 of the series ran Tuesday, October 23, 2018.

Trump elevates coal insider. WI AG Brad Schimel did, too

We now have a former coal industry lobbyist running the US EPA.

And before you say 'who'd put someone in that wrong job? (spoiler alert)' let me reminder you again that Wisconsin is in so many ways the laboratory for Trump's new swamp.

As I had noted in a 2017 summary of the Brad Schimel-Scott Pruitt similarities:

If you're draining the swamp, it's good to have a guy on hand who knows how to keep your A/C running full blast:

Trump Nominates a Coal Lobbyist to Be No. 2 at E.P.A.

 

Schimel-Pruitt are a solid chamber of commerce tag team when it comes to rolling back clean air and water protections:

*   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. 

Here's who's to be Schimel's top aide, according to the Journal Sentinel:

[Andrew] Cook is a contract lobbyist with the Hamilton Consulting Group and currently represents Walmart; Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business lobbying group; 3M; Aggregate Producers of Wisconsin; Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity; Association of Wisconsin Surgery Centers; the holding company for Enterprise Rent-A-Car; Lockridge Grindal Nauen, a law firm with offices in Minnesota and Washington, D.C.; Manitoba Hydro; Marathon Petroleum Company; Xcel Energy; Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a group that successfully pushed legislation making it harder to bring civil lawsuits; Wisconsin Defense Counsel; and the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association.

Cook is also the president of the Madison chapter of the Federalist Society, an influential national group of conservative lawyers.