Who authored the bill - take two

Two stories covered the top of the fold in today's newspaper, and both revealed something essential about who our state government is really working for. The erosion of our democracy continues. The rise of government of, by, and for corporations, government corrupted by the influence and manipulation of  corporate-sponsored lobbyists, continues.

Who authored the bill?

That was a question asked repeatedly at yesterday's hearing on LRB 3520, the bill designed to ease environmental protections and the permit process so that one out-of-state coal mining company can open a gaping wound in the North Woods to get iron ore to sell on the international market.

Democrats (and a whole lot of us) want to know who authored the bill and why the rush? These are begging questions, obviously, since we all pretty much know the answers. Most bills come to hearings with the author's name/s on it. The absence is a first indication that something about this bill really smells.

Repubs prepare way for mining industry to tear up our state

And it's not even a state company. Gogebic Taconite, the company that wants to open a deep wound in our Northwoods, is owned by a privately held coalmining company, called the Cline Group, based in Florida - into these hands state Repubs want to put a good chunk of the northwoods. [see: Assembly bill would ease environmental regulations on new mines]

This is the part of our vast mental disconnect that I don't get. Mining proponents (not least of which is Tim Sullivan of Bucyrus who looks forward to becoming richer off the machines and equipment needed to rip up the earth, from here all the way to China) say they can dig out this iron ore mine while protecting the environment. How do you dig down a thousand feet across 4 miles of our wooded land and say you are not destroying the environment. YOU ARE DESTROYING THAT ENVIRONMENT!! YOU ARE DESTROYING THE ECO-COMMUNITY!!! AND IT WILL NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN - EVER!!

So let's at least be clear and honest about what they are intending to do.

Now read again how deceptive and devious the Repubs are being. Rep. Jauch is correct when he says that dumping a 183-page piece of legislation - drafted behind closed doors - on the public and giving us 6 days to read, digest, and figure out how to respond is insulting. But it is more than that: it is anti-democratic, it is autocratic, it is how nasty governments we don't like in other parts of the world operate.

You will see here just what it is in the legislation that so pleases the president of Gogebic Taconite. Among these things is the easing of wetlands protections. From the other side of his mouth, he says they can mine in an environmentally responsible way. If they can be so responsible, why do they need these regulations 'eased?'

Remember that this is the Walker administration that did Koch Industries a favor by easing pollution regulations, that re-wrote regulations on the construction of wind farms to make them almost impossible to create, that gives more and more permissions for giant livestock farms that pollute soil, waterways, and our bodies, that promotes more and more sand-mining for natural gas fracking in our beautiful western counties.

Hey, and they are even making us pay for it through corporate tax breaks!!!

Oh, yea, Gov Scott Walker and the Repubs are opening Wisconsin for business, all right.  They are offering up the beauty of the state to some of the most ecologically damaging industries around.

As if this is the only way we can create jobs here. As if this isn't really a political choice about what kinds of jobs in what kinds of industries you intend to try to create them. And to find out what those choices are, check out the campaign donations and the lobbyists making a steady beat to our State Capitol. Just to be clear about this, a quote from the third article linked below, by Al Gedicks:

"They were also worried that Wisconsin’s mining regulations would not allow such a mine to be permitted. GTAC executives discussed these concerns with several legislators and contributed more than $40,000 in 2010 campaign contributions to Republican candidates involved with the mining issue, including Gov. Scott Walker and Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee)"  

This analysis was published in September, and now, as promised, the Repubs have taken matters in hand. There is a reason they don't want you to know what's in this bill, and Gedicks gives us one example:

"Under the provisions of this bill (LRB 2035), which only applies to iron mining, the mining company will no longer be required to do a risk assessment of accidental health and environmental hazards associated with the mining operation. Existing water quality standards that protect water in the Great Lakes basin will be sacrificed if they conflict with 'the need for waste sites and processing facilities to be contiguous to the location of the iron deposits.'

"Just in case the authors of the bill may have overlooked some potential environmental obstacle, the bill states that, 'If there is a conflict between a provision in the iron mining laws and a provision in another state environmental law, the provision in the iron mining law controls.' In other words, the Iron Mining Law proclaims that the expansion of the mining industry is the official policy of the state and all other considerations are subordinate to mining." [emphasis added]

Thus do we see how our Wisconsin democracy is taken from the people and power handed to the corporations. This is a scandal, folks, and I hope you will make your voices heard about this - before it is too late. These guys are clever and devious. They are putting this bill out there just in time for the holidays when they hope we are not paying attention. Let's prove them wrong..


For more info:

The Enviromental Track Record of Taconite Mining
Permitting for Penokee Mine Shouldn't Be Rushed
Resisting Resource Colonialism in the Lake Superior Region 
Statement by Mike Wiggins, Jr., chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians

Some see shocking destruction, others see 'jobs'

If you get the Journal Sentinel, you saw this photo that nearly filled yesterday's front page:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/133308968.html

If you didn't see it, please check out the link and then just let yourself feel your reaction to it. Then visit the photo gallery for some more stunning photos:

http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/photos/133307493.html

This is what Gogebic Taconite and their supporters want to bring to the Hurley/Ashland area of our state.

They want to open an enormous wound that can never be repaired.

But this is the thing - where some see destruction on a vast scale from these giant iron ore mines, others see jobs in a bad economy.

What future do we want for this Packer fan?

As if this really is the only thing we can think of to provide some employment. When you consider the long term costs in ecological destruction, the threats to other parts of the economy (tourism being one), and the collateral damage that will come in terms of more development, higher housing costs (that almost always happens), demands for water, and such, seems to me to be a myopic trade-off, to say the least.

Again, it is crucial to note this: permitting this mine - just like permitting huge industrial dairy farms that pollute, make animals and us sick, and threaten the livelihoods of family farmers - is a political decision far more than an economic one. Because we could make other decisions to create employment opportunities in other kinds of industries that might also pay well - without sacrificing the ecological future of our state.

When it comes to our political parties, these days it sadly comes down to whose interests they represent. Whatever we think of the Walker/Fitzgerald regime, we know whose interests they represent - some of the dirtiest, most toxic industries around.

When I saw this photo of Michigan's Empire Mine, and after reading the article, I found myself wondering: If this photo alone does not shock us into action, what will? If we continue to say yes to this - and to industrial farming and to the shipping industry that is fighting efforts to keep invasive species out of our lakes and to the Koch brothers' Georgia-Pacific Co. which wants the right to put more industrial pollution into our waterways - then we are simply deciding to run faster along this course towards the ecological wreckage of our state.

Is this what we want? Do we allow these corporations and their politicians to manipulate our economic needs and stresses to open our state for dirty businesses, instead of businesses that promote the health of our natural resources and our people, and that are ecologically sustainable?

Are we lacking the creativity to build our state economy on something other than polluting industries and low-wage retail outlets (like Walmart in South and West Milwaukee)? I certainly don't believe so. I believe we are being manipulated into supporting a lot of really bad decisions. And I hope we can come up with a new sustainable, nature-loving, quality of life economy in time to pass on a healthy, beautiful, precious Wisconsin to the generations coming up after us.

So when these moments of decision arrive in terms of what businesses will be allowed to grow and thrive in our state, supported with our tax money, keep this photo in mind - and ask yourself, is this what we really want?