Representative Cory Mason’s Natural Resources Update

May 12, 2011

Dear Friends,

As the ranking Democratic member on the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, I plan to bring you regular updates about the committee’s actions throughout this legislative session. I will also share updates and information related to the biennial state budget and its impact on the state budget.

In short, this has been a bad week for Wisconsin’s legacy of protecting our natural resources and ensuring public health, and the coming weeks look to be even worse.

Dirty Drinking Water Bill:

This week, Republicans rushed to passage Assembly Bill 23 which will prevent the Department of Natural Resources from requiring that municipal water be continuously disinfected. This dirty drinking water bill exposes communities to serious public health threats. Along with my Assembly Democratic colleagues, I offered more than 20 amendments to the bill aimed at requiring disclosure of failure to treat water, disclosure of outbreaks linked to groundwater-borne illnesses, disinfecting to eliminate diseases caused by contaminated drinking water (such as rotavirus, meningitis, pneumonia, conjunctivitis, etc.) and providing the public, home buyers and water utility customers with notice of the threat that non-disinfected water poses to their health. Republicans voted in lockstep to reject every single amendment. It is a sad irony that this bill was rushed through the legislature around the 18th Anniversary of the cryptosporidium outbreak that made 400,000 people in Milwaukee sick in 1993. This bill is a significant setback to our state’s legacy of clean water and protection of public health. This bill heads next to the Senate and then to the Governor for his signature. Read about the bill and the floor debate in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/121603108.html and find my press release on the bill’s passage here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/asm62/news/releases.htm

Killing Wind Energy Jobs:

Republicans in the Assembly and Senate acted this week to block uniform wind energy zoning rules (Assembly Bill 72) that would bring millions of dollars in new renewable energy projects to the state and create jobs. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said the rules are being sent back to the PSC for further work. The Republicans’ action to send the wind siting bill back to committee effectively kills wind energy jobs in Wisconsin and stifles the growing wind energy industry. Read State Senator Mark Miller’s press release about the Senate Action here: http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/May11/0510/0510miller.pdf

Deregulating the Department of Natural Resources:

It was revealed today that Governor Walker intends to issue an Executive Order that will significantly alter the DNR’s focus and put private special interests in charge of our state’s natural resources. Not even willing to make these dramatic changes in the form of legislation which would have to go through legislative committee processes and allow for some public scrutiny, Walker plans to dramatically gut the DNR’s ability to protect our air, water, and land via Executive Order, a clear indication of a blatant power grab. Walker’s plan calls for using the DNR as a “charter agency” and implement what Walker is calling “smart regulation” which would create a DNR unit tentatively called the “Office of Business Development and Economic Sustainability” aimed primarily at fast-tracking environmental reviews. Read more about Walker’s plan to turn over the keys to the DNR to business interests in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/121678338.html

Scaling Back Mining Regulations for Political Donors:

Governor Walker and his Republican allies are also moving quickly, behind the scenes and out of the public eye, to develop a controversial mining bill. Representative Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) and Senator Rich Zipperer (R-Pewaukee) have apparently drafted legislation designed to fast-track a mining permit process for the proposed Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) open pit mine in northern Wisconsin. A Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis of 2010 campaign contributions by GTAC shows that the mining company and is executives gave nearly $40,000 to only four candidates last fall including Scott Walker and Mark Honadel. The legislation, which has not been circulated for co-sponsorship or introduced yet, will apparently shorten the Wisconsin mining permit review to 300 days. As a comparison, the Flambeau Mine approval took over four years. I am monitoring this issue very closely and will keep you updated as the bill draft becomes available and a hearing is scheduled. In line with the Republicans’ recent rushing through of legislation, I expect this bill draft to be introduced very soon and rushed through the committee process so that it can be voted on likely in early June. This story from Business North has more information: http://www.businessnorth.com/kuws.asp?RID=3911. I am certainly not opposed to mining jobs in Wisconsin, but I would be opposed to a bill that undoes mining regulations ensuring that mining is done safely and with the protection of natural resources and adequate public input in mind.

Governor’s Budget Devastating to our Environment:

And of course we cannot forget Governor Walker’s budget proposal, making its way through the legislative process, which would have an extremely negative impact on our state’s natural resources. Some of the provisions include the budget’s elimination of state recycling requirements and funding for municipal and county-run recycling programs, rolling back progress on phosphorous rules that protect our lakes, eliminating energy efficiency grant programs, and slashing DNR funding. While the legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance has begun its work on the state budget and taken executive action on some of the items in the DNR budget, it has not yet acted on these major items. I will continue to keep you updated as the state budget process unfolds. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) prepares detailed papers on each of the items up for consideration by the Joint Committee on Finance – find LFB’s budget information here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/LFBPublications_ButtonPages/2011-13_budget.htm.

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This update is intended as the first in a series of updates I will bring you throughout the legislative session. Please do not hesitate to contact my office at 888-534-0062 for more information. Ask for my Chief of Staff Vicky Selkowe who staffs me on the Natural Resources and the Jobs, Economy and Small Business Committees.

If this update is helpful, please also forward it widely and encourage others to email me at Rep.Mason@legis.wisconsin.gov if they would like to be added to my email distribution list for future updates.

Sincerely,

Cory