Scientific American goes after Scott Walker for for destroying WI Enviornmental Legacy

[cali]

How Scott Walker Dismantled Wisconsin's Environmental Legacy

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Since taking office in 2011 Walker has moved to reduce the role of science in environmental policymaking and to silence discussion of controversial subjects, including climate change, by state employees. And he has presided over a series of controversial rollbacks in environmental protection, including relaxing laws governing iron mining and building on wetlands, in both cases to help specific companies avoid regulatory roadblocks. Among other policy changes, he has also loosened restrictions on phosphorus pollution in state waterways, tried to restrict wind energy development and proposed ending funding for a major renewable energy research program housed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Most recently Walker has targeted the science and educational corps at the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which has responsibility for protecting and managing forests and wildlife, along with air and water quality. In his 2015–17 budget, released in February, he proposed eliminating a third of the DNR’s 58 scientist positions and 60 percent of its 18 environmental educator positions. (The cuts were approved by the state legislature’s budget committee in May, and the budget is currently making its way through the legislature.) Walker also attempted to convert the citizen board that sets policy for the DNR to a purely advisory body and proposed a 13-year freeze on the state’s popular land conservation fund—both changes that lawmakers rejected in the face of intense public objections.

Walker’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comments for this article. But he and his allies in the Republican-controlled legislature have said that such policy shifts will streamline regulations that they say interfere with business development. Many scientists and environmental advocates as well as some conservative political and business leaders say Walker’s actions diminish the role of science in policy decisions and undermine key environmental protections that have long distinguished Wisconsin as a conservation leader.

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One of the biggest environmental controversies to mark Walker’s tenure came in 2013, when he signed a law paving the way for Gogebic Taconite, a mining company later revealed to be a major political donor, to build a 6.5-kilometer-long open-pit mine in the Penokee Hills region in the Lake Superior watershed. Citing a 2011 study funded by Gogebic, Walker argued the mine would bring thousands of jobs to the struggling region. Gogebic helped write the new law, which allows companies to dump mine waste into nearby wetlands, streams and lakes; doubles the area around a mine that a company can pollute; allows the DNR to exempt any company from any part of the law; and strips citizens of the right to sue mining companies for illegal environmental damage.

The new law also included a philosophical shift: Where the old law specified that mining should impact wetlands as little as possible, the new one says that significant adverse impacts on wetlands are presumed to be necessary.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-scott-walker-dismantled-wisconsin-s-environmental-legacy/

[Scuba]

1. Thanks for posting this, cali!!

[KelleyKramer]

2. Wow, unbelievable, they aren't even pretending to care what is poisoned or destroyed

"the new one says that significant adverse impacts on wetlands are presumed to be necessary"

Walker has obviously sold his soul to the 1%

But that also had to pass a majority in the legislature

How could WI re-elect people like that who are destroying their state?

It's like the voters in Kansas, there is dumb and then there is really? ...

Really, you want more of that?

[Johonny]

3. I think he will win the GOP primary

He has been incredibly destructive and is proud of his achievement. Of all the candidates, his is the one I fear.