It was just a few days before he took office in late December, 2010 when GOP Governor-elect Scott Walker had a rare outburst of transparency by saying he'd chosen Racine-area developer, former McDonald's manager and sarcastic, partisan critic of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Cathy Stepp to head the agency because he wanted a "chamber of commerce mentality" in charge there.
Not long there after, Walker sent an even stronger signal to the business community that he intended to degrade the state's environmental protection agency as he continues to do with all the predictable results by suspending a DNR review of a proposed wetland filling near Lambeau Field sought by a campaign contributor.
Walker also signed into law a stand alone, special bill he pushed the GOP-contolled state legislature to approve which further enabled the project - - a scenario which presaged multiple anti-environmental measures statewide, including sales of public lands, planned state park privatization, weakened barriers to phosphorous dumping, cavalier reviews of projects as varied as golf courses on sensitive lands to oil pipelines sited statewide, fewer pollution prevention inspections and enforcement actions, eased development on shorelines, encouragement for open-pit iron mining in wetland-rich forest land, easier access to groundwater sought by a vastly-expanding number of big farms, hog feeding operations, dairies and sand mines and coordinated attacks with the GOP Attorney General and the Walker-controlled Public Service Commission on behalf of big business against a variety of solar power installations, groundwater takers, wind farms and federal clean air rules.
That is what happens when an ideologically-motivated chief elected official sets out to dismantle an environmental protection agency through managers chosen because they believe more in serving a handful of powerful big business leaders than ensuring environmental protection and the public health.
So Wisconsinites know what's coming when the Trump administration takes power on January 20, 2017 - - the only question is who's his Cathy Stepp? - - and the water-tainting, smog-inducing, science-negating and climate-ruining reality is that Trump has assembled a team of pollution purveying corporate servants who will out-do what Stepp and Walker have wreaked here, including:
* Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, with oil operations in 50 countries, to serve as Secretary of State.
* Climate change denier and intensely anti-EPA litigant Scott Pruitt to oversee the EPA.
* A West Virginia coal mine owner whose operation exploded and killed 12 people to run the Commerce Department.
* Energy Department opponent and former Texas Governor Rick Perry to oversee the Energy Department.
* An obscure drill-baby-drill Montana congressional Republican to oversee the Interior Department, the country's biggest land owner, including national parks and offshore sites, and which leases property for logging, mining and drilling.
What Trump is doing, consciously or not, is to take Scott Walker's "chamber of commerce mentality" governing model and inject it, on steroids, across the entire federal government.
Regrettably, he ain't done yet, but it sure feels like we are.
Not long there after, Walker sent an even stronger signal to the business community that he intended to degrade the state's environmental protection agency as he continues to do with all the predictable results by suspending a DNR review of a proposed wetland filling near Lambeau Field sought by a campaign contributor.
Walker also signed into law a stand alone, special bill he pushed the GOP-contolled state legislature to approve which further enabled the project - - a scenario which presaged multiple anti-environmental measures statewide, including sales of public lands, planned state park privatization, weakened barriers to phosphorous dumping, cavalier reviews of projects as varied as golf courses on sensitive lands to oil pipelines sited statewide, fewer pollution prevention inspections and enforcement actions, eased development on shorelines, encouragement for open-pit iron mining in wetland-rich forest land, easier access to groundwater sought by a vastly-expanding number of big farms, hog feeding operations, dairies and sand mines and coordinated attacks with the GOP Attorney General and the Walker-controlled Public Service Commission on behalf of big business against a variety of solar power installations, groundwater takers, wind farms and federal clean air rules.
That is what happens when an ideologically-motivated chief elected official sets out to dismantle an environmental protection agency through managers chosen because they believe more in serving a handful of powerful big business leaders than ensuring environmental protection and the public health.
So Wisconsinites know what's coming when the Trump administration takes power on January 20, 2017 - - the only question is who's his Cathy Stepp? - - and the water-tainting, smog-inducing, science-negating and climate-ruining reality is that Trump has assembled a team of pollution purveying corporate servants who will out-do what Stepp and Walker have wreaked here, including:
* Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, with oil operations in 50 countries, to serve as Secretary of State.
* Climate change denier and intensely anti-EPA litigant Scott Pruitt to oversee the EPA.
* A West Virginia coal mine owner whose operation exploded and killed 12 people to run the Commerce Department.
* Energy Department opponent and former Texas Governor Rick Perry to oversee the Energy Department.
* An obscure drill-baby-drill Montana congressional Republican to oversee the Interior Department, the country's biggest land owner, including national parks and offshore sites, and which leases property for logging, mining and drilling.
What Trump is doing, consciously or not, is to take Scott Walker's "chamber of commerce mentality" governing model and inject it, on steroids, across the entire federal government.
Regrettably, he ain't done yet, but it sure feels like we are.
