Here are a few points of context for the preliminary state approval of a Wisconsin frac sand mine that will destroy a Jackson County pristine wooded wetland, and also require huge amounts of groundwater for its operation:
1. This is just the latest example of Wisconsin right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate tool Scott Walker and his party helping the private sector absorb public resources through environmental decisions.
2. There is a record $10,300 in campaign donations from the land owner and people associated with it to Walker's campaign, according to this report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
3. Projects like this will probably accelerate in Wisconsin and elsewhere because Walker is lobbying Donald Trump to give the states more control over environmental policy-and-decision making, and because Trump has named former pro-business Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Walker had joined Pruitt as an anti-EPA litigant fighting federal clean air rules.
And let's look at some of the earlier record and precedents:
* Scott Pruitt, meet Cathy Stepp.
In a burst of uncharacteristic transparency days before becoming Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker said he was nominating developer and outspoken Department of Natural Resources critic Cathy Steps as Secretary of the agency because he wanted that critical environmental and resource management agency run with "a chamber of commerce mentality."
* Jackson County wetland, meet one in Brown County
Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor five days later on January 3, 2011, and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field.
A companion bill introduced at Walker's request sped through the Legislature his party controlled.
And you want to talk campaign donations?
* $700,000 was routed secretly to Walker's campaign by the out-of-state mining company for whom Walker signed sweetheart legislation written with its participation to allow the digging of a gigantic open pit mine measured in miles across the Bad River watershed and Penokee Hills in Northwest Wisconsin.
The mine proposal fell through because, as critics and the neighboring Ojibwe Native American tribe had repeatedly documented, there was too much water in the area to be mined.
* A wealthy couple which had donated more than $3 million to various Walker-related campaign organizations received DNR approval to buy a prime piece of state lake frontage; public pressure blocked the deal until an alternative arrangement was approved.
Also, the DNR, with assists from Wisconsin's corporately-attuned GOP Attorney General and State Supreme Court majority whose campaign committees have received millions of dollars in donations from large, Walker-sympathetic business and conservative advocacy organizations has loosened the rules those governing high-volume well pumping permits which supply water to diary and farming and frackers sand operations.
Records show Walker's campaign has received more than $30,000 from two of the most recent big-volume ground water permit winners:
This is going to be the pattern in Wisconsin and across the country - - as I have noted here and here - - when Walker and similarly chamber-of-commerce minded Governors get more environmental power from the EPA which Trump will run with a chamber of commerce mentality.
1. This is just the latest example of Wisconsin right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate tool Scott Walker and his party helping the private sector absorb public resources through environmental decisions.
2. There is a record $10,300 in campaign donations from the land owner and people associated with it to Walker's campaign, according to this report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
3. Projects like this will probably accelerate in Wisconsin and elsewhere because Walker is lobbying Donald Trump to give the states more control over environmental policy-and-decision making, and because Trump has named former pro-business Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Walker had joined Pruitt as an anti-EPA litigant fighting federal clean air rules.
And let's look at some of the earlier record and precedents:
* Scott Pruitt, meet Cathy Stepp.
In a burst of uncharacteristic transparency days before becoming Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker said he was nominating developer and outspoken Department of Natural Resources critic Cathy Steps as Secretary of the agency because he wanted that critical environmental and resource management agency run with "a chamber of commerce mentality."
* Jackson County wetland, meet one in Brown County
Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor five days later on January 3, 2011, and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field.
A companion bill introduced at Walker's request sped through the Legislature his party controlled.
And you want to talk campaign donations?
* $700,000 was routed secretly to Walker's campaign by the out-of-state mining company for whom Walker signed sweetheart legislation written with its participation to allow the digging of a gigantic open pit mine measured in miles across the Bad River watershed and Penokee Hills in Northwest Wisconsin.
The mine proposal fell through because, as critics and the neighboring Ojibwe Native American tribe had repeatedly documented, there was too much water in the area to be mined.
* A wealthy couple which had donated more than $3 million to various Walker-related campaign organizations received DNR approval to buy a prime piece of state lake frontage; public pressure blocked the deal until an alternative arrangement was approved.
Also, the DNR, with assists from Wisconsin's corporately-attuned GOP Attorney General and State Supreme Court majority whose campaign committees have received millions of dollars in donations from large, Walker-sympathetic business and conservative advocacy organizations has loosened the rules those governing high-volume well pumping permits which supply water to diary and farming and frackers sand operations.
Records show Walker's campaign has received more than $30,000 from two of the most recent big-volume ground water permit winners:
One of the permits was granted to James Wysocki, of Bancroft, for a well located in Pine Grove in Portage County. Wysocki and several members of his family own the Wysocki Family of Companies, which operates large vegetable and dairy farms.
The owners of the Wysocki Family of Companies contributed about $31,000 to Walker between January 2010 and August 2016...In summary:
This is going to be the pattern in Wisconsin and across the country - - as I have noted here and here - - when Walker and similarly chamber-of-commerce minded Governors get more environmental power from the EPA which Trump will run with a chamber of commerce mentality.