Scott Walker's imminent 2018 GOP gubernatorial re-election campaign will be fueled by concessions of state power and public resources - - principally water - - to already-wealthy, dominant private interests.
The only differences between what Walker has inflicted on clean air and water, = = and the people's rights to them - - and Donald Trump's assaults on the US EPA, Department of the Interior lands and clean government?
Trump's reach is broader and Walker has been at it longer. Regrettably, both of these Republican corporate tools are going to leave the water, land and democracy dirtier than when they found it.
And both told us precisely what they would do if elected.
Trump said he would break the EPA into little pieces; Walker said he wanted a "chamber of commerce mentality" atop the WI DNR when he appointed former developer and virulent DNR opponent Cathy Stepp to run that agency for nearly eight years.
And Walker's intentional and consequential diminution of DNR oversight in the public interest, along with the transfer of state power and the people's resources to the private sector continues unabated - - and also continues to define the goals of the regime Walker wants to direct for another four years.
* The subsidy-laden, record-breaking Foxconn project - - the $3-billion-taxpayer-dollar+ deal which Walker made in private with company officials - - is the his re-election's Campaign At The Public's Expense' Exhibit "A.".
He included in it unique exemptions for Foxconn at its projected rural Racine County site from routine Wisconsin environmental reviews.
He also inserted in the deal overrides of state constitutional protections known as the Public Trust Doctrine that bar in the public interests the filling of wetlands and other actions which would obstruct the free flow of public waters.
Walker pushed the deal through the legislature and is willing to weather some bad press about keeping the final implementing contract with Foxconn secret in order to signal to all potential donors and well-heeded business and conservative advocacy groups that their interests and his interests, and they supersede the public's right to resources, and also the right to know.
* The DNR has been working closely for several years to help smooth out a controversial bid by a Walker donor to launch the construction of a golf course in a nature preserve along Lake Michigan despite significant questions about rare dune preservation, wetland filings, the Public Trust Doctrine, fertilizer runoff and even the private use of acreage for building construction and pavement sought by the developer inside the popular Kohler Andrae State Park right next door.
With the cooperation of the Walker-led Department of Administration which quickly approved the annexation of the Town of Wilson golf course site in a nature preserve to the City of Sheboygan - - surpressing the opposition - - and parallel cooperation on friendly changes to the park's master plan from the Walker-led Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, preliminary approvals for the golf course from the DNR can't be far off. (The US Army Corps of Engineers and US EPA still have to weigh in.)
* Walker donors also won the right to permanent high-capacity well withdrawals, though a court, citing the law and The Public Trust Doctrine, has blocked the giveaway as unconstitutional.
* And speaking go donors, remember how a key Walker and Trump donor got the inside track on some primo DNR waterfront land?
* After years of minimal inspections and kid-gloves' enforcement actions which did not stem manure runoff and well-water contamination by the expanding number of industrial-scale animal feeding operations known as CAFOs, Walker is giving CAFO owners a new favor - - transferring CAFO permitting from the DNR which Big Ag still sues - - and brags about defeating - - despite all the favoritism by the DNR's political mangers there - - to another state agency which, by law, promotes and markets milk, cheese, meat and other produce.
* Next up: mining companies. They're coming for your water, too.
Again, I urge everyone - - citizens, teachers, candidates, activists - - to read up on the Public Trust Doctrine and demand that Wisconsin politicians abide by it, because Walker is lining up agency actions with campaign messages which reinforce his 'chamber of commerce mentality' governance to pretend the Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin Constitution, doesn't exist.
Walker is trading our water for votes. Bartering without asking public resources for personal advancement, though the resources Walker is dealing away belong to the people, and he is their trustee, not auctioneer:
The only differences between what Walker has inflicted on clean air and water, = = and the people's rights to them - - and Donald Trump's assaults on the US EPA, Department of the Interior lands and clean government?
Trump's reach is broader and Walker has been at it longer. Regrettably, both of these Republican corporate tools are going to leave the water, land and democracy dirtier than when they found it.
And both told us precisely what they would do if elected.
Trump said he would break the EPA into little pieces; Walker said he wanted a "chamber of commerce mentality" atop the WI DNR when he appointed former developer and virulent DNR opponent Cathy Stepp to run that agency for nearly eight years.
And Walker's intentional and consequential diminution of DNR oversight in the public interest, along with the transfer of state power and the people's resources to the private sector continues unabated - - and also continues to define the goals of the regime Walker wants to direct for another four years.
* The subsidy-laden, record-breaking Foxconn project - - the $3-billion-taxpayer-dollar+ deal which Walker made in private with company officials - - is the his re-election's Campaign At The Public's Expense' Exhibit "A.".
He included in it unique exemptions for Foxconn at its projected rural Racine County site from routine Wisconsin environmental reviews.
He also inserted in the deal overrides of state constitutional protections known as the Public Trust Doctrine that bar in the public interests the filling of wetlands and other actions which would obstruct the free flow of public waters.
Walker pushed the deal through the legislature and is willing to weather some bad press about keeping the final implementing contract with Foxconn secret in order to signal to all potential donors and well-heeded business and conservative advocacy groups that their interests and his interests, and they supersede the public's right to resources, and also the right to know.
* The DNR has been working closely for several years to help smooth out a controversial bid by a Walker donor to launch the construction of a golf course in a nature preserve along Lake Michigan despite significant questions about rare dune preservation, wetland filings, the Public Trust Doctrine, fertilizer runoff and even the private use of acreage for building construction and pavement sought by the developer inside the popular Kohler Andrae State Park right next door.
With the cooperation of the Walker-led Department of Administration which quickly approved the annexation of the Town of Wilson golf course site in a nature preserve to the City of Sheboygan - - surpressing the opposition - - and parallel cooperation on friendly changes to the park's master plan from the Walker-led Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, preliminary approvals for the golf course from the DNR can't be far off. (The US Army Corps of Engineers and US EPA still have to weigh in.)
* Walker donors also won the right to permanent high-capacity well withdrawals, though a court, citing the law and The Public Trust Doctrine, has blocked the giveaway as unconstitutional.
* And speaking go donors, remember how a key Walker and Trump donor got the inside track on some primo DNR waterfront land?
* After years of minimal inspections and kid-gloves' enforcement actions which did not stem manure runoff and well-water contamination by the expanding number of industrial-scale animal feeding operations known as CAFOs, Walker is giving CAFO owners a new favor - - transferring CAFO permitting from the DNR which Big Ag still sues - - and brags about defeating - - despite all the favoritism by the DNR's political mangers there - - to another state agency which, by law, promotes and markets milk, cheese, meat and other produce.
* Next up: mining companies. They're coming for your water, too.
Again, I urge everyone - - citizens, teachers, candidates, activists - - to read up on the Public Trust Doctrine and demand that Wisconsin politicians abide by it, because Walker is lining up agency actions with campaign messages which reinforce his 'chamber of commerce mentality' governance to pretend the Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin Constitution, doesn't exist.
Walker is trading our water for votes. Bartering without asking public resources for personal advancement, though the resources Walker is dealing away belong to the people, and he is their trustee, not auctioneer:
Professor Arlen Christenson, a Professor Emeritus of Law and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School as well as founding Board President of Midwest Environmental Advocates, lays out simply how the [Public Trust Doctrine] works.
“It holds that the state is the trustee of the waters of the state for the benefit of the people of the state,” Christenson said. “And so the trustee has a duty to care for, manage, improve and protect the water for the benefit of the citizens. It’s not as if the state owns the water, but the people are the beneficial owners of water, just as the beneficiaries of a trust