And look: No offense to McDonald's managers or workers.
It's just that if there's a person managing the health of the Great Lakes, protecting clean air and water in six states and in most of the US portion of the five Great Lakes - - and the 20% of the planet's fresh surface water they hold - - and the planet had warmed into a red-hot and worsening crisis - - especially for the Midwest - - you'd want that same EPA manager to have thought more highly the large environmental protection staff she'd previously directed rather than the McDonald's workers she'd formerly supervised, right?
And had the scientific background to help confront an existential crisis while reporting to equally or even more capable and visionary boss.
But such is not the case. Read on.
The EPA Great Lakes regional manager we're talking about here is Cathy Stepp and this is how the EPA describes her responsibilities:
Rather Walker appointed her because she had the "chamber of commerce mentality" he wanted atop the agency.
That the DNR would be taking big steps back from public-interest policy and its long-standing scientific grounding would be an tremendous understatement.
I have complied Walker's attack on the Wisconsin into a recent, 21-part series, here.
And I have argued that Walker's defeat three weeks ago was, in part, a rejection of his rejection of climate change and the science which underscores the need to acknowledge it and act.
But let's focus a bit on Stepp, because while Walker is on his way out, Stepp already got two promotions by Trump's hand which have elevated to responsibilities she has no business managing..
On her watch in Wisconsin, pollution inspections and enforcement actions plummeted. Nearly every DNR inspection failed to follow agency rules.
So, for example, you couldn't have been surprised when the agency in 2014 levied only a $464 fine against a farmer who spilled more than one million gallons of cow manure onto a field, into a wetland and down a river, because kid gloves for pollution had been established in the early months of Stepp's tenure.
After only four months as Secretary, the agency's executive offices had handled as an internal "massive violations" by a septic tank hauler who'd spread his loads of human waste too close to rural wells, rather than turn the violations over to state law enforcement.
Turned out that the waste hauler had been a campaign contributor to a senior, Team Stepp DNR official when he'd been a GOP legislator prior to joining the agency's 'chamber of commerce mentality' management team.
Stepp and Walker focused on re-branding the agency as a permitting shop to promote business.
They cut the DNR staff, promoted a mountain-top removal scheme to dig a massive open pit iron ore mine in Northwest Wisconsin which missed out accessing the eased mining law and newly-restricted public participation rules Walker had backed because the mining site turned out to be too saturated with wetlands.
Walker fired scientists alleged to have been working on climate change.
Stepp promoted and implemented the sale of 10,000 acres of state land.
And even greenlit the proposed transfer of state park land to help a major Walker donor's planned construction of a high-end golf complex on an adjoining, heavily-wooded, rare dune, wetlands-and-habitat-rich 247-acre nature preserve along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Great Lakes preservation? Wetlands protections? Public land over private gain?
So you get the picture.
Which brings us to McDonald's, which we know about in relation too Stepp and her history and her thinking because she mentioned her preference for her former staff there as opposed to the unionized, 'Earth Day' public employees she whined about inheriting when she took over the DNR, as I noted in this July, 2016 blog post:
From a summary post about Stepp's history I posted later, here's how a Madison Capital Times reporter tweeted about Stepp's remarks:
Whether she herself thought climate change it was a hoax is unclear, but we know that she had disliked like the way climate change had been described on a DNR website and had the information scrubbed off:
And who thinks climate change might be reversible.
And who has put an anti-science, anti-government climate change dismisser in charge of managing the Great Lakes and much of the nation's bread basket as a warming planet is producing flood-and-drought perils projected to escalate.
I don't see either Trump or Stepp changing their approach despite credible polling which shows Americans want action, and now:
It's just that if there's a person managing the health of the Great Lakes, protecting clean air and water in six states and in most of the US portion of the five Great Lakes - - and the 20% of the planet's fresh surface water they hold - - and the planet had warmed into a red-hot and worsening crisis - - especially for the Midwest - - you'd want that same EPA manager to have thought more highly the large environmental protection staff she'd previously directed rather than the McDonald's workers she'd formerly supervised, right?
And had the scientific background to help confront an existential crisis while reporting to equally or even more capable and visionary boss.
But such is not the case. Read on.
The EPA Great Lakes regional manager we're talking about here is Cathy Stepp and this is how the EPA describes her responsibilities:
Cathy Stepp serves as the Regional Administrator for EPA Region 5. Her responsibilities include overseeing environmental protection efforts in the Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as 35 federally recognized tribal governments. One of her roles is manager of EPA Great Lakes National Program, in which she leads restoration and protection of the largest freshwater system in the world. Before joining Region 5, she was principal deputy regional administrator for EPA Region 7.
Ms. Stepp served as the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources from 2011 to 2017.Stepp was selected for the Wisconsin position by Wisconsin Gov-elect Scott Walker, but not because she had experience in environmentalism, except to attack it (her words), or had a college degree in science, or a college degree in anything, as one news report disclosed.
Rather Walker appointed her because she had the "chamber of commerce mentality" he wanted atop the agency.
That the DNR would be taking big steps back from public-interest policy and its long-standing scientific grounding would be an tremendous understatement.
I have complied Walker's attack on the Wisconsin into a recent, 21-part series, here.
And I have argued that Walker's defeat three weeks ago was, in part, a rejection of his rejection of climate change and the science which underscores the need to acknowledge it and act.
But let's focus a bit on Stepp, because while Walker is on his way out, Stepp already got two promotions by Trump's hand which have elevated to responsibilities she has no business managing..
On her watch in Wisconsin, pollution inspections and enforcement actions plummeted. Nearly every DNR inspection failed to follow agency rules.
So, for example, you couldn't have been surprised when the agency in 2014 levied only a $464 fine against a farmer who spilled more than one million gallons of cow manure onto a field, into a wetland and down a river, because kid gloves for pollution had been established in the early months of Stepp's tenure.
After only four months as Secretary, the agency's executive offices had handled as an internal "massive violations" by a septic tank hauler who'd spread his loads of human waste too close to rural wells, rather than turn the violations over to state law enforcement.
Turned out that the waste hauler had been a campaign contributor to a senior, Team Stepp DNR official when he'd been a GOP legislator prior to joining the agency's 'chamber of commerce mentality' management team.
Stepp and Walker focused on re-branding the agency as a permitting shop to promote business.
They cut the DNR staff, promoted a mountain-top removal scheme to dig a massive open pit iron ore mine in Northwest Wisconsin which missed out accessing the eased mining law and newly-restricted public participation rules Walker had backed because the mining site turned out to be too saturated with wetlands.
Walker fired scientists alleged to have been working on climate change.
Stepp promoted and implemented the sale of 10,000 acres of state land.
And even greenlit the proposed transfer of state park land to help a major Walker donor's planned construction of a high-end golf complex on an adjoining, heavily-wooded, rare dune, wetlands-and-habitat-rich 247-acre nature preserve along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Great Lakes preservation? Wetlands protections? Public land over private gain?
So you get the picture.
Which brings us to McDonald's, which we know about in relation too Stepp and her history and her thinking because she mentioned her preference for her former staff there as opposed to the unionized, 'Earth Day' public employees she whined about inheriting when she took over the DNR, as I noted in this July, 2016 blog post:
[Updated] This blog has been tracking the forced decline of the once-proud, no-longer-science-based Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as directed by Scott Walker's hand-picked team of "chamber of commerce" bots.That group of private-sector bellhops is led byex-developer, Halloween treats organizer and openly hostile DNR ranter Cathy Stepp.There was even a management firm video posted on YouTube of Stepp's hostility - - since taken down - - which captured her dismissal of staffers she griped that she couldn't easily fire - - employees too tied, she'd said, into an Earth Day mentality and who refused to share her appreciation for the "inspired" Scott Walker.So add this revealing excuse-making Stepp stepped in to before the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board - - the public oversight board which Walker with her approval unsuccessfully tried to budgetary turn into a mere advisory body - - as reported in an interview with The Wisconsin State Journal:
A few months later, Donald Trump was campaigning for President, and Stepp decided to speak at one of his Wisconsin rallies.Stepp recalled her days as a McDonald’s restaurant manager as she talked about how state employment rules have hobbled the DNR. Stepp said she could quickly mobilize her fast-food employees when a busload of customers arrived unexpectedly, but the DNR can’t react that nimbly to retirements.
From a summary post about Stepp's history I posted later, here's how a Madison Capital Times reporter tweeted about Stepp's remarks:
@jessieopie"This is our time, ladies." — WI DNR Sec. Cathy Stepp at @realDonaldTrump rally in WaukeshaNot long thereafter, Stepp was off to the #2 position in the Trump/Scott Pruitt EPA office in Kansas City - - though she was among the few people with any connection who claimed to be unaware that Trump had said climate change was a hoax - - and a few months later, Trump moved her to the EPA office in Chicago.
Whether she herself thought climate change it was a hoax is unclear, but we know that she had disliked like the way climate change had been described on a DNR website and had the information scrubbed off:
Gone are references to known "human activities" contributing to a warming planet, warming's contributions to changes in rainfall and snowfall patterns, extreme weather events, drought, species and economic losses as a result among other truths whitewashed off this official, taxpayer-financed website.
Chillingly, this entire line - - with its positive message and a call to action - - is now deleted:
The good news is that we can all work to slow climate change and lessen its effects.So here we are with a President who thinks better leaf-raking would prevent super wildfires and who threw paper towels to Puerto Ricans devastated by a Category 5 hurricane.
And who thinks climate change might be reversible.
And who has put an anti-science, anti-government climate change dismisser in charge of managing the Great Lakes and much of the nation's bread basket as a warming planet is producing flood-and-drought perils projected to escalate.
I don't see either Trump or Stepp changing their approach despite credible polling which shows Americans want action, and now:
Nearly 8 in 10 believe that officials at every level of government bear some responsibility to rein in climate change, according to a new poll from Yale University, George Mason University and Climate Nexus, a nonprofit working to improve public understanding of climate change. [Disclosure: Climate Nexus and Nexus Media are both sponsored projects of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.]
“Public opinion research shows that Americans are growing increasingly worried about global warming,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
“What is interesting about this poll is that Americans are looking to new leaders to rise to the challenge. The federal government is no longer offering solutions. Americans want their governors, mayors and the business community to pick up the torch.”
The poll further finds that nearly 74 percent of Americans are “somewhat” or “very” worried about climate change, a result that is broadly consistent with research from Quinnipiac University, St. Leo University and Gallup — each of which found that worry about climate change has reached an all-time high in the last two years.But I'll tell you this: when fast-food chains see public opinion changing, they hire new spokespeople, rebuild their stores, add healthier options, boost some wages and do what ever is needed to stay alive.