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Inside: All about Frac Sand Mining
spring 2012
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The State of the Environment How We Fared in the 2011-'12 Legislative Session
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When this Legislative session began in January 2011, we knew we had a challenge before us. The session started out with attacks on our natural resources, which continued into the spring 2011 budget process and lasted until the official end of the session on March 16. With the end of the two-year legislative session, we can now take stock of bills that helped or hurt our natural resources. While there were other bills to impact our natural resources, here is the good, the bad and the ugly of what we worked on:
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Great Lakes pg 3 Candidate education pg 6 Frac sand mining pg 7 THE GOOD
MAINTAINING PROTECTIVE MINING LAWS It took a herculean effort to stop the Assembly open-pit mine bill, but in the end we were successful! The bill rolled back environmental protections and cut the public out of the mining process. While Clean Wisconsin is not against mining, we are against changing our laws for the profits of a company, especially an out-of-state company that clearly had no intention of mining responsibly. READ MORE ON PAGE 4 KEEPING PHOSPHORUS OUT OF OUR WATERS We were able to quickly beat back the governor’s attempt to delay implementation of Wisconsin’s phosphorus rule in his budget bill last year. Cooler heads prevailed and key legislators realized that Wisconsin’s phosphorus rules are an innovative and cost-effective way to improve our water quality and prevent rivers, lakes and streams from being choked by algae. RECYCLING PROGRAM SAVED One of the more surprising attacks this session was on the popular recycling program; last year, Gov. Walker’s budget originally proposed cutting all funding for local recycling programs. The Legislature ultimately restored 60 percent of the funding, which still results in cuts but keeps Wisconsin’s recycling tradition alive. STATEWIDE WIND SITING RULES BACK IN EFFECT A year ago, a legislative committee dealt a blow to wind energy by suspending Wisconsin’s uniform, statewide standards for siting wind energy systems, driving away several wind companies. Through a major effort by Clean Wisconsin, other advocates and businesses to educate legislators, that rule was reinstated in March. The rule will help our state develop clean, renewable wind energy rather and reduce our reliance on dirty, out-of-state fossil fuels. See “Environment,” page 3