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Summer 2013 join us:
2013 Budget Bill
Devil’s Lake By Alexis Fam Photography | Flickr
On June 30, Governor Walker signed the 2013-2015 biennial budget into law. The budget signing represents the culmination of months of work on what is generally regarded as the most sweeping piece of legislation that gets decided every legislative session. The budget determines how state resources will be spent for the next two years and is the one bill the Legislature must sign into law every session. Clean Wisconsin monitored and evaluated all environmental policies in the budget, communicating with you and with legislators at every step of the process. Your efforts helped deliver almost 18,000 messages to legislators and the Governor about environmental budget priorities and it certainly had an impact. Overall, this budget is pretty disappointing for protection of our water resources and the special places that we love. Here are some outcomes of the notable environmental issues in this budget:
Preserves funding for county land and water conservation staff that support implementing agri-
A disappointment for our state’s natural resources
culture practices that reduce polluted runoff.
Preserves mass transit funding in the transportation fund, rather than making it compete with other state programs like prisons and schools in the general fund.
Adds two staff to DNR for monitoring frac sand mines. The DNR had identified a need for 10
new staff to deal with the number operations springing up across Wisconsin’s landscape, a number that has doubled in just the last year.
Cuts funding for the land conservation Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund by 20%, requires DNR
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Your efforts helped deliver about 18,000 messages to legislators and the Governor about these environmental priorities during the budget debate
to sell 10,000 acres it has already purchased and puts numerous restrictions on how future purchases can be made. The cuts will have a crippling effect on the state’s efforts to protect land for future generations, especially since the program was slashed by 30% just two years ago.
Removes local government’s ability to enact stronger stormwater standards than the state to control water quality. Some communities enact stronger standards to address their specific water quality situations, and they may have to change those to conform with less-stringent state standards.
Bars neighbors from challenging a high-capacity well based on cumulative environmental impacts for
any withdrawal applications after July 2014. This provision will limit property owners’ ability to ensure they have a safe, adequate supply of drinking water and is especially disastrous for people who live in those areas of the state where water resources are already strained by large farms and frac sand operations.
Eliminates the grazing initiative, which supports sustainable agricultural practices, an important part of controlling phosphorus runoff.
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There is still a lot of work to be done to prevent additional environmental rollbacks, and Clean Wisconsin will continue our work to keep you informed and engaged on our issues as the session moves forward.
What Didn’t Happen in the Budget (But we’re watching for the future)
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• Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) had introduced a budget amendment that would have cut $13 million from the program that assists low-income families in paying energy bills and improving efficiency to cut their energy needs. The amendment was tabled and did not receive a vote — a very good thing for the 23,000 Wisconsin families that have used this benefit. • Republicans in the Assembly announced and then withdrew a provision that would have closed off land surrounding the Gogebic Taconite iron mine site to the public. These legislators were trying to limit access to the land to block protesters.
Also in this issue
Focus on Energy Update Waukesha’s Diversion Application: Action Coming Soon! The President’s Climate Action Plan ... and how you can help