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Several concerns were raised at an Assembly Jobs Committee public hearing Wednesday in Hurley. Some of those concerns about the proposed iron ore mining bill are coming from people who are for mining.

The overflow room at Pete’s Place Bar and Lounge next to the hearing room was itself overflowing into the lobby of the Hurley Inn an hour before things got underway at 10 Wednesday (1/11) morning. In the hearing room itself, more than 250 people sat and stood in a place where 200 would be an elbow to elbow crowd.

This is the first and last chance for people near the proposed Penokee Range iron mine to speak about the bill which would speed-up the mining regulation process. Speakers on both sides are urging and giving respect, making sure to excuse themselves when they step on each others toes in this crowded room, reminding each other that once this committee is gone, they still have to live with each other.

Arguments center on the need for jobs in an area where unemployment approaches 10% but every speaker also wants the environment protected. They say the quality of life shouldn’t suffer if a mine would pollute inland rivers and lakes and the Lake Superior watershed.

Pro-mining forces from Iron and Ashland Counties like the idea of speeding up the permitting process, but so far all of the business groups here object to the state taking half of the iron ore production tax money. Current law requires all of that money go to local communities to pay for wear and tear on local roads and utilities. As one speaker said, “Why should you guys skim it off the top?”

Democrats are also pointing to a report released last week by the non-partisan Legislative Council that says the bill would cap state agency costs incurred during the mining permitting process to $1.1 million dollars. Democratic committee members are hammering that point, asking speakers if they’re comfortable with limiting the Department of Natural Resources to what they believe will be around $7 million in costs for permitting an iron ore mine in the Penokee Range. Almost all local speakers agree the DNR should have the resources they need to evaluate the permit application.

Republican legislators on this committee say they want to pass this bill next week, which means amendments have to be proposed by this Friday or brought up on the Assembly floor.

People who give money to candidates for state office would no longer have to list their employer under a proposal by a Republican state Senator. The proposal comes less than a year after that information led to criminal charges against a railroad executive.

Sen. Glen Grothman says he decided to introduce his plan after some Wisconsin Democrats called for boycotts of businesses whose employees give to Republicans, “By putting down the employer, we’re kind of helping people and punishing individual businesses. I don’t know why we want to help people punish individual businesses.”

The West Bend Republican says he thinks that in most cases, the contributions made by average employees have nothing to do with their employer’s agenda, “It’s entirely misleading and inappropriate to sit there and put that employer down there so some goof like a Michael McCabe sort can publicize that I’m taking money from an employee of say West Bend Insurance Company because of where I stand on insurance issues, it’s just not true.”

The Michael McCabe Grothman mentioned there is the director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a watchdog group tracks campaign finance contributions. McCabe spoke next at a public hearing, telling Senators people wants more disclosure, not less, “This bill would blind voters to the financial interests of campaign donors. This would be a dagger to the heart of Wisconsin’s campaign finance disclosure laws.”

McCabe also pointed to criminal charges filed last year against railroad owner William Gardner for illegally funneling company money through his employees to support Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, “This legislation would make such investigations difficult if not impossible.”

McCabe says the same was true when federal authorities charged Democratic donor Dennis Troha a few years ago.

A Republican state lawmaker wants to make it illegal for recall petitioners to offer what he calls bribes. Current law prohibits getting votes by offering something of value ---- but right now that rule doesn’t apply to recall petitions. Evan Wynn calls it a ‘loophole’. The Republican from Whitewater has authored a bill applying to both situations so there’s conformity, “We (Republicans) are not trying to bring this out because of the current recall Walker situation. If I was in the Assembly--I’m a freshman--I just believe it’s common sense. It’s wrong for these types of things.”

Recall supporters say it’s another roadblock to removing elected officials as Wisconsin’s Constitution allows. Bryan Bliss of Madison says political gatherings that offer food or drink without strings attached should not be considered a bribe, “Right now the bribery’s not coming because people are getting pizza; the bribery’s coming because there’s millions of dollars coming in from out-of-state lobbyists and a lot of people (recall supporters) feel like they ‘bought’ the legislators. The recallers’ aren’t the ones giving or receiving the bribes. We’re in the recall because we think the politicians got the bribes and that’s why we got to get them out.”

Last month, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office cleared three groups accused of election bribery. The groups came from across the political spectrum. They offered gift cards, free food and transportation to the polls.

The January 12 EarthTalk article did a good job of painting a broad picture of global warming, but here are some badly needed specifics.

Greenhouse gasses are like a layer of insulation high above the earth. Most of the sun’s radiation, especially high energy forms like visible and UV light, can punch their way through. High energy radiation, if it falls on snow or ice, is  largely reflected back into space, but when it falls on land or water, it warms the surface, which emits low energy, infrared radiation, much of which is blocked from returning to space by greenhouse gases.  And the more greenhouse gasses we add to that thickening layer, the more quickly our planet will warm. Ice caps will melt, and coastal cities will be destroyed.  

There are many greenhouse gases, including water vapor. If we assign a value of 1 to water vapors, CO2 is 5 times as effective as a greenhouse gas, and methane is 20 times more “opaque”.  Already, huge amounts of methane are being released from melting permafrost all across the arctic, and several of the gases generated by coal burning power plants are more than twice as bad as methane. 

 Thanks to ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica that go back 500,000 years, we know that CO2 levels during that period never exceeded 280 parts per million, but they have been rising at an accelerating pace since about 1750 - the start of the Industrial Revolution - and now exceed 390 ppm.  

 The ice cover at the poles is shrinking, and the phytoplankton that are the basis of the oceanic food chain need ice cold water to efficiently reproduce. As a result, oceanic phytoplankton levels have dropped 40% since 1950, and the world fishery is already in decline.

 Because global warming is, at first, most apparent near the poles, we should be alarmed that average temperatures have already risen 5 degrees in Alaska, 10 degrees in the arctic islands, and the Greenland icecap is shrinking 10 times faster than expected. 

70% of our fresh fruits and vegetables get 3/4 of their water from water stored in snowpack in, for example, the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As the climate warms, and winter precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, there will be no snow pack to replenish reservoirs emptied during the summer by cities and farms. Lake Meade is already down 170 feet, the huge Ogallala aquifer that irrigates the Great Plains is being pumped out faster than nature can resupply it, and Lake Superior set a record high temperature in 2010.

Tinkering with what we have been doing will not suffice. We need a change in lifestyle - a change that includes conservation,  a reduction in world population, a drastic expansion of alternative energy sources like the hugely better, cheaper, safer, liquid fluoride thorium reactor, and acceptance of a stable economy rather than one of endless consumption and expansionism that Aldo Leopold deplored as Boosterism. 

As Bill McKibben wrote in The End of Nature, “It’s like we’ve gone on a one-night fling and contracted a horrible disease.” Examine the environmental record and promises of candidates - and remember them when you vote! 

George Erickson, 
Eveleth, MN