Republicans decided last week to fast-track the Assembly version of a bill reducing regulations on iron-ore mining in Wisconsin instead of going forward with a more moderate Senate version proposed last week.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, disbanded the special committee overseeing the Senate version of the bill Wednesday and sent the Assembly version to the Joint Committee on Finance, which held a public hearing on the bill Friday. Now, the bill could be voted on in the Senate as early as this week.
Many concerned residents from northern Wisconsin came to Madison Friday to speak out against the legislation at a public hearing.
A member of the Bad River Band, a Native American tribe which was working with the state Senate on its version of the bill, said Friday his people’s land is “pristine, its special, and there’s not very many areas like this in the world. And that’s why we need to fight to protect it.”
Democratic Senators also spoke out against Fitzgerald’s decision to fast track the bill. Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said not enough was being done to include citizens who would be affected by the legislation in the discussion.
“The process that has been used to rush through this flawed mining legislation is shocking,” Shilling said in a statement Friday. “While I support efforts to attract new jobs to our state, I am not willing to sacrifice the rights of citizens and our state’s natural resources.”
But Fitzgerald’s decision to fast-track the Assembly’s version ensures mining legislation will be put to a vote sooner than if they went through with the Senate’s version.
“We can’t allow the clock to run out on a project that could mean a generation of good-paying jobs and revitalize an entire local economy,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.
