The Joint Finance Committee voted Monday to send a controversial bill that would ease regulations on iron ore mining in Wisconsin to the state Senate floor, even though it seems unlikely to pass there.
State Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, is the only Republican who opposes the bill. Republicans, who have a 17-16 majority in the senate and no Democrats on board with the mining proposal, will not be able to pass it if Schultz stands by his decision to vote against the legislation.
The bill is a central piece in a series of Republican-backed legislation intended to spur job growth in Wisconsin.
Republicans say the bill will create hundreds of Wisconsin jobs, but Democrats argue the bill does not do enough to protect the environment or allow enough input from citizens who would be affected by the mine. The Assembly passed it in January.
Andrew Welhouse, spokesperson for Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, acknowledged the bill’s importance, but said he is still optimistic a compromise can be reached with Schultz by the end of this legislative session in two weeks.
“He’s got his opinions on what he wants the bill to be,” Welhouse said in reference to Schultz. “We are hopeful that we can come to a product that has the support of a majority of the senate and the majority of the assembly.”
State Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and state Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, made small changes to the bill last week, hoping to sway Schultz’s decision. The changes allow citizens to contest mining permits after they have been issued, but leave challengers to find proof in the cases instead of getting help from the state Department of Natural Resources.
Schultz said he can not support the bill because he said it does not give the general public a fair fight when contesting environmental permits. But he also said he wants to find a compromise.
“Considering the high price of expertise and the wealth of talent available to the applicant and the DNR, compared to that of the general public, that doesn’t strike me as a fair fight,” Schultz said in a statement Monday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Dennis Dresang refrained from calling the current session a failure from the Republican perspective if they can not pass the bill, but said it is pretty hard for Republicans to feel good about job creation in general.
“The whole idea of creating jobs is pretty much a failure,” Dresang said. “Wisconsin is way behind the rest of the country in creating jobs. It’s obvious it’s been pretty frustrating for [Republicans] to do anything.”
