State Rep. Kevin Petersen, a Waupaca Republican who clearly believes in individual responsibility, has an idea to solve the problem that has stumped the nuclear industry, scientists and the government for 50 years: What to do with the deadly nuclear waste produced by reactors?

It's such a small quantity, Petersen seems to say, that maybe we could all just carry our own around.

Wisconsin Environment slammed the right-wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) yesterday about their inaccurate and misleading report about the Governor’s initiatives to grow the renewable energy industry and create green jobs.

Here’s an excerpt from Wisconsin Environment’s report:

“…the WPRI report fails to acknowledge the many obvious economic and other benefits that would result from a broad effort to repower Wisconsin with clean energy.

Among the long list of benefits (apparently) not considered in the analysis are the following:

1.) Avoided costs of electricity generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure resulting from reduced energy demand or the incorporation of on-site renewable generation.

2.) Increased income for Wisconsin farmers resulting from increased use of biofuels and the potential to lease lands for wind turbines and other forms of renewable energy development.

3.) Health benefits (including reductions in absenteeism, early mortality and possibly health care costs) from avoided fossil fuel-related pollution, including reductions in pollutants that form smog and soot, and mercury deposition in waterways.

4.) Avoided economic impacts of global warming in Wisconsin, including predicted changes that threaten to reduce the productivity of agriculture, increase the possibility of dangerous floods, shift the composition of Wisconsin forests, affect the winter recreation industry, and more.

5.) Reductions in the risk to individuals, businesses and government posed by sudden shifts in fossil fuel prices.

6.) Energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy both have hedging value as insurance against sudden spikes in fossil fuel costs.”

 Doyle also critiqued the report, saying “Anybody who doesn’t think this creates jobs is simply not looking around.” Doyle’s Office of Energy Independence released a study saying the legislation would create 15,000 jobs by 2025.

This is far from the first time OWN has noted WPRI’s propensity for twisting the truth to suit the interests of their monied special interest and corporate friends.

And yet the University of Wisconsin-Madison poli sci department doesn’t believe their joint polling effort with WPRI doesn’t help advance a conservative legislative agenda?

You can visit Wisconsin Environment’s report in the report section at www.WisconsinEnvironment.org.

Jayme Montgomery, head of the state's Campaign Against Violence is reporting from the front lines in Copenhagen. A must read/watch:

Link

While you're there, sign up for additional alerts, reports and information about ongoing efforts to stop global climate change.

Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident on March 28 comes more evidence that the nuclear industry is making Wisconsin a prime target for making nuclear power an option again.

In the last month, Wisconsin has seen a stacked legislative hearing, a drumbeat of pro-nuclear articles in Madison's daily press, and a concerted public relations effort here with visits by two nuclear power advocacy groups.

Now, Diane Farsetta of the Center for Media and Democracy has discovered that the nuclear industry has four lobbyists registered to work the Capitol and state agencies. It's the first time the Nuclear Energy Institute has had lobbyists here since at least 1996, she says in an article at PRWatch.org.

And although more that a dozen states have laws similar to Wisconsin's moratorium, NEI has registered lobbyists in only two other states -- and one per state versus four here. Three of the four are staff members of NEI in Washington, but the fourth is home-grown.

The star lobbyist in Wisconsin -- although he usually isn't identified as a lobbyist -- is Frank Jablonski, a former environmental lawyer who's done a flip-flop on nuclear power. As Farsetta notes, the media love stories about no-nukers who've jumped the fence -- but the story's not quite as good if the convert is on the industry payroll. Jablonski was one of the witnesses at the stacked legislative hearing, but no one mentioned he was on NEI's payroll. He was listed on the hearing agenda as the founder of the Progressive Law Group, his law firm. Nice touch.

Why Wisconsin, a state with a history of anti-nuclear activity that stopped three proposed reactors from being built in the 1970s, passed a moratorium on more plants, and voted 8-1 against a nuclear waste disposal site here?

What makes Wisconsin so attractive to the pro-nukers right now is a set of recommendations from the Governor's Task Force on Global Warming, which includes a relaxation in the current law on licensing nuclear power plants.

The law now requires there to be a federal storage facility to handle the deadly, high level radioactive waste from the plants before any more can be built. The new law would eliminate that requirement.

Trouble is, after 50 years of producing more waste every day the industry and the government still have no long-term solution. It is piling up at nuclear reactors across the country, including three in Wisconsin.

How dangerous is it? The Environmental Protection Agency says some of it is so deadly it must be kept out of the environment for up to a million years. As I pointed out in a recent op ed column, a mere 15,000 years ago our state was covered by glaciers. So planning for a million years out is going to be tough.

The recommendations aren't going to come up for action in the legislature until later in the year, but the nuclear railroad is building up a head of steam now. Meanwhile, many of the environmental groups that have historically opposed nuclear power in the state -- some of the same groups who helped pass the moratorium law and prevented its repeal in past sessions -- were members of the governor's task force. They have agreed to support the whole package -- which contains some very good changes in the law to sharply reduce and limit greenhouse gas emissions, among other things -- and not try to pick out the parts they don't like.

It is not likely to be a fair fight, with the money all on the industry's side and many of the environmental lobbyists on the sideline. But there will be a solid grassroots effort to keep the current law in place. Count on it. This is still Wisconsin.

Happy TMI Day, everyone.

Last week Rep. Frank Lasee announced his latest harebrained scheme, to drill for oil in the Great Lakes. There is nothing like handing over your most precious resource to an industry that can’t be trusted. And for what? For the remote chance that they will find (or spill) oil in 15 years and possibly save a few cents off gas prices? As if that is not enough for one month, now Lasee is cheering his Republican friends on the Natural Resources Committee who voted to block a reasonable rule to protect us from mercury contamination.

Almost every Wisconsin lake is under warning for mercury pollution but Lasee and his friends on the committee would rather obey the corporate interests that pull their strings. The rule was proposed by the Department of Natural Resources as crafted by an independent group of experts. It would have required large coal-fired plants to reduce mercury by 90 percent by the beginning of 2015. Over 437,000 Wisconsinites are exposed to higher-than-safe levels of mercury and six percent of Wisconsin women of childbearing age have elevated levels of mercury.

Health problems caused by mercury include neurological damage for babies and children, as well as hearing and vision loss and impaired coordination and speech for adults. Seniors are at risk from mercury for heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. Mercury is most commonly ingested by humans through fish consumption. The state has issued advisories about fish consumption due to mercury contamination for nearly every Wisconsin water body. Still Lasee cheers the status quo and its defenders in the Assembly. Apparently in the wacky world of Frank Lasee, poisoning your neighbors is not only praiseworthy but is the highest act of civic engagement.

Former Assembly Speaker John Gard has scheduled several town-hall meetings that he says will focus on gas prices. Unfortunately his positions on our addiction to oil is no different than the failed policies of the most unpopular president in history, George W. Bush. More specifically Gard is talking about giving Big Oil a free pass to dig up and take over wherever they think that they can find oil. Whether it is endangering pristine areas of wildlife or erecting Big Oil monuments right off our coasts, Gard’s folly is trying to drill our way out of this energy crisis. Even some of his fellow Republicans do not agree with this shortsighted gamble for what is sure to be a very limited gain.

While Gard is busy promoting Big Oil’s self serving agenda, I wonder if he will take a moment to correct himself on a recent related claim. Talking Points memo reported recently that Gard parroted a conservative talking point that had been completely debunked. The conservative claim that China and other nations were drilling off the coast of Florida was repeated in a Gard flyer even after Dick Cheney had to admit that it was not factual. When reporters for Talking Points Memo called the Gard operation to ask them about the misinformation, they were given several different false and conflicting answers. Perhaps it would be good for John Gard to take a moment during the town hall meetings to explain why he put out such inaccurate information for public consumption. Like his energy policy in general, the flyer demonstrates the length that he will go to in order to protect Big Oil and their narrow interests.

As ruthless as F. Jim Sensenbrenner ruled while the GOP ran Congress, it's hard not to take some satisfaction in his plummeting influence. But then he goes an does something that warrants mentioning, despite his eroding relevance to the national debate.

The midwest has suffered greatly during the recent floods. Since late-May 24 deaths are blamed on the weather and 40,000 have been displaced from their homes.

Yesterday, the Congress passed a modest $2.65 billion midwest flood relief plan. Twelve members showed utter indifference to the victims and those in need by voting against the bill.

Sensenbrenner, you guessed it, was one of the 12.

Unbelievable.

Anyone that is watching television in the state of Wisconsin has probably seen the new John McCain ad on the environment. The ad over-reaches trying to put a happy face on John McCain’s record in the Senate. Although the ad tries to paint McCain as a “maverick” on the environment, reality shows that his departures from the Bush party line are rare at best. Conveniently, just after starting the current ad buy, McCain provided us with the latest example of why he is McSame as Bush on the environment.

This week both Bush and McCain pushed an oil industry plan to end the federal ban on offshore drilling. The oil industry is hardly known for its protective policies over the environment. Actually in many ways the most serious environmental issues of our day can, in some way, be laid at their feet. Yet this same oil industry appears to be the policy guide for both Bush and McCain on offshore drilling.

Yesterday, the John McCain camp issued a press release in conjunction with a new ad touting Sen. McCain’s record on the environment. See the ad for yourself on the YouTube(s).

“Five years ago,” says the ad, “John McCain stood up to the President and sounded the alarm on global warming.” As proof of his maverickiness, the creators of the ad were able to scrape together just a single UPI article titled, “McCain climate views clash with GOP.” The article is actually less than a month old. The political director for the Sierra Club said Sen. McCain "is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn't."

It was appalling to see Sen. John McCain in Louisiana to try and distance himself for the horrors of George W. Bush and the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Considering how McCain voted to shield Bush from accountability for this national disgrace, he might have thought twice. Consider McCain’s record protecting Bush and abandoning those in need when it comes to Katrina.

McCain Twice Voted Against a Commission to Examine Government Response to Katrina. In 2005 and 2006, McCain voted against creating a congressional commission to examine the federal, state and local response to Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Region.  Both motions failed. [H.R. 2862, Vote #229, 9/14/2005; H.R. 4297, Vote #6, 2/2/2006] 

This week Senator John McCain is focusing on the environment and climate change. Although he has been vocal about the issue on the stump, his actual voting record is both inconsistent and severely lacking. In reaction to McCain’s speech Monday, League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski commented that “he has not substantively improved his plan over the bill he introduced years ago – legislation that the science now shows is out of date.”

John McCain’s lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters is a pathetic 24 percent. Despite his focus this week, he has managed to miss every major vote on the environment during the 110th Congress. That telling record gives him one big ZERO on the most recent LCV scorecard. Given McCain’s record on the environment, it is difficult to take anything that he says seriously.

Digging a little deeper on Sen. John McCain’s environmental record yields some scary remains indeed. Turns out he’s pretty much buried any previous attempts to work on environmental concerns, and any comments he makes on global warming, energy and the environmental are little more than double talk.

According to the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), McCain’s lifetime LCV score comes in at a paltry 24 percent, showing what the organization calls “a wavering commitment to America’s environment."

Want to help unearth the truth about McCain?

Guess who is involved in yet another lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin? Why it is Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce of course! They have filed a lawsuit, along with other business interests, against the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Apparently they want the DNR to suspend rulemaking on new pollution limits for power plants. They claim that they are not challenging the merit of the proposed rule. Instead their feathers are ruffled over what sounds like a very technical issue.

WMC claims that they were not given notice of the proposed rules before the start of the rulemaking process. Some might consider this to be using a legal “loophole” or a “technicality” just to undermine the new rule. Are they willing to rush off to court and sacrifice public health and the environment because of a “technicality”?

That’s funny, for some reason I thought they were against legal “technicalities” and “loopholes”. In any case, someone should call WMC and tell them to stand up for the environment and public health - not technicalities! Heck, if someone had the cash, they could even run a scary ad about it.

Former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson knew that if the environment was to be a priority on the national agenda, it would be the people, not the politicians, who put it there.

So, in 1970, Senator Nelson announced a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment; he called it Earth Day.

Thirty-eight years ago, the first Earth Day demonstration saw an overwhelming 20 million participants. The sheer numbers got the attention of Congress and led to the enactment of some of our most treasured environmental laws.

But as I said in an Earth Day speech at Edgewood College, we are a far cry from realizing Nelson’s dream of a world where our waters are unpolluted, our air clean, and our planet preserved for future generations.