Wis. business group urges no action on mining bill

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — No substantive action on any compromises to a hotly debated mining bill should happen this year with Democrats controlling the state Senate, the vice president of Wisconsin's largest business lobbying group said in a letter last week.

Instead, interested parties should wait until after the November elections with the hope that Republicans take back control with at least a two-vote majority, said Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Vice President Jim Buchen in the letter to Kennan Wood, the executive director of the Wisconsin Mining Association.

The July 19 letter was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Talks fell through earlier this year on a bill designed to allow Florida-based Gogebic Taconite to open a $1.5 billion iron mine in northwest Wisconsin. At that time, Republicans held a 17-16 majority in the Senate, but moderate GOP Sen. Dale Schultz refused to go along with the version that passed the Assembly.

Mining company officials have promised the mine would create hundreds of jobs, but they want lawmakers to ease the regulatory path. Environmentalists fear the mine would devastate one of the state's most pristine regions near Lake Superior.

It will take at least a two-vote Republican majority in the Senate to revive the bill that Gogebic Taconite wants, Buchen said in the letter.

"At the end of the day the only logical goal of mining reform legislation is to get the Gogebic Taconite Company to build a mine in Wisconsin," Buchen wrote. "Pursuing legislation that does not work for them is a waste of time."

Buchen said "premature discussions will only make it more difficult to get an acceptable bill passed later if we find we have the votes."

He specifically mentions Democratic Sen. Bob Jauch, who represents the area where the mine would be located, as someone talking about alternatives.

Jauch, who for months has worked with Schultz and others on the issue, reacted angrily to the letter.

"It reveals an arrogant, secretive, partisan approach by a business group that believes they and only they are entitled to know what's good for Wisconsin," Jauch said. "We are not elected to serve to the dictates of the WMC or one company."

Jauch said his goal was to find a compromise bill that was fair and responsible to the public, not the demands of one specific company.

Gov. Scott Walker said in May that he believed there was still hope to pass a bill this year, and that the previous version died because of politics driven by the recall drive against him and four Republican state senators.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie declined to comment about the letter from WMC, which endorsed Walker in the recall and spent $4 million on his behalf.

There has been no response to the letter from Wood as of Thursday, said Scott Manley, WMC's environmental policy director.

Manley said the letter was sent to reiterate WMC's feeling that all the compromises that could be made on the bill had already happened, so further negotiations would be fruitless.

"We remain optimistic that we can next session pass a mining bill that is going to create thousands of mining jobs and enormous investment in Wisconsin's economy," Manley said.

And if Republicans don't emerge with at least a two-vote majority following the November election?

"Then we'll have our work cut out for us," Manley said.