Opinions

12/7/2002 9:40:11 AM

DNR secretary needs cover from politics

Gov.-elect Jim Doyle never has been a fan of the governor being able to appoint the secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources. Now he has a chance to try to do something about that appointment power, and he says he will. Doyle, who will take office Jan. 6, said he will push the Legislature to revert to the past system of having the Natural Resources Board appoint the DNR secretary. That’s the system the state operated under for years until former Gov. Tommy Thompson got upset at how the DNR was treating some of the state’s businesses. Perhaps the DNR, under former Secretary George Meyer, did go overboard in imposing environmental regulations on state businesses. Certainly Thompson, who liked to control everything in state government, chafed at his inability to pull strings in the DNR because the agency head wasn’t under his control. But it’s becoming clear that it’s time to turn the clock back to 1995, when Thompson convinced the Legislature to turn the DNR over to his political appointee. Doyle, in an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, said taking the DNR secretary position from his Cabinet and giving it to the Natural Resources Board “adds a layer of insulation between politics and resource decisions.” It almost goes without saying that Wisconsin’s natural resources are vital. Not only does the state’s environment play a large role in our quality of life, Wisconsin’s economy also depends on those natural resources. Tourism, for example, is heavily dependent on the perception that people have of the quality of Wisconsin’s lakes, rivers, forests and air. No one wants a DNR secretary who interprets the state’s environmental regulations so severely that business is crippled. But the state never has had such a secretary and probably never will. Will Fantle, president of Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, said there have been few instances of overt pressure exerted by the DNR secretary on the agency to conform to the governor’s agenda. But Fantle said he was pleased that Doyle announced that he will pursue a return to the board-appointed position. “He (Doyle) is living up to some of his campaign promises,” Fantle said. The interesting question will be the GOP reaction to Doyle’s proposal. On the one hand, it was the Republicans who pushed through giving the governor the ability to appoint the DNR secretary. But Doyle will be asking the Republicans who control the Legislature to diminish his gubernatorial power by removing the DNR secretary from his appointment list. “To me, that’s what makes it possible to pass this,” Fantle said. There is little question that Doyle’s proposal is favored by Wisconsin’s sportsmen. During last spring’s Conservation Congress hearings, restoring the DNR secretary to an appointed position was endorsed by 6,448 people who voted on a resolution, compared with only 238 who opposed the resolution. Former DNR Secretary Meyer, who left in February 2001 after a stormy tenure, made an appeal at his departure news conference for a return to the past. “To maintain public confidence in our natural resources programs, and to maintain the morale and the reputation of the department’s resource professionals, there must be a return to a board-appointed secretary system,” Meyer said. He’s right, and so is Doyle. Now it will be up to the Republicans who control the Legislature to hear the same message. -- Doug Mell, managing editor