A message from Charlie Luthin,
Wisconsin Wetlands Association|
Legislature had included end-around in budget bill |
| 7/27/02 |
Governor McCallum's office has released an announcement indicating that the Governor will be vetoing the "wetland exemption" language intended for Ashley Furniture Company in the budget bill. This is an important victory for the environment and for our democratic system. There is absolutely NO DOUBT that the more than 1000 citizen responses to Governor McCallum asking for this veto were in great part responsible for his decision.
I assure you, the moneyed interests and Ashley Furniture lobbied hard FOR this exemption; the Legislature already approved the measure, as well. Earlier, McCallum had indicated that he would support the measure. However, citizens from throughout Wisconsin spoke out against this outrage, and the Governor has listened!
It is unfortunate that this issue has consumed the time, energy and financial resources that it has over the past three years. Our fight has included a 2-year lawsuit (won in August 2001 when a judge ruled that the wetland exemption was unconstitutional) and a massive publicity campaign to alert citizens of this special privilege for a corporate entity. The exemption would have been patently unfair to all citizens and other companies in Wisconsin, in that it provided a single entity (Ashley Furniture Industries) a special exemption from state law to fill 14 acres of floodplain wetlands.
Such an exemption makes a mockery of our state laws. This measure would have set a terrible precedent by allowing a company to skirt state environmental regulations. It is extraordinary that this measure made it as far as it did through the State Legislature!
Recently Ashley CEO Ron Wanek sent a letter to McCallum indicating that Ashley was NOT going to apply for the wetland exemption in light of the intense public scrutiny this project has received and the strong environmental response. They indicated that they were moving their expansion to Mississippi (where environmental laws are lax, and where they have cheaper labor and more ready access to raw materials). [It must be noted that Ashley never applied for a permit to fill their wetland; they tried instead to get approval through the legislative process.]
McCallum used the Ashley disinterest in the exemption in his statement justifying the veto. McCallum also indicated that he is asking for a review of the regulatory system to better facilitate the permitting process, what he calls a "one-stop" process. This is a warning that we will need to be vigilant of well-monied interests trying to weaken our wetland laws and the regulatory process in the coming months. We shall keep you informed.
In the meantime, THANK YOU to all who sent their concerns about the Ashley exemption to legislators and to the Governor. Your efforts paid off. This veto alleviates the need to file yet another time-consuming and costly lawsuit--to protect and uphold the laws of the State of Wisconsin from the actions of our own lawmakers!
Let's hope this is the end of the "Ashley Furniture Saga," once and for all.
