Republicans Pass on Social Disease to Mfgr's.

Until the widespread added-value of graft and corruption was discovered under the Dome in Madison, Wisconsin's manufacturing was the economic sector which reliably threw off the most cash--into payroll, benefits, suppliers, and tax coffers.

Now, having discovered that manufacturing is no longer important to Legislative campaign coffers, the Republican caucus has decided to infect it with....ah....the Social Disease de jour: paying for someone else's pollution activity.


"A proposed amendment sponsored by the Sierra Club to the ethanol mandate
legislation would deal a crippling blow to Wisconsin’s manufacturing base. The amendment to
Assembly Bill 15 would statutorily require Wisconsin businesses to clean up air pollution
created by burning ethanol.

“This would be the first time in state history that the legislature would force businesses to clean
up pollution they didn’t create,” said Scott Manley, Environmental Policy Director for Wisconsin
Manufacturers & Commerce. “The financial costs and job losses associated with this
amendment would be devastating to our state’s job providers.”

The Sierra Club reports that it negotiated the amendment with Rep. Stephen Freese (R-Hazel Green), who is the lead Assembly sponsor of the bill to mandate all gasoline sold in Wisconsin contain 10 percent ethanol. Freese’s amendment would require industry to reduce ozone forming emissions to compensate for the pollution created by burning ethanol in cars and other engines.

“It sends a terrible message to current and prospective employers that Wisconsin will force
businesses to clean up pollution they didn’t create. In many respects, the Freese amendment
unravels the important reforms enacted in the Job Creation Act,” said Manley.

[snip]

This cost is relevant to the ethanol mandate because a September, 2005 report issued by the DNR indicated that the mandate would increase NOx pollution by about 2 percent. BBC forecasts 4,000 jobs lost due to the mandate.

“We’re going to lose jobs if this bill passes, and the amendment negotiated between Freese and
the Sierra Club will guarantee those job loses on a statewide basis,” Manley said. “The
legislature cannot allow this bill to cripple our manufacturing base when we already have the
fifth-highest taxes in the nation and a liability crisis in our state. How many reasons will we give
employers to locate elsewhere?”

Earlier this week, WMC released the findings of a report showing which concluded that forcing
utilities to clean up ethanol pollution would cause utility rates to skyrocket

We have Republicans who are so scared of WEAC that they will continue to support taxation-without-representation (the Tech School Boards.) We have Republicans who, until put under enormous and forceful pressure, were perfectly happy with taxation-without-representation in the auto-gas-tax-increase. And now we have Republicans who have tossed manufacturing overboard (evidently WMC didn't pony up enough campaign cash, eh?) because Archer-Daniels-Midland wants to jam Corn-A-Hole up Wisconsin motorists' .....gas tanks.

And these jackasses expect support from us?

One more thing: note carefully the "utilities" line in WMC's release. If you think for ONE SECOND that the "utilities" will pay those costs, instead of passing them on to YOU--you've spent far too many years on your home planet, wherever it may be.

HT: Wigderson and Wheeler Report