Effort, again, to separate head of Wisconsin DNR and Gov. Scott Walker

The DNR removed human involvement
in climate change from website in Dec.

There is some effort again to make the head of the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources someone who is more independent of the governor.

A Democratic state senator is pushing to change back to the days when the natural resources secretary was appointed by the state natural resources board.

That is something that would be a refreshing change, says George Meyer, who was the last secretary to be appointed by the board in 1993.

Things, however, have changed a bunch since then.

“Clearly it has become a far more political agency,” Meyer said, adding the agency has become even more political in the years since Scott Walker became governor.

“It started to happen when the agency become a cabinet agency, but not nearly as much has happened in recent years,” Meyer said.

Following the Trump administration, back in Dec., the DNR removed references to carbon dioxide and human involvement in climate change from its website, instead saying its causes are “debatable.”  

acknowledging that the globe is warming to saying the earth is simply changing, “as it has done throughout the centuries.”

 

 

 

 

 

Meyer, who now heads the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, has also called returning to a board-appointed secretary model.

The proposal to take the DNR head out from under the governor’s thumb has failed a few times over the past several years and most observers believe it will again.