No, the big business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) really hasn't changed its name, but it appears the "W" in their name may now stand for "Walker."

There is an eerie parallel between the WMC's Reform Initiatives" paper and Governor Walker's December 21 regulatory reform info paper.

For example, WMC wants to get state agencies out of the way of making sure businesses play by environmental protection rules.  Instead, WMC wants the governor to decide - and Walker agrees -- what rules should even be passed.  They both dress this up as getting around "unelected bureaucrats" (a term used by Walker four times in a two-page paper).  But from our perspective, environmental rule-making is actually pretty democratic in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin's Dept. of Natural Resources usually brings in parties affected by environmental rules to help design them - including public interest groups like the River Alliance.  We're not always happy with the outcome, because we think industry has undue influence in the current system, but we do get our say.  With Walker doing all the rule-making, developers and industries have a one-stop shop - the governor's office - to blow up rules they don't like.   Check both Walker's and WMC's hymnals to see how they are singing the same tune.

Wetlands are not specifically mentioned by WMC as rules that get in their way. But the real estate developers that Walker put at the top of the DNR -- Cathy Stepp and Matt Maroney - covered that base. Walker doesn't want developers to be bothered by saving small wetlands. Developers don't like wetlands: they get in the way of building wherever they want, and there's nothing in a two-acre wetland you can really hunt or fish for, so what good are they?

Given the new administration's eminently sensible push to create jobs, maybe what they're thinking about wetlands is putting people to work to clean up flooded homes and cities, as more flooding is one result of paving over wetlands.

Virgil Miller, waterfront resident and PACRS member, goes for the green on the Wisconsin River, August 2008.

If, like our friends the Petenwell and Castle Rock Stewards (PACRS), you live near green, algae-choked waterways, cleaning them up, already complicated and difficult, will get even harder under the new governor's proposals. The first target of Walker's regulatory house-cleaning will be the recently approved rule to limit phosphorus. It is a common component of runoff into waterways from farm fields and streets that in excess amounts causes the algae blooms, some toxic, that lake and river users find offensive.

No one likes slimy green lakes, but for the PACRS and other folks who live on and operate businesses on the shores of polluted lakes and streams, it is a serious economic threat. In a recent interview with the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, PACRS board member Tom Koren put a price tag on the cost of business due to unchecked phosphorus pollution: "There's millions of dollars in revenue lost because of this."