Assembly Passes Mining Bill
On Thursday, the State Assembly passed on a party line 59 to 36 vote legislation that would allow for the creation of an iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin.
Assembly Republicans heralded the bill as that will create jobs across the state while Democrats said the bill would cause harm to the state's environment.
The wide-ranging bill would establish a 12-month pre-application period in which a mining company would submit notification of mining plans and a description of the project. After the original notification, the DNR would have to have at least one meeting with the applicant to analyze the project. Within 60 days of that meeting, the DNR would have to provide a written summary of needed approvals, environmental impact report requirements and other information (www.wispolitics.com).
The bill also includes provisions that state that a company could submit an application, which the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) would have to consider complete within 30 days, unless the agency provided notice of what information is missing. Moreover, once the application is complete, the DNR would have to act on the application within 360 days. That timeline is only extended if related permit and approval applications are submitted more than 60 days after the DNR calls the permit application complete. The overall timeline would then be extended by the number of days after the initial 60-day window (www.wispolitics.com).
"This definitely is the biggest jobs thing we're going to do" this legislative session, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) said during the several hour debate on the contentious bill. "These aren't jobs that can pick up and go to China or India," he said. "The iron ore is in our ground, in Wisconsin."
Democrats, environmentalists and many tribal leaders oppose the legislation and have criticized it for, among other things, weakening water protections and reducing public participation in the review process (www.jsonline.com).
"It'll destroy our wild rice fields and run right into our watershed, and we'll be the ones affected by it," said Eldred Corbine, a member of the tribal council of the Bad River band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Passage of the controversial bill could prove to much more difficult in the state Senate where the Republicans only control the chamber by a slim 17 to 16 vote margin. A date of when the bill will be on the Senate floor has not been scheduled as of this writing.
If the mine is approved, the company that will build the mine has said that the mine would employ about 700 workers and operate in its first phase over about 4 1/2 miles and reach depths of up to 1,000 feet, which would make it the largest such mine in the state's history (www.jsonline.com).
