Monday, November 30, 2015

Walker's corporate foot soldier AG Schimel abandons law for Capitalism

In one of the most partisan and embarrassing opinion pieces, Attorney General Brad Schimel admits in a Journal Sentinel editorial “Why Wisconsin is suing the EPA,” that he’s there to protect business special interests. And he's got a long list of non-legal reasons why he's supporting Scott Walker's lawsuit.

The following list of purely political justification by Schimel to waste taxpayer money on a lawsuit against the EPA is really jaw dropping. Let's start with his killer opening paragraph:
A lump of Coal this Christmas?
JS: As a strong supporter of capitalism and the free market, certainly I don't begrudge former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg his billions of dollars. I do find it ironic, though, that a man who fuels a private jet and heats his penthouse advocates for federal regulation that will significantly raise electricity rates and kill jobs in Wisconsin.
What in gods name does Bloomberg's private jets have to do with coal pollution? Also keep in mind, the PSC has now dramatically raised rates twice, in the last two years, with no Walker administration objections. In fact, Walker whined that electric bills could jump as much as 29% if the EPA rules go into affect. Yet the PSC raised the fixed rate charge for electricity by more the 80% using good old dirty coal.

Schimel's got every GOP talking point down to the letter. Perhaps he thinks if he says it, that must make it legal:
As one of the top manufacturing states in the country, Wisconsin has much to lose if the Obama administration succeeds in its plan to destroy the viability of clean-coal electric generation.

We in Wisconsin have been and continue to be responsible environmental stewards while also protecting jobs. 

Not only will the EPA rule cause the U.S. to lose jobs to countries such as China and India, but the repercussions of the EPA rule actually may result in increased global carbon dioxide emissions. If American manufacturing jobs move to China and India, both of which rely heavily on uncontrolled coal-fired plants, there is a real potential that carbon dioxide emissions, along with emissions that actually do qualify as "pollution" under the Clean Air Act, will increase globally.
One more thing, Democratic AG's suing are doing so by order of their Republican governors, so it isn't really "bipartisan:"
 ...if the coalition of Republican and Democrat state attorneys general do not succeed in their challenge to the EPA's edict. 

3 comments:

  1. Funny how he goes after the EPA in the name of the "free market", but won't lift a finger to look into all the sketchipness at WEDC, which is as far away from market capitalism as you can get.

    This guy is getting very close to the recall zone, both for corruption, and for incompetence

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  2. Didn't Walker guaranty Weenergies a 10% profit? Don't they think that will affect utility bills?

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    1. On a related note, WE Energies just announced a nice bump in their dividend today. Nice scam, isn't it?

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