Conservationists are a giving a thumbs down to the latest Wisconsin legislative session.
While dealing with COVID-19 steered much of the legislative session, one conservation group says needed bipartisan legislation lingered.
After each legislative session, Wisconsin Conservation Voters puts out a scorecard, rating each legislator on how they voted, from the group's view, on key conservation issues.
Spokesperson Ryan Billingham says they didn't see much good news...
"Essentially, there's not a lot of highlights. It really was a major disappointment particularly under the lens of conservation priorities..."
Those priorities include clean water, clean energy, democracy. Billingham says particularly disappointing was the inactivity ...
"Most egregious of that, there wasn't a single clean water bill addressing the root causes of pollution passed. There wasn't even a single public hearing held on addressing climate change. I'd like to outline a lot of highlights. Unfortunately, there were none..."
Billingham says the Assembly worked early to put together clean water legislation after legislators were hearing from constituents in the farming areas where groundwater was being polluted. Billingham says Speaker Robin Vos put a Task Force together that held meetings across the state. He says the public appears to be solidly behind drinking water reforms. He says everything stalled when it got to the floor of the legislature.
More information is at conservationvoters.org
