Glenn Grothman: an imprudent approach to garters.

Hi folks,

Oh and about the Butler's Garter snake: JCRAR voted 7-2 to rescind the order removing the snake from the threatened species list. What was interesting to me about this is Glenn's voting with the majority against his earlier point of view.

He told the Journal:

Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), a critic of the DNR's handling of the issue, said he was satisfied that the agency was making progress to accommodate private landowners.

This was all true earlier in the summer. Were the people he'd previously, and bizarrely, dismissed as "so-called" scientists suddenly right? and -- anyway, oh heck. See the previously posted catalogue of Glenn posturing.

Anyway, breathe easier for the little guys. What's good for Butler's Gartersnake is good for Wisconsin -- including our children and grand children.

This sort of thing is yet another example of a lack of either prudence or temperance in Glenn's manipulation of the legislative process.


hiho
Mpeterson

Glenn Grothman: wrong on state law.

Hi folks,

Strange words coming out of the junior Senator in Madison this week.

Hearings were held about the Butler's garter snake and, as you can note from some of the comments we've had posted here, a lot of snake experts from around the state (and country now) want to know:

"What the heck is up with this Glenn Grothman guy?"

Apparently during the hearings Glenn was consistently sarcastic and snide about the use of "scientific evidence" to make decisions about wildlife management, and why experts mattered when it came to making decisions like whether a species is "threatened" or not -- which is, for starters, bad manners. And apparently he kept asserting that he didn't believe the snake was rare enough to be threatened.

Unfortunately the DNR cannot enforce the law based on Glenn's beliefs, and neither should they.

Strangest of all, he repeatedly asked the DNR representative "What gives you the authority to tell people what they can do on their land?"

This is strange, of course, because Glenn gives the DNR the authority to tell people what they can do on their land -- the Legislature does. In fact, technically, the DNR doesn't so much "have" the authority to enforce state and federal laws... it "is" the authority.

And the DNR has a choice: they can enforce our environmental laws based on science or based on what Glenn believes.

I'm still okay with the DNR using science, even when it inconveniences Glenn's friends.


[this is starting to make me dizzy. anybody else?]

hiho
Mpeterson