Wisconsin treasurer bans climate change talk by public lands workers

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Wednesday April 08, 2015 · 10:12 AM PDT

2015/04/08 · 10:12

Wisconsin continues its southward slide.

Discussing climate change is out of bounds for workers at a state agency in Wisconsin. So is any work related to climate change—even responding to e-mails about the topic.
A vote on Tuesday by Wisconsin’s Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, a three-member panel overseeing an agency that benefits schools and communities in the state, enacted the staff ban on climate change. “It’s not a part of our sole mission, which is to make money for our beneficiaries,” said State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, a Republican who sits on the board. “That’s what I want our employees working on. That’s it. Managing our trust funds.”

. . . .

Today it helps fund school libraries and makes loans to Wisconsin communities. The agency continues to receive some income from the timber industries. That makes climate change, as it affects the forests of Wisconsin, relevant at least in some part to the long-term health of the board.

http://www.bloomberg.com/...

According to the article, this appears to be an effort by the treasurer, who cast the deciding vote, to get even with the board's executive director, Tia Nelson, daughter of one of the great environmentalist senator's, Gaylord Nelson, for work done during the Doyle Administration.

Leave it to a descendent of another great progressive Wisconsin senator to sum up things:

Wisconsin Secretary of State Douglas La Follette, a Democrat, sits on the board with Adamczyk and Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican. In a previous meeting, La Follette said antagonism toward Nelson came close to the “edge of an irresponsible witch hunt.”
The move to ban an issue leaves staff at the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands in the unusual position of not being able to speak about how climate change might affect lands it oversees. “Having been on this board for close to 30 years, I’ve never seen such nonsense,” La Follette said in the conference call on Tuesday. He voted against the measure. “We’ve reached the point now where we’re going to try to gag employees from talking about issues. In this case, climate change. That’s as bad as the governor of Florida recently telling his staff that they could not use the words ‘climate change.’”

Unfortunately, these days, Wisconsin is following the tradition of Joe McCarthy rather than Nelson or La Follette.

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