The Capital Times from Madison, Wisconsin • 12

Let the people have the truth and the freedom to discuss it and all will go well. William T. Ev)ue, founding editor and publisher 12A The Capital Times Thursday, May 3, 2001 Our readers Sound Off! HAPRAP.r Maybe we should tell UMilDHUEi other states that well only accept their garbage if they have mandatory recycling laws. ENERCY POLICY S' who said that the oil companies donations of big bucks to George W. Bush is the cause for todays higher gas prices, thats not the true answer.

In reality, it was eight years of no energy policy by the Clinton-Gore administration that has put us in the pickle we find ourselves today. We need to explore, produce and transport more and cheaper petroleum to the ultimate user if we are going to see prices come down. Im outraged by Bushs proposed energy policy. Regarding nuclear energy, we must not forget the disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and many of the less publicized disasters. We must also remember that we still dont know what to do with the spent toxic fuels, and they will go on forever.

I recommend conservation and maybe even a change in lifestyle so we are not so dependent on gas. Also, invest in renewable energies. MARGARET KROME Save wetlands, cut flooding clude fishing, hunting, birding and other groups. It seems that quite a lot of people like geese and fish. But could supporters also be looking at the very practical fiscal impact of protecting wetlands? Hydrologists estimate that restoring just 3 percent of the wetlands in the Upper Mississippi River watershed (13 million acres) could store most of that rivers floodwaters.

The rationale to maintain revenue caps on school districts is always to protect the property taxpayer. Where is it written in stone that schools must be funded by the property tax? Michigan did away with this funding system. Minnesota has an alternative. How about going back to a progressive income tax in Wisconsin? )If you like to dislike environmentalists, no issue will so surely frizzle your hair as wetlands protection. For some, its patently obvious wmmm that championing wetlands takes environmental values to an absurd extremity.

To actually protect them is an impractical, mosquito-infested, unsafe waste of taxpayers money a sentimental exercise in finding wonderful nature even in natures wastelands. To many a developer, for example, marshy wetlands are a costly exasperation, getting smack in the way of building really pretty, lucrative waterfront properties, and wetlands that only periodically get wet look like such promising home sites, if only one could get past those environmentalists trying to chain themselves to a sedge meadow. Certainly, that point of view has found sympathy in the environmentally hostile Bush administration, whose budget for fiscal year 2002 includes the elimination of the U.S. Department of Agricultures Wetlands Reserve Program, a program that pays farmers for permanent or 30-year conservation easements to restore wetlands. Wetlands are also a low priority for the conservative majority on the U.S.

Supreme Court, as demonstrated in January by an unexpected decision that left about 1 million of Wisconsins isolated wetlands unprotected. In an effort to be broadminded, some wetlands opponents will concede that wetlands offer important habitat for fish, geese and other waterfowl. If you like geese. But wetlands play crucial roles in things that most Wisconsinites care about such as clean drinking water and flood protection. Wetlands act as both a big water filter and a sponge, soaking up water during a flood.

An acre of wetlands is estimated to store up to 5 acre-feet or 1.66 million gallons of floodwater, depending on the type of wetland. Restoring prairie and wetland habitat with small detention ponds can reduce 100-year floods by up to 39 percent. Wisconsin has just taken a major step toward a more enlightened view. Tuesday afternoon, state senators unanimously approved a bill to confer state protection on the isolated wetlands threatened by the Supreme Courts decision. This legislation was hotly negotiated between developers and wetland advocates, which is to say that it was created in the real world.

The Assembly is expected to address the issue in a special session, and Gov. Scott McCallum has pledged to sign it quickly. Champions of this bill in WOMENS HOOPS Zlll aiTl- cle on UW Coach Jane Albright just touched the surface. Her teams dont play defense, they dont know how to box out, they have way too many turnovers. She recruits well, but she basically cant coach.

1 think its time for Coach Jane to leave Wisconsin. Lets get someone who can coach the girls. RAVES UT the caller who thinks raves should not be held in public places, many of us support raves at public venues. When raves are underground there is not security like there is in public places. If youre so concerned about drug use, why wouldnt you want a rave to take place at a legal venue where drug task force and medical personnel are on the scene to help keep people safe? Views of The Capital Times Feingold's green duty When he cast a lonely Democratic vote in support of former Missouri senator John Ashcrofts nomination to serve as President George W.

Bushs attorney general, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, said he was doing so because he believed that Ashcroft would not let his right-wing ideology prevent him from enforcing the laws of the land. When it became evident that Feingold would cast a pro-Ashcroft vote, he took a great deal of criticism for his position from traditional backers, including this editorial page. But he held firm, arguing that he trusted Ashcroft to keep the promise he made in his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee: to rise above petty politics in order to serve the interests of all Americans.

Just to clarify that commitment, Judiciary Committee members asked if Ashcroft would use his position to' defend environmental rules put in place by former President Bill Clinton. If it is a rule with the force and effect of law, I will defend those cases," Ashcroft told the committee, when senators inquired about his position on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that would prevent development on BO million acres of national forest. (Among the forests protected is Wisconsins 1. 52-million-acre Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Roughly 92.5 percent of that forest is open for industrial uses, and the remaining 7.5 percent are unlikely to be preserved without the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.) Ashcrofts statement to the Judiciary Committee sounded like an ironclad commitment.

And it had to have had real meaning for Feingold an environmentalist with a well-documented passion for preservation of the Chequamegon and Nicolet forests who cast the only Democratic vote on the evenly split committee for Ashcroft. As the Bush-Ashcroft administration passes its 100-day mark, however, there is mounting evidence that the attorney general has decided to break his promise. First, the Bush administration moved to delay implementation of the roadless rule from March until May. Then, when the Boise Cascade timber corporation and the state of Idaho sued to overturn the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Ashcrofts Justice Department filed papers with a federal court in Idaho indicating that it did not intend to defend the rule. So dramatic was Ashcrofts abdication of the Justice Departments responsibility to defend rules with the force of law that Federal Judge Edward Lodge had to prod the administration to make clear its position on the forest protection measure.

Lodge gave the Justice Department until May 12 when the rules are to take effect to clarify whether it will defend the rule. Environmentalists believe a decision could come before May 12 perhaps as soon as Friday and they are dubious about whether Bush and Ashcroft will take the side of the forests. For Feingold, who has one of the finest environmental records in the Senate, the forest protection fight provides a rare opportunity to exercise what influence he may have over the attorney general. A clear commitment was made to the Senate Judiciary Committee by John Ashcroft. Russ Feingold trusted Ashcroft at the time.

Now, Feingold has a duty to hold Ashcroft to his word. And if Ashcroft proves to have been a liar, Feingold should call him on it. Loudly. Publicly. And with all of the fury that can be mustered by a senator who went out on a political limb for an attorney general who promised not to use the Justice Department as an ax for chopping down environmental lthough Wisconsin has destroyed almost half of the wetlands historically within its borders and has degraded still others, at least it hasnt permitted the degree of damage found in other Midwestern states such as Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, states that consistently sustain some of the worst damage from major floods.

Protecting the wetlands that remain and restoring others is smart insurance against flooding, and it will save the state and nation billions in flood damage. Federal policy-makers would be advised to heed Wisconsins example. When the time comes for Congress to vote on funding levels later this year, they should not only oppose President Bushs cuts to the Wetlands Reserve Program but save taxpayers billions of dollars by actively expanding it. Margaret Krome is a Madison writer. If you want to comment about a current issue, just call Sound Off at 252-6434 and tell us what you think.

Please speak clearly and slowly when leaving your message. Comments must be brief and kept to a single topic. JOHN NICHOLS Assembly Dems return to their roots schools and Ed Garvey. In other words, Siss was a perfect candidate for the hardscrabble communities of southwest Wisconsin. But she didn't fit the candidate profile of the caucus.

So she was abandoned by the Assembly Democratic caucus, and she lost. Notably, however, the 48 percent of the vote she received was a significantly better showing than those posted by many of the caucuss preferred candidates. When Assembly Democrats debated whether to remove Krug and shift the direction of the caucus, the common theme was frustration with a lack of policy direction and electoral savvy displayed by leaders who could not seem to recognize the inherent appeal of a candidate such as Arlene Siss he primary responsibility for any minority caucus is to cease being the minority caucus. If Black and Kreuser create a caucus that respects and aids candidates like Arlene Siss as they say they will they will meet that responsibility. The primary responsibility for any legislative minority caucus is to cease being the minority caucus.

Yet, for the better part of a decade, this simple political wisdom has somehow eluded the leadership of Wisconsins Assembly Democrats. Under the leadership of a pair of cautious and sometimes conservative Milwaukee Democrats Walter Kunicki and then Shirley Krug the party's Assembly caucus declined in membership and influence during the 1990s, culminating in the disastrous results of the 2000 election. Reduced to a mere 43 seats in a legislative house they dominated through the 1970s and 1980s with majorities as high as 67-32, Assembly Democrats found themselves in the political wilderness. On Tuesday, after weeks of quiet maneuvering by Assembly Democrats, Krug was removed as minority leader. The caucus voted 27-16 to give the top job to Rep.

Spencer Black, D-Madison, while elevating state Rep. Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha, to the assistant minority leader slot. Black is the Legislatures leading environmentalist. Kreuser is an old-style labor Democrat from a town where the most coveted endorsement is still that of the United Auto Workers. On the surface, this pair would appear to have little in common, yet they won support from a broad coalition of Democratic legislators that included women and minority legislators from Milwaukee, Madison progressives and rural representatives from central and northwest Wisconsin.

What Black and Kreuser offered their fellow legislators was leadership that respected the historic diversity of Wisconsins Democratic Party, as opposed to the poll-driven, consultant-defined, one-size-fits-all approach imposed by the Democratic Leadership Council and its local allies. In other w'ords, they offered Wisconsin Democrats the flexibility they need to start winning again. Krug and her close ally, state Rep. Antonio Riley, D-Milwaukee, proudly aligned themselves with the DLC, a Southern-dominated conservative group that has worked for 15 years to move the Democratic Party toward Republican positions on fundamental economic and social justice issues. Once described by the Rev.

Jesse Jackson as Democrats for the Leisure Class, the DLC seeks to link the party with corporate groups while challenging the influence of unions, working farmers, minority communities and womens rights advocates. Following the DLC line, Krug and Riley sided with conservatives on issues such as school choice. As at the national level, the rise of DLC influence in Wisconsin has coincided with a marked decline in voter support for Democrats seeking legislative seats. Thus, in counties that have voted Democrat on a consistent basis since the 1940s, the party has been losing legislative seats. Down in Grant and Lafayette counties, where top-ticket Democrats regularly win, for instance, the caucus failed to provide even minimal support to its Assembly candidate, Arlene Siss.

What was wrong with Siss in the eyes of the corporate campaigners? She was small-town a Platteville School Board member with deep roots in her community and a homey, share-some-recipes style. And she was progressive an old-fashioned Democrat who didnt mind saying she believed in labor unions, family farms, public John Nichols is editorial page editor for The Capital Times. EDITORIAL SECTION PHONES E-MAIL TO WRITE TO US tctvoicemadison.com The Capital Times Company Frederick W. Miller Chairman ot the Board Clayton Frink Dave Zweifel Preaident and CEO Vice President, Editorial ThsCcpitcITimss Clayton Frink, Publisher Dave Zwelfel, Editor Editorial Board: The editorial positions of The Capital Times are Shaped by Dave Zweifel, Phil Haslanger, John Nichols, Judie Kleinmaier, Linda Brazill, Jacob Stockmger and Samara Kalk. Voice of the People The CapitalTimes P.O.

Box 8060 Madison, Wl 53708 Dave Zweifel, editor 252-6410 John Nichols, editorial page editor 252-6482 Linda Brazill, editorial writer 252-6424 FAX 252-6445 THE CAPITAL TIMES WEB SITE www.captimes.com Nancy B. Gage Director John H. lussler Secretary and Treasurer I I.