Frederica Freyberg:
First, who should pick the DNR secretary? Last year, legislators decided that the DNR board should. And that it should have firing power, too. So they passed a law that said so and sent it to Gov. Doyle. Doyle vetoed it. Next week, the Assembly will take a vote to override the veto. They will take override votes from two-thirds of the members present. Republican Assemblyman Dan LeMahieu says he’ll vote against the override. He joins us from Sheboygan. We're joined in Madison by former DNR Secretary George Meyer who served terms under both kinds of appointments in the 1990s, by board and by gubernatorial selection. Welcome.

Both:
Good to see you.

Frederica Freyberg:
For you, George Meyer. First, having served both ways, why do you think the DNR board should appoint the secretary?

George Meyer:
There's several reasons. We’ve seen that under the governor’s system there's been a revolving door of secretaries. Every three years we have a new secretary. The last couple secretaries have had no experience in natural resource management. And we have seen situations where there's some serious political direction into decision-making.

Frederica Freyberg:
I want to get back to one of those points on no experience. But now, you served as governor-appointed secretary. Were you politically motivated when you were the secretary?

George Meyer:
I was in a transition situation. I was first appointed by the board and then Gov. Thompson appointed me for two terms. When he reappointed me, we sat down and there was an agreement that I would function like I had as a board-appointed secretary. That was an agreement. Things have changed since then.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, Tony Earl came in. He did not have appreciable kind of environmental experience, did he?

George Meyer:
He didn’t. He was the only board appointed secretary that fits that category. Otherwise, generally they’ve been long-term natural resource professionals.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Rep. LeMahieu, tell us where you stand on this position.

Dan LeMahieu:
As you started in the introduction, I'm opposed to the change that, one of the main reasons for the change is we need to take politics out of the process. The bill that the governor vetoed actually puts politics back in. The original bill gives the DNR board the authority to make the appointment but then the Senate amended it to add Senate approval. So what we did is we took the power, the political power, away from the most powerful elected official in the state and gave to it the second most powerful, the senate majority leader who controls the calendar. We put the politics back in.

Frederica Freyberg:
Doesn't the governor appoint the members of the DNR board anyway?

Dan LeMahieu:
Yes, he does. That's another argument that, we're talking about the override and what we're overriding right now. But yes, the governor does appoint the board anyway and so the pressure would be on the board to appoint the governor's person anyway.

Frederica Freyberg:
George, go ahead.

George Meyer:
The importance of having the board is in fact you have some insulation on day-to-day operations so you don't have political intervention. Sec. Hassett was fired for taking enforcement action. That wouldn't happen under a board-appointed system. If I could address Dan's comments about Senate confirmation. There's a big difference on having the secretary get confirmed once every four years in terms of political involvement and the situation where you have a governor's office contacting the secretary and his staff on a daily basis making political decisions.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let me say on the Scott Hassett situation, that he’s quoted in the Lakeland Times in today’s edition saying that people tend to link his departure with politics too closely. I want to say that before I move to both of you what the governor tells us on this. The governor gave a statement today where he says, “The people in natural resources of Wisconsin are best served with a secretary appointed by the governor ensuring a direct line of accountability for citizens concerned about natural resource policy. With the strong backing of the governor we have undertaken significant measures to improve our environment, measures that could not have been achieved by a board-appointed secretary alone. We have taken the most effective steps to streamline regulations while maintaining high environmental standards. To go back to the old bureaucracy would harm Wisconsin’s ability to create jobs.” I’d like to have you both respond to that, starting with you, George Meyer.

George Meyer:
And Gov. Doyle supported this system for 14 years when he ran for office. So it's been a very light change. There's a boom in job creation in the 1980s and 1990s under a board-appointed secretary. The major pieces of environmental policy in this state are created when there's a board-appointed secretary working with a governor. As far as political interference, Sen. Hassett has told several of us exactly what happened in terms of his being terminated for taking inappropriate enforcement action.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Rep. LeMahieu, what about what the governor says about this accountability back to elected governor?

Dan LeMahieu:
The comment that he made that I'd like to comment on is the job creation. We have a DNR board through the regulatory process. It is making it hard for businesses to create jobs. We have a new board chairman that is a former member and leader of the Sierra Club. I don't see a lot of bright future for job creation if we continue down the road of over-regulating businesses through the process of DNR.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about the streamlining of regulations, which I know was implemented. That didn't help?

Dan LeMahieu:
It helps somewhat but we still have the regulations that are taking much longer for a business to add a new line of equipment than in other states. In some cases, it's easier to move your plant to other states instead of adding an addition on to your plant in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Rep. LeMahieu, even though you don't like politics on the process, how do you expect to vote on the override?

Dan LeMahieu:
I'm going to vote against the override. It’s always hard to say how you’re voting when it’s an override because you’re voting, and I will support the governor on the veto of this bill.

Frederica Freyberg:
George, this is somewhat of an uphill fight to get the override because there weren't that many votes for it in the first place. How many do you think you have to have?

George Meyer:
Well, we need two-thirds vote. It's going to be close. We're almost at two-thirds before. So we're very close.

Frederica Freyberg:
You have a couple at least.

Dan LeMahieu:
Actually the vote on the bill that the governor vetoed was 49-47 in the Assembly. When the minor amendment that George talks about was added to the bill, went up from 61 positive to 49 positive.

Frederica Freyberg:
We have to leave it there. We’ll be looking for the vote next week. Thanks.

George Meyer:
Thank you.