Wisconsin: "Walker, GOP Reversing Green Initiatives"

"Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature have moved quickly to weaken a string of environmental and energy programs as they contend with a budget deficit and make economic development their top priority.

The governor and GOP lawmakers have pushed more than a dozen initiatives that would reverse the course set by Democrats when they held power.

Among the changes:

-- Trying to eliminate mandatory requirements for recycling and the subsidies to local government that went with it.

-- Weakening the state's commitment to wind power by making it more difficult for developers to meet siting requirements.

-- Canceling a major state contract to burn homegrown biomass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

-- Delaying costly water pollution rules to control weed-producing phosphorus in waterways."

Lee Bergquist and Thomas Content report for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel May 7, 2011.