Responses to Sierra Club Questionnaire

2010 SIERRA CLUB WI LEGISLATIVE CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

 
 
BEN MANSKI
Assembly District # 77

www.VoteManski.com
Ph: 608 616 0377

P.O. Box 260217
Madison, WI 53726-0217
 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLATFORM

1.         In terms of environmental issues, what sets you apart from other candidates?

As a matter of strategy, I have long understood some things to be true. First, never compromise your position before getting to the table. Second, the best defense is a good offense. Third, the most significant obstacle to achieving an ecological society is not the American people, it is American politics. Fourth, David Brower was right when he said, “Realistic' is a loaded word for me; anyone who uses the word 'realistic' is all bad.”

As a matter of environmental policy, I have already, in my first week of campaigning, provided the most detailed platform of any of the candidates in this race. A shift to a green economy is among the main planks of my campaign.

As seen on my campaign website at http://votemanski.com/green-economy . . .

Wisconsin’s first peoples -- the Anishinabe (Ojibwe), Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Menominee, Oneida, Potawatomi, and Munsee Stockbridge Mohicans -- have in their traditions the idea that it its the duty of the present generation to look out for the interests of generations to come, generation after generation, onto the seventh generation. It’s a good idea.

To get there, we must today build an economy that:

• Relies on renewable energy -- wind, solar, biomass, geothermal -- not on coal, petroleum, or nuclear sources that are finite and poison our air, land, and waters -- and children.
• Makes Wisconsin the national leader in green business growth. When Americans hear talk of Fair Trade, organic, locally and/or worker owned and operated, union made, closed loop, cradle to grave, transparency -- you name it -- they should think, “Wisconsin.”
• Restores transportation choice to Wisconsinites by prioritizing, in concert with other upper Great Lakes states, a dense regional network of efficient, low-impact, mass transportation. Also expands non-motorized transportation alternatives (bike, foot) between communities.
• Not only honors our treaties with Wisconsin’s American Indian nations, but also strengthens intercultural and economic ties with the nations on the basis of Fair Trade and a commitment to sustainability.
• Puts family farm preservation, cooperative development, and ecotourism and eco-agrotourism at the center of our rural jobs creation and preservation policies.
• Moves away from a dehumanizing view of animals and other living beings as mere “inputs and outputs,” and which strengthens existing legal protections for animals against cruelty and mistreatment.

2.         What aspects of your personal history, accomplishments, and personal philosophy make you the best possible choice for Sierra Club endorsement in this election cycle?

I have enjoyed working with so many of you over the years -- Dave, Shahla, Caryl, Liz, Bev, Al, Don, Jim, Marilyn, Gary, Lisa, Steve, Laura, Bruce, John, Josh, and many others. For those to whom I may be new, my organizing history includes positions on the staffs of Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (Mining Organizer), Greenpeace (Field Director), and Campus Greens USA (National Director). I served as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. I served in the Student Environmental Action Coalition’s speakers bureau, and was active with both Student Environmental Action Coalition and Earth First! in organizing civil disobedience against the proposed Exxon mine at Crandon, Highway 12 expansion, rBGH, the Hanford facility in Washington, and in defense of the Cove Mallard wilderness, as well as of tribal sovereignty claims across the upper midwest and pacific northwest. Today I am a public interest lawyer, and represent individuals and groups taking those same kinds of personal risks on behalf of wildlands and future generations.

The reality is that I have been an environmental activist since a very early age -- since primary and middle school. I have taken personal and career risks aplenty in my advocacy. Perhaps some of those risks were unwise in their dangerousness. But I am proud of the risks I took and the accomplishments I can point to. And they are evidence to the claim that you will be able to count on me not only to remain constant and true to our common agenda, but to work relentlessly and to deliver positive results.

I will be your most reliable vote, voice, and advocate in the Wisconsin State Legislature, and will raise the bar for our other allies there. I have devoted my life to social change work, and have been a green activist for over twenty five years. Wisconsin’s environmental movement must respond decisively to the recent Green Energy Jobs Act debacle. My election to the Assembly will provide an effective response.

TRANSPORTATION

Studies show that building more highways will not alleviate traffic congestion and demonstrate that new or larger highways serve to increase traffic through “induced demand” (if you build it they will come).

3.         Will you support changes in the budget of the Department of Transportation to change current funding (80% highways: 20% local aid and transit) to shift towards a more equitable balance that increases funding for non-highway priorities such as urban mass transit, rail, pedestrian facilities and bicycle commuting routes?  In what specific ways?

If we are to have any hope of confronting the threat of global climate change, our use of public transportation and human-power transportation must be massively and rapidly increased. I am a bike commuter, and my favorite pastimes include hiking and trekking. In the 1990s, I was the Wisconsin contact for the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium. I favor a transportation policy dictated by common sense and sound public policy, not be some weighing of interests between a rising constituency (green commuters) and the transportation establishment.

Specifically, I support improvements in bus service, including the use of Bus Rapid Transit, as used in cities like Boulder, Colorado, which permits a rapid and extremely cost-effective expansion in mass transit. We should also be looking into ways that the state can support the expansion of inter-city bus service to build on the excellent service now being offered by Van Gelder and Badger bus lines, to reach all of Wisconsin’s cities, many of which will never be candidates for high-speed rail. I support a high-speed rail on a Minneapolis-Madison-Milwaukee corridor, and I also support commuter rail, with the caveat that the high cost of commuter rail must never result in the cannibalization of bus service, as happened with the construction of the Los Angeles County Metro system. And I support expanded state funding for regional bike commuter systems for metros exceeding 12,500 population, as well as expedited support for completion of the Ice Age Trail, and the development of a dedicated trail lodging system.

4.         Would you oppose diverting sales tax revenues on the sale or use of vehicles to the segregated Transportation Fund?  Currently, the revenues are deposited in General Revenues.

Yes. So long as WisDOT’s blood runs asphalt gray, yes.

5.         Will you support full funding for Wisconsin’s share of regional high speed rail as well as commuter rail projects?

Yes.

Regional Transit Authorities(RTA) are an important tool for local governments that facilitate sustainable and sensible transportation planning.

6.         Will you support legislation that allows local communities to form Regional Transit Authorities and allows them to raise dedicated funds, including sales taxes, for this purpose?

With great enthusiasm. Support for RTA formation, and, locally, for our own proposed RTA, is so commonsensical as to be a litmus test for green candidates. I also favor enabling municipalities, counties, and districts to establish, by popular vote, more progressive forms of taxation and revenue generation, including local income and wheel taxes.

SPRAWL

It is widely believed that sprawl development is diminishing the quality of life in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin’s Smart Growth law reduces sprawl by promoting sensible land use planning.

7.          Will you protect the Smart Growth law and oppose attempts to reduce or gut the law?

A great Wisconsin strategist often said that, “the best defense is a good offense.” Vince was right. The best way to protect Wisconsin’s existing Smart Growth regime is to expand and deepen it. We can expand it by increasing the size and availability of Smart Growth grants. We should deepen it by strengthening popular participation and control of planning, using Participatory Budgeting (PB) as a model for empowering marginalized groups. This past November, my organization, Liberty Tree, co-organized the Future Cities 2009 conference, an event that explored the use of local democracy in achieving green goals. See: http://www.FutureCities2009.org

ENERGY FUTURE/GLOBAL WARMING

The 2008 Final Report of the Governor's Task Force on Global Warming contains numerous public policy recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while strengthening Wisconsin's economy.  http://dnr.wi.gov/environmentprotect/gtfgw/documents.html

8.         Will you support enacting an energy efficiency portfolio standard in Wisconsin that would require utilities to reduce electricity and natural gas load by 2% and 1% per year respectively? (pp.68-75)
          
Yes. And if there was a consensus among Wisconsin environmental leaders to go further than that, I would carry water for greater reductions as well.

9.         Will you support the Enhanced Renewable Portfolio Standards of 20% by 2020 and 25% by 2025? (p. 25)

Yes.

10.       Do you support offering incentives for small scale distributed renewable energy, which reduces transmission costs, supports small clean energy start-up businesses, and rewards smart consumer investments, such as guaranteed fair buyback rates offered by advanced renewable tariffs? Why or why not?

Yes. One of the beauties of small scale distributed renewables -- in addition to those named in your question -- is that they decentralize power, literally, and thus democratize the economy. With so many incentives and subsidies built into the dead energy sector, it is well past time that Wisconsin gave a leg up to living, democratic, and sustainable energy generation.

11.       Should Wisconsin overturn our current safeguards pertaining to waste storage and ratepayer protections required for nuclear power plant construction?

Absolutely not. These common-sense requirements have been in place for decades, and, along with the mining moratorium that I worked with you to achieve, represent the “crown jewels” of Wisconsin’s environmental law. They must never be traded away for a temporary gain in environmental regulation - as was proposed with last session’s Clean Energy Jobs Act.

We are at a turning point in Wisconsin’s energy future.  Our oldest, dirtiest, least efficient coal plants require expensive upgrades to comply with current and pending regulations.  Proposals for new coal burning plants would set our state in the wrong direction by burning more coal, instead of less and increasing pollution.

12.       Should Wisconsin ratepayers pay to upgrade our oldest and least efficient coal plants?

No. Those plants should be taken offline as quickly as the grid can bear.

13.       How would you support Wisconsin's transition beyond coal?

There is no such thing as “clean coal,” and nuclear power is neither clean, nor, despite its PR claims, renewable. A truly green energy policy will rely on a combination of wind, solar, post-industrial biomass, geothermal, and extensive conservation and energy efficiency initiatives. Moves by some claiming the “environmental” label to promote coal and nuclear power as a “responsible part of the energy mix” only serve to undercut momentum toward genuinely sustainable and ecological alternatives. We cannot afford that.

In addition to the many excellent initiatives discussed already, Wisconsin can begin to make the coal industry pay for its own funeral by implementing true cost taxation and eliminating subsidies; I like the idea of an “asthma tax” on coal, ethanol, and gas petrol, for example. Additionally, the reality of fossil fuel use in a non-production state like Wisconsin is that in terms of state domestic product, every dollar spent on fossil fuels is a dollar lost to the state economy. Seen from this perspective, the sooner we transition from coal, the sooner we stop bleeding cash.

While landfill gas or methane from digesters are appropriate renewable energy resources, new proposals for plasma gasification and pyrolysis of materials have never been successfully deployed in the US.  These new technologies reduce renewable re-use and recovery, compete with legitimate renewable energy developments and result in harmful emissions from waste combustion.

14.       Would you oppose any policies to allow waste combustion (i.e. through incineration, plasma gasification, pyrolysis) to count towards Wisconsin’s renewable portfolio standards?

Absolutely.

HABITAT PROTECTION

Wisconsin has drained more than half its wetlands and this has led to water pollution and flooding.  The loss of old growth forest and increased habitat fragmentation has led to biodiversity losses, vast increases in deer populations and decreases in natural forest regeneration.

15.       Will you support full funding for implementation of the WDNR Wetland Action Plan (“Reversing the Loss”) by the state and work to secure federal funding for restoration and monitoring of Wisconsin wetlands?

Yes.

16.       Will you support increasing designations, protections (such as increasing cutting restrictions in riparian areas or places known to house threatened and endangered species) and private landowner incentives for conserving state-owned old growth forests in Wisconsin (defined as naturally reproducing forests that are at least 10 acres in size and 125 years in age)?

Yes. I have to admit that it was only when I moved back to Wisconsin, after several years of campaigning to save Oregon and Idaho old growth from clearcutters and selective harvesting, that I first realized how impoverished our forests have become.

DNR

17.       Would you support legislation that would restore the DNR as an independent agency with a Secretary appointed by the Natural Resources Board rather than by the Governor?

I was a leading opponent of the attempts by Gov. Thompson and later governors to gut accountability at the DNR, and I fully support restoring authority over the DNR Secretary to the elected NRB. I will also advocate for a fully restored and expanded Office of the Public Intervener, as well as the empowerment of the Secretary of State to act as an ombudsperson on behalf of the public interest.

STEWARDSHIP FUND

18.      Do you support or oppose full funding in the biennial state budget for the Knowles-Nelson State Stewardship Fund, which protects critical natural resource lands and waters for wildlife, scenic beauty, recreation and water quality?

Strongly support. I have campaigned for full funding in successive budget cycles. It would be an honor to be in a position to work for, and actually vote for, a budget that includes full funding.

WASTE AND RECYCLING

19.       Would you support legislation to prohibit the landfilling and incineration of products with mercury in them, given that these products put more than twice the quantity of mercury into the environment in Wisconsin as do all the coal-burning power plants in the state?

Yes.

Open burning of household waste is the largest source of dioxins to the environment according to data from EPA, with the amount of dioxins from 15 households equal to that of a 200 ton a day incinerator, along with causing other problems, including particulate and other air pollution and starting wildfires. According to recent DNR data, 500,000 households in Wisconsin open burn their trash.  Currently, all but households are prohibited from the open burning of trash, but state rules allow households to burn their waste.

20.       Would you support a ban on households burning their waste?

Unequivocally, yes.

GROUNDWATER

21.       Will you champion legislation to protect Wisconsin’s groundwater by enabling high capacity well permits to be permitted and reviewed based on science, improving protection of surface waters?

Yes.  I stood with the people of Newport when they fought against the theft of their precious groundwater by Perrier corporation. We must establish that the water resources of our state are for the people, and for the biosphere, and must never be placed under corporate control. I believe a statewide comprehensive water management plan, if done properly, could help protect our state from groundwater “mining” and other harmful practices.

22.       Do you support extending protections to Wisconsin’s springs (anything with a flow rate of 0.3 cubic feet per second or greater)?

Yes.

23.       Will you support legislation requiring the Public Service Commission to conduct environmental assessments of new water supplies before granting new permits for water utilities?

Yes.

GREAT LAKES AND TRIBUTARIES

24.       Would you support legislation that strictly regulates non-point source pollutions, such as manure, pesticides and fertilizers, from running into lakes, rivers, wetlands and streams?

Yes.

25.       Will you support legislation requiring Great Lakes shipping be required to treat ballast water for aquatic invasive species before discharging ballast water?

Yes.

CONCENTRATED ANIMAL FEEDLOT OPERATIONS (CAFOs)

26.       Would you support stronger restrictions on spreading industrial, municipal and agricultural wastes in areas known to be vulnerable to water pollution (i.e., areas with fractured bedrock or karst topography)?  Would you favor limiting CAFO permits in these areas?

Manure-spreading, especially in our state’s sensitive karst areas, and especially by factory farms, poses a serious threat to water quality and public health. I support stronger restrictions and limitations on the spreading of waste sludge in these areas, as well as on CAFO permits.  

As a law student member of the National Lawyers Guild, I advocated against the deregulation of CAFOs. I have worked extensively with organizations such as Family Farm Defenders and have friends who raise dairy and beef cattle. At the same time, I have been a vegetarian for 21 years and am convinced the long-term health of our waters and lands -- as well as climate and food security -- will require a shift in agricultural policy toward non-animal agriculture. Therefore, I support greater restrictions on CAFOs, yes. But more to the point, I support the elimination of CAFOs. If limitations move us toward elimination (no pun intended), then I am for them.

Furthermore, I support giving localities the right to regulate manure spreading, and also support legislation that would go to the root of the problem: the rapid displacement of Wisconsin’s family farms by factory farms. I support giving the state and localities the power to limit the size of farms, in order to protect public health, the environment, and protect family farms against unfair competition.

27.       Will you support legislation or administrative rules that will phase out open-air lagoons and require the development of better technology to treat manure?

Yes.

28.       Will you support legislation or administrative rules that will require frequent inspection of CAFOs and conduct regular air and water quality monitoring programs near manure storage facilities?

You bet.

CAMPAIGN FINANCING

29.       Will you support legislation to reduce the influence of campaign dollars on public policy in Wisconsin by imposing limits on campaign spending and by providing enhanced public financing to candidates who agree to limit their campaign spending?

I am a Clean Elections Fund candidate. I support full public financing of elections. I support strict limits on private campaign expenditures. I support constitutional amendments ending the absurd doctrines that money is speech and corporations are constitutional persons. I am an advocate for proportional representation, preferential voting, immigrant voting rights, and the universal franchise.

My work in the environmental movement has led me to place evermore priority on democratic reform, including voting rights and election reforms. In 2001, I co-convened “Democracy Summer,” a voting rights reform camp in Tallahassee, Florida, designed to build a new wave voting rights movement. In 2004, I organized the No Stolen Elections! campaign, a national mobilization that resulted in the Ohio presidential recount. In that same year, I founded the Liberty Tree Foundation, the pro-democracy think-tank and resource center that I am the executive director of today. Over the past six years, my work at Liberty Tree has led me to co-author the Voter Bill of Rights, a national reform plank endorsed by hundreds of state and national reform organizations, coordinate the 2008 No More Stolen Elections! campaign, and in 2009/10, co-found MovetoAmend.org, the nation’s most diverse and largest coalition devoted to overturning the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

OTHER ISSUES

30.      Are there other environmental or conservation issues that you are concerned about and/or willing to champion in the next legislative session?

During the anti-mining struggle of the 1990s, I came to recognize that the main vulnerability of our movement was its failure to offer a solution -- a way out -- for Wisconsinites trapped in rural poverty. If the North Woods, in particular, are to be restored, and indefinitely protected, those advances will be better guaranteed by sustainable prosperity than by any law. I am a Madisonian, grown and raised, but if Madisonians want to protect Wisconsin’s environment, they must begin to pay as much attention to economic development in Crawford and Iron counties as they do in Dane County.

Today, I am co-founder, together with my wife, Sarah, of a green business, PosiPair.com -- a green social utility that helps businesses and non-profits provide complete transparency of their supply chains, and which allows consumers and the public to evaluate and verify eco-certifications and other green claims. I have extensive experience in the green economy, having worked for various retail and service coops, initiated a food shed mapping program in the Kickapoo valley, and provided leadership on farm labor and fair trade campaigns throughout the country. My undergraduate work at UW was in what is now called Community and Environmental Sociology, under the tutelage of Jack Kloppenburg.

Rural Wisconsin is buzzing with private sector initiatives designed to create and strengthen our green economy. However, to my knowledge, the State of Wisconsin has no statewide comprehensive plan supporting, and leveraging, those initiatives. As a new legislator, I will prioritize the development and enactment of such a plan.