One of the very first acts performed by David Paterson as Governor of New York was to sign a law enacting the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement among all of the States and Canadian Provinces around the Great Lakes to protect the lakes from pollution, invasive species and covetous neighbors. To make a bad pun, it is a watershed agreement, an international coalition to protect one of the world's great resources.
Except it has to be approved unanimously and Republican politicians in Wisconsin are playing games, sacrificing one of their greatest assets on the altar of cheesy politics. They don't like co-operating with neighbors- one state senator wrote "To relinquish our sovereignty to a regional body of governors that can make changes after the compact is adopted is unacceptable. Where else do we have a dictatorial or totalitarian form of government where we give up our decision-making authority? I do not support a document that relinquishes our sovereignty to another state"
As one writer to the Sheboygan Press wrote about the Republican controlled assembly: [they] "push simple-minded hot buttons, spout hollow slogans, and protect the wealthy."
The other 32 million Americans and Canadians downstream from Wisconsin and sharing Great Lakes water should be worried about what is happening up there and considering their options in dealing with a state that considers sharing authority with them "totalitarian and dictatorial". Read more from treehugger.com
