CNOW for Oct. 16, 2023

Today's conservation notices:

• Support Sharon Adams, Dylan Jennings, Sandra Dee Nass and Jim VandenBrook for the Natural Resources Board
• Oppose: SB 139: Setting an Arbitrary Wolf Population Goal in Statute
• Oppose SB 488 & AB 415: Entrenching Legislative Control Over Redistricting
• Oppose LRB 2829 & LRB 4725: Restricting the Freedom to Invest in a Clean Future

Wisconsin Conservation Voters urges you to support Sharon Adams, Dylan Jennins, Sandra Dee Nass, and Jim VandenBrook, who are before the Senate on Tuesday.

Our Department of Natural Resources is charged with managing our fish and wildlife, protecting our lands, and ensuring every Wisconsinite can breathe clean air and drink safe water. As the governing body responsible for setting policy at the Department of Natural Resources, it is critical that members of our Natural Resources Board have deep experience with this wide and critically important range of responsibilities. Sharon Adams, Dylan Jennings, Sandra Dee Nass and Jim VandenBrook are all highly qualified nominees who bring decades of that experience.

Wisconsin Conservation Voters urges you to oppose SB 139, which is before the Senate on Tuesday.

The main goal of wolf management in Wisconsin should be to move towards an outcome-based management plan where there is a healthy wolf population, while minimizing depredations. The DNR has engaged in a multi-year, diverse stakeholder process that brought together hunters, farmers, conservationists, and tribal governments to develop such a plan. SB 139 works against this goal by requiring the Department of Natural Resources to establish a numeric statewide wolf population goal in statute. This undermines the ability of the DNR to balance multiple goals and respond to the changing populations.

Wisconsin Conservation Voters urges you to oppose SB 488 & AB 415, which are before the Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections, and Consumer Protection on Thursday.

To protect our health and the health of our planet voters must choose their representatives, not the other way around. Partisan redistricting works against that basic freedom by creating non-competitive districts that allow politicians who should represent their constituents to ignore the will of local voters. SB 488 & AB 415 would entrench legislative control of our redistricting process, working against the goal of creating fair maps.

Wisconsin Conservation Voters urges you to oppose LRB 2829 & LRB 4725, which are circulating for cosponsorship.

Wisconsin communities deserve the freedom to invest in people and organizations focused on equitable access to safe drinking water, clean air, and a future that’s safe from the impacts of climate change. LRB 2829 & LRB 4725 would restrict that freedom by limiting what factors state agencies and local governments can consider when making financial decisions.

Conservation Notices of the Week (CNOW) announces the pro-conservation positions on issues before the senate, assembly and/or governor in the week ahead to state legislators. Others wishing to follow activities in the state legislature also receive CNOW, including legislative staff, conservation voters, and media. All of these issues are tracked on the Vote Tracker. Issues in the CNOW may appear in the Conservation Scorecard.