ALEC's Efforts to Rewrite Laws about Environment, Energy and Agriculture
This page shows how bills pushed by ALEC corporations work to undermine environmental protections, limit the ability of local government to manage land use, and protect corporate polluters. These "model bills" and resolutions thwart efforts to address climate change, streamline siting of nuclear power plants, and oppose efforts to address hazardous coal waste. Through ALEC, corporations have both a VOICE and a VOTE on specific changes to state laws on these issues. Do you?
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Learn MORE about the "Model Bills" ALEC Corporations Are Backing to Rewrite YOUR Rights
The Center for Media and Democracy analyzed the bills ALEC politicians and corporations voted for. More analysis is available below and also at ALEC Exposed's sister sites, PRWatch and SourceWatch.
How do the bills undermine environmental protections and health?
Energy companies, corporate polluters, factory farms and their politician allies VOTED to change environmental rules by:
Limiting the ability of people to use their local governmental power to protect their towns and neighborhoods from pollution and other hazards, by:
Undermining environmental regulations through novel, aggressive legal theories that claim regulations limiting pollution, for example, constitute a "taking" of the right to pollute and thus require compensation under the Constitution, through innocuously named bills like:
Some of this Corporate Agenda Has Already Become Law
Wisconsin Governor (and ALEC alumni) Scott Walker included language in the 2011 budget bill designed to end mandatory recycling programs for Wisconsin communities. More than 1,000 municipalities in Wisconsin rely on a small landfill tax to fund local recycling programs. Walker wanted to use the money collected from the landfill tax for a new, privatized economic development agency. The proposal outraged county leaders and administrators as well as Republican legislators. Republican State Rep. John Nygren questioned whether the budget measure would really save money in the long run when balanced with the increased cost of maintaining and building expensive new landfills. The Governor’s actions made no financial sense, but they did comport with ALEC’s "Resolution on Packaging and the Municipal Solid Waste Stream,” which criticizes "interfering government mandates” and promotes a free market approach to waste removal and recycling. In the end, cost-effective recycling prevailed in Wisconsin. Learn more here (Link to Mary’s Wisconsin article).
Did You Know about these Bills?
Eliminating Democratic Land Use Controls
One "model bill" from ALEC corporations would repeal ALL land use planning and zoning for "rural" counties by both county and state governments. Under this bill, property and could be used for any purpose, without regard for "single family," "agricultural," or "industrial" zoning, or environmental land use restrictions.
This would prevent a local government from controlling development, from choosing to support small business rather than big-box retailers, from limiting certain businesses (like nude bars) near residences or schools, and from keeping polluting industries out of their community.
Without zoning laws, neighbors who were concerned about a particular property would have to bring individual lawsuits to protect their rights against nuisances (such as smells or pollution from factory farms). They would not be able to act democratically to set rules for zoning in their towns. Land use could only be restricted by contracts (but not restricted in perpetuity), requiring that individuals spend their own money to protect community interests, thereby putting community growth in the hands of the wealthy few.
Is a local legislator who was elected to represent YOU actually protecting the interests of corporations instead of YOU and YOUR FAMILY?
Prohibiting Local Efforts to Ensure Safe Agricultural Practices
One "model bill" from ALEC corporations prohibits local city or county governments from limiting pesticide use, requiring that communities adhere to state-level regulations. Another bill places the same restrictions on local efforts to restrict bio-engineered and GMO crops.
If these model bills became law, local governments would be prohibited from responding to their community's concerns about pesticide use or the dangers of GMO crops. ALEC allegedly supports "federalism," or state's rights, a theory premised on the idea that more local state government can better represent and respond to local interests than a more centralized federal government. But ALEC apparently does not apply this logic to relations between local and state government.
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