Minnesota State Senator, Tom Bakk, DFL, Cook, known to many in Minnesota as a reckless champion of motorized recreation at the expense of the state's people and environment, said in a Duluth News Tribune article printed today (Iron nugget plant deal falls apart) that he "broke arms and broke legs ... and even had an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) waived" in order to push thru an iron nugget plant on the Range. Bakk is also the architect of 2003 legislation that stripped Minnesotans of their one and only right to challenge DNR proposed ATV, dirt-bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive trucks in Minnesota state forests. See MRR works to establish standards, DNR [and Tom Bakk] work to suspend them. Bakk pushed this suspension despite a #1 recommendation of a Legislative Audit that Environmental Assessment Worksheet should be completed for most ATV, dirt-bike motorycle and four-wheel drive trucks.
Sen. Bakk's well articulated style of intimidation was partly what caused the state's established environmental groups to surprizingly and strangely agree to suspend Minnesotan's one and only right to public and envrionmental review (i.e., completion of Environmental Assessment Worksheets) of ATV, dirt-bike motorcycle and four-wheel drive truck routes in state forests. Only MRR, which requested the legislative audit of the DNR's motorized recreation program, worked, though unsuccessfully, to protect this one and only right.
While Sen. Bakk often claims, as he does in today's newspaper article, to "feel ...for the people" he annually works to provide more public funding for motorized recreation when most Minnesota familes are struggling financially. Every time you buy gasoline in Minnesota you pay for more motorized recreation at the pump. Minnesotans pay $15 million each year at the pump. Snowmobile clubs get $5 million every year whether it snows or not. Minnesota taxpayers support over 21,000 miles of publicly funded snowmobile routes, many of which are in violation of state grants.
Sen. Tom Bakk wants Minnesotans to pay but to have no say. Sen. Tom Bakk "broke arms and legs and even had an Environmental Impact Statement waived" on a NE Minnesota project. Sen. Bakk's is Minnesota's champion of taxation without representation.
Make a noise! Contact MRR's Program Director, Caleb Wolden about how you can help reform or abolish public funding of motorized recreation.
Tell Sen. Tom Bakk
(and copy Sen. Satveer Chaudhary and Ellen Anderson,
Chairs of the Senate Environment Policy and Finance Committees)
you want your one and only right back!
Copy and paste the below letter to the Senators into an e-mail or onto your personal stationery. Please send us any replies you might receive.
Sen. Tom Bakk
226 Capitol
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
Dear Senator Bakk,
As a taxpaying citizen of Minnesota, I want public and environmental review, i.e., completion of Environmental Assessment Worksheets, as recommended by the 2003 legislative audit of the DNR's motorized recreation program, of proposed ATV, dirt-bike motorycle and four-wheel drive truck routes in Minnesota forests. Since I, along with other Minnesota taxpayers, provide $15 million every year for motorized recreation, I reserve the right to challenge these publicly funded projects. I expect my tax-dollars to be used to mitigate the unwanted effects of motorized recreation. Completion of Environmental Assessment Worksheets is the first, most basic step, in addressing the noise, fumes, and damage to our environment caused by ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles and four-wheel drive trucks.
I support MRR's Five Standards for Protecting Minnesota for which completion of Environmental Assessment Worksheets as the first priority in determining where these machines should and should not go. I understand that you were directly involved with suspending my one and only right to oppose a statewide system of routes for these machines in Minnesota state forests. This is unacceptable to me.
As a taxpaying citizen of Minnesota who values democracy and our environment I refuse to be intimidated by your obligations to Arctic Cat, Polaris Industries and publicly funded snowmobile and ATV clubs you cause me to unwittingly subsidize. And while you may have intimidated Minnesota's established environmental groups, I won't let you break my will or my arms and legs.
Sincerely,
cc.
Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, Chair, Sen. Env. Policy Com., 317 Capitol, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155
Sen. Ellen Anderson
, Chair, Sen. Env. Finance Com., 120 Capitol, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155
Jeff Brown, Executive
Director, Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, P.O. Box 111, Duluth, MN 55804
