Peg's speech...

Highlights from Peg Lautenschlager's speech in LaCrosse this weekend include her mentioning that Wisconsin's "Internet Crimes Against Children unit is the very best, making more arrests of Internet predators than any other state in the nation."

She earns highest marks for keeping her campaign promises to protect the environment...

"We have aggressively enforced laws to hold polluters accountable, obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and restoration monies. We have fought to stop discharge of all sorts into our lakes and rivers and streams. And we have fought horrible legislation which has undermined our state'’s environmental laws.

"But we have done more.

"We have fought the bush administration‚’s weakening of mercury admissions standards, its invalidation of clean air act compliance rules, its rollback of new source review regulations, and its failure to regulate ballast waters which bring invasive species to the Midwest. And with my progressive-minded colleagues like Elliot Spitzer, I have taken on the powerful and joined an historic law suit to combat global warming."

Peg is one of ten state Attorneys General that are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to regulate new power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the major contributor to global warming.

"Standing up for the protection of Wisconsin'’s clean air and natural environment is a critical responsibility," she explained in April of this year when the suit was filed. "Once again the federal EPA is failing to carry out the Clean Air Act. No less than our children'’s health and the fate of the planet are at stake - so I am proud the states are taking action to ensure that EPA does its job."

The suit further objects to the EPA failing to set adequate standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, power plant pollutants that contribute to soot, smog, acid rain and higher levels of respiratory disease.

Peg is running for reelection on the strength of a notable record of measurable legal accomplishments... detailed in her LaCrosse speech. I last saw her in person in Madison on January 4, 2005 at the first session of the People's Legislature. She briefly spoke to more than 1,000 people in a packed hall. Her head was bald and she wore no wig. She was fighting breast cancer with chemotherapy, another battle she eventually won...

I look forward to seeing her again on Wednesday, June 14 when she visits Door County. She will speak to the Door County Board of Realtors at a noon luncheon and attend a public reception in her honor from 6 - 8 PM at the Compass Coffeehouse in Fish Creek.