12/13/2012 Wisconsin state Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, addresses the Iron County Mining Impact Committee during its meeting Wednesday in Hurley. Tiffany, elected to the state Senate last month, said he will chair the senate committee tasked with reviving mining legislation that failed to pass in the spring. Tiffany will represent the 12th Senate District; Iron County is in the 25th Senate District, represented by Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar. He opposed that legislation and proposed an alternative bill. (
Wisconsin GOP reviving failed mining legislation
HURLEY - The Wisconsin Legislature will revive mining legislation that failed to pass this spring, incoming state senator Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, said in Hurley Wednesday.
Tiffany visited the Iron County Mining Impact Committee's meeting, held in the Iron County Courthouse Wednesday. Tiffany, the representative for the 35th Assembly District, was elected to the 12th Senate District last month. He said he will chair the senate committee handling the legislation. That committee is the Workforce Development, Forestry, Mining and Revenue Committee, and he said the committee will work off of narrowly defeated legislation from March.
"We are going to take up this bill very shortly after the first of the year," he said. "We're working off the compromise version, the joint finance (committee) version that failed by one vote in the Senate."
While the legislation, Assembly Bill 426 and Senate Bill 488, will be modified, Tiffany said the committee is not "starting over." He said he and his staff were also reviewing hearings and recommendations from the Democrat-controlled Senate Select Committee on Mining, chaired by Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville. He said that committee has yet to introduce its own legislation, but he would review it.
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