Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group
Citizen Advocate: A Report For Members Of WISPIRG
Transportation
After Setback, Fight
For Rail Continues
High-speed rail connecting Wiscon-
sin cities to Chicago and Minneapolis
would make our state more competi-
tive and accessible, while reducing
our dependence on foreign oil, traf-
fic congestion and global warming
pollution. The U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT) redirected Wis-
consin’s high-speed rail funding to
other states, but WISPIRG has made
significant progress in building sup-
port for high-speed rail and will con-
tinue to work toward modernizing
Wisconsin’s transportation system.
Rallying Support For Rail
When Gov.-elect Scott Walker vowed
to “kill the train,” WISPIRG came
out in full force to change his mind.
WISPIRG reached out to more than
20,000 individuals, identified more
than 350 activists, and gathered
almost 2,500 petition signatures. We
also built a powerful coalition with 40
organizations and community lead-
ers—including representatives from
labor, environmental, municipal and
community groups.
WISPIRG launched an online
“pledge to ride the train,” signed by
more than 1,000 people in less than a
week. In November, Wisconsin DOT
announced there would be hearings
in Eau Claire, La Crosse, Fond du Lac
and Madison on the high-speed rail
proposal. WISPIRG swung into gear,
working to mobilize more than 1,000
Wisconsinites to support connecting
Chicago to the Twin Cities and Wis-
consin cities in between. WISPIRG
released a report in November called
“Track Record of Success,” providing
examples of how high-speed rail in
other countries boosts their economy,
saves energy, curbs pollution and
provides a popular alternative to
congested roads and airports.
“WISPIRG will make sure that Gov.
Walker hears our call for a 21st
century transportation system for
our state," said WISPIRG Director
Bruce Speight. n
Safe Food, Healthy Kids
WISPIRG Helps Win
New Food Safety Law
Since the Food and Drug Admin-
istration (FDA) was created more
than 70 years ago, the agency has
lacked the power to test foods
for dangerous pathogens, protect
Americans from food produced
overseas, or recall contaminated
food from the grocery shelves.
As a result, each year some 3,000
Americans have died, and our
economy has lost revenue to the
tune of $152 billion, due to food-
borne illnesses. The Food Safety
Modernization Act, backed by
WISPIRG and signed by President
Barack Obama on Jan. 4, changes
all of this.
While we continue to press the
Obama administration to adopt
Winter 2011 • Vol. 24, No. 1
Find links to resources and actions at www.wispirg.org/newsletters
prorailwisconsin
THE BENEFITS OF BETTER TRANSIT—More than 1,000 citizens turned
out in support of high-speed rail at four hearings across the state.
Above, WISPIRG supporters at the Madison hearing.
Member Resource
Learn more about the next
steps to modernize
Wisconsin’s transportation
system: www.wispirg.org/
issues/transportation
higher standards, specifically for
chicken sold to school lunches, this
law improves broader food safety
rules that apply to 80 percent of
all food sold, including much of
the food sold to the school lunch
program.
“Last fall, it took three months of
cajoling before Wright County Egg
finally agreed to recall 550 million
salmonella-infected eggs,” said
Elizabeth Hitchcock, WISPIRG’s
chief advocate on the issue work-
ing in Washington, D.C. “Under
the new law, the FDA will no
longer have to beg and plead with
the food industry in order to keep
contaminated foods away from our
kitchen tables.” n Page 1
Winter 2011
 News Briefs
Product Safety
To Keep Kids Safe,
Try The Tube Test
As American parents shopped for
gifts for their infants and toddlers
last holiday season, WISPIRG
researchers warned not to trust
federal safety standards to keep
kids safe from choking hazards.
KC PHOTO
Trouble in toyland—Jennifer came to us this fall after her one-year-
old son, Jack, nearly choked on a wooden peg from a toy train. She said,
“My doctor told me that if I had not seen my son choking I would never
have heard him...She told me he could have died.”
Unfortunately, the Consumer
Protection Safety Commission has
not updated its choking standard
since 1979. Many children have
choked on toys and parts of toys that
are larger than the 1979 standard.
Join The Network,
WISPIRG advises parents to use
Save A Tree a toilet tissue tube to test whether
To stay up-to-date on
a part poses a choking hazard. If
our work or to receive a piece from the toy fits through
an online version of
the tube, it’s too small for a young
this newsletter, go to child to play with. For example,
www.wispirg.org/action/ one woman we spoke with watched
add-to-mailing-list her 1-year-old son nearly choke
on a piece of “Baby’s First Train,”
which according to law is safe for
kids age 1 and up.
The recommendation was
announced as part of the release
of our 25th annual “Trouble in
Toyland” survey of hazardous toys.
“A quarter century after we first
sounded the alarm on safety
threats, including choking hazards
and toxics in plastics, parents
should still be alert to dangerous
Page 2 toys on store shelves,” cautioned
Winter 2011 Elizabeth Hitchcock, author of
the report and WISPIRG’s public
health advocate. n
Making Health Care Work
De-Mystifying Our
Health Care Benefits
With all the debate that surrounded
the health care law, it’s easy to get
confused about how your cover-
age will actually change—and
improve—once reforms are imple-
mented in Wisconsin.
Now that health care reforms are
starting to kick in, WISPIRG As-
sociate Shannon Nelson went on
Fox News to explain some of the
major benefits Wisconsinites can
look forward to.
Nelson explained that, thanks to
health care reform, insurers won’t
be able to drop you when you get
sick, or deny coverage to kids who
have pre-existing conditions.
Insurance companies will have to
cover preventative care, like mam-
mograms, physicals and immuni-
zations. And, young Wisconsinites
will be able to stay on their parents’
health plans until they are 26. n
New Voters Project
Empowering Students,
Registering To Vote
We know the single biggest thing
we can do to increase voter partici-
pation is to register young people
to vote.
From Madison Area Technical
College to University of Wisconsin-
Madison, and from University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay to Milwaukee
Area Technical College, students
invaded campus quads, classrooms
and dorms in an on-the-ground,
peer–to-peer campaign to mobilize
young voters to the polls.
Across Wisconsin, WISPIRG’s
student chapters registered over
3,400 young people to vote before
the Oct. 13 registration deadline.
WISPIRG student leaders tabled,
presented in classrooms, and went
door to door to find unregistered
youth and sign them up to vote.
While registration is the first and
most important step to recruiting
the next generation of voters, con-
ducting get-out-the-vote (GOTV)
efforts is just as critical. WISPIRG
student chapters made over 19,000
GOTV contacts running up to Elec-
tion Day by talking to, calling and
texting recently registered voters.
WISPIRG Student chapters’ success
would not have been possible with-
out the partnerships of student gov-
ernments, student organizations,
campus administrators, faculty and
local election officials.
The New Voters Project is a joint
project of WISPIRG and the
WISPIRG Student Chapters, a
statewide student public interest
organization focused on building
the next generation of civic leaders
and advancing concrete solutions
to the problems they will inherit. n
 Tax & Budget Policy
Common Ground On
Our Fiscal Future
Consider the following: Last year,
the U.S. spent approximately $2.7
billion on oil and gas subsidies to
highly profitable companies in-
cluding ExxonMobil and BP. The
government paid contractors like
Lockheed Martin and Boeing $18
billion for obsolete spare parts. And
the government allowed Goldman
Sachs and others to avoid taxes
by shifting their profits overseas.
Meanwhile, our national debt is
expected to rise from $13.1 trillion
today to $19 trillion in 2015.
To help bridge the partisan divide
that makes solving the looming debt
crisis so difficult, our researchers went
to work poring through the federal
budget and tax code for spending and
tax breaks that, while rewarding the
powerful and well-connected, fail to
serve the public interest.
Toward that end, last November,
WISPIRG worked with the National
Taxpayers Union (NTU) to produce
a joint report—“Toward Common
Ground”—which identified spend-
ing cuts that would save $600 billion
by 2015. We were able to agree on
31 reforms.
Among them, we recommended
cutting wasteful subsidies, which
would save $62 billion. This in-
cludes ending a program that gives
taxpayer dollars to some of the
most profitable and recognizable
multi-national corporations—in-
cluding McDonald’s, Nabisco and
Fruit of the Loom—to promote
their exports. We could also save
up to $353 billion by improving the
contracting process—for example,
ending orders for obsolete parts and
supplies in the military.
Debt Commission Listens
We presented these recommenda-
tions to the National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Re-
form, members of Congress and
the media. The New York Times
and the Wall Street Journal praised
the report as one of few to get into
such specific detail. The commission
Cutting $600 billion in spending
$354 billion
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS—End waste, such as the
purchase of obsolete or unnecessary parts.
$107 billion
DEFENSE SPENDING—Cancel outdated systems,
improve efficiency, and rightsize nuclear programs.
adopted many of our recommen-
$77 billion
dations in their proposal, though MISMANAGEMENT—Eliminate overpayment,
ultimately, Congress will have to redundant programs and mismanaged assets.
enact any such changes.
$62 billion
The Elephant In The Room SUBSIDIES—Stop payments to profitable corporations
Ultimately, most experts agree and agribusiness.
there is no way to fix the deficit
without grappling with the rising shift the system away from the “fee-
cost of health care, especially given for-service” model toward one that
the aging U.S. population and the rewards doctors and hospitals for
growth in Medicare spending. The how well they care for their patients,
challenge is how to reduce health not how many tests they order.
care costs without compromising Some health care industry interests,
care. The new federal health care along with their allies in Congress,
reform law takes a few steps in this will attempt to roll back any effort to
direction by, for example, promoting control costs. We’ll continue to stand
pilot projects that could, over time, up to them. n
WISPIRG
To Our Members Citizen Advocate
This newsletter is
Dear WISPIRG member, published three
times a year by
I’m proud to announce that this fall WISPIRG the Wisconsin
launched a new project: the WISPIRG Foundation Public Interest
Energy Service Corps. Research Group.
You can receive the
For decades, WISPIRG has valued training the next newsletter through
generation of civic and community leaders through our your e-mail. Just go
campus programs on colleges and universities through- to our website to
out the state. The idea is for students to get involved in the issues of our sign up.
day and to learn how to make an impact through hands-on civic action.
The Energy Service Corps, a project of the WISPIRG Student Chapters,
WISPIRG Foundation and AmeriCorps, is the perfect marriage of our
campus program with real-world hands-on engagement in solving problems
in communities across Wisconsin.
Energy consumption rose 53 percent in Wisconsin from 1970 to 2007.
Due to insufficient community outreach capacity, many residents remain
in the dark about opportunities to save money and help the environment
through energy conservation.
WISPIRG Foundation Energy Service Corps mobilizes college students to
fill this gap: Student volunteers identify individuals who can benefit from
available efficiency initiatives and provide education, assessment and
weatherization services to those not reached by existing capacity.We look
forward to the great work this program will do, and hope you meet one of
our Energy Service Corps organizers in your community one day soon.
Sincerely,
Bruce Speight, Director
info@wispirg.org
Page 3
Winter 2011
 Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group
WISPIRG
122 State St., Ste. 309
Madison, WI 53703
(608) 251-9501
Address Service Requested
Tax & Budget
Taxpayers Deserve
Transparency
Wisconsin is falling behind other states in provid-
ing state taxpayers online information about the
state budget and state spending, according to a
report released this fall by WISPIRG.
The report finds that Wisconsin’s government
spending website is disappointingly incomplete.
Our state’s site is missing critical information we
need to keep our government accountable. Plus,
it’s difficult to use.
“With Wisconsin in the midst of a budget cri-
sis, it’s especially important for Wisconsinites
to have easy access to information about the
state’s expenditures,” said WISPIRG Director
Bruce Speight. “Transparency is good for our
government and good for our pocketbooks,
eliminating fraud and waste and ensuring that
state expenditures get us the best bang for the
buck. The best practices from states across the
country can show us the way.”
WISPIRG is advocating techniques that have
worked in other states to create the best site for
Wisconsin. The changes WISPIRG is pushing
for include:
CITIZEN ADVOCATE
VOLUME 24, NO. 1
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
After Setback, Fight For Transit Continues • Trouble In Toyland • Common Ground On Our Fiscal Future
WKOW TV
WHAT HAPPENED TO OPEN GOVERNMENT?—State
government transparency has fallen short. WISPIRG
State Director Bruce Speight spoke to WKOW TV in
Madison on the topic.
• Requiring all government agencies to report
how much they spent—no matter the dollar
amount.
• Posting information on government contracts
so citizens can root out favoritism.
• Providing details about which companies are
receiving subsidies so we can ensure the compa-
nies use them to benefit Wisconsin. n
WINTER REPORT
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WISPIRG’s Mission
When consumers are cheated or
the voices of ordinary citizens are
drowned out by special interest lob-
byists, WISPIRG speaks up and takes
action. We uncover threats to public
health and well-being and fight to end
them, using the time-tested tools of
investigative research, media exposés,
grassroots organizing, advocacy and
litigation. WISPIRG’s mission is to
deliver persistent, result-oriented
public interest activism that protects
consumers, encourages a fair, sustain-
able economy, and fosters responsive,
democratic government.
Citizen Advocate Credits
Editor: Bruce Speight
Contributors: Steve Blackledge,
Christine Lindstrom, John Krieger,
Nicole Tichon, Ed Mierzwinski, Gary
Kalman, Elizabeth Hitchcock, Justin
Boyles, Matthew Curtis, Sarah
Dunlap, Maria Figliola, Sara Landis,
Ethan Lavine, Jesse Littlewood, Annie
Mackin, Molly McGovern, Sarah
Mitchell, Ryan Moeckly, Nathan
Proctor, Erica Rosset, Sam Rothberg,
Jenne Turner.
Publications Director:
Richard J. Hannigan
Design: Public Interest GRFX, 215-
985-1113. Layout by Jenna Leschuk.
Printed on recycled paper.