Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau
This bill is explained in the Notes provided by the joint legislative council in
the body of the bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:
Prefatory note: This bill was prepared for and contains a recommendation of the
joint legislative council's special committee on remediation of environmental
contamination. As part of its charge, the special committee was directed by the joint
legislative council to "oversee the recodification of ch. 144, stats." Chapter 144 contains
statutes related to water and sewage, air pollution, solid and hazardous waste, mining
and oil and gas.
Chapter 144 has grown extensively as the legislature focused its attention on
environmental regulation. In 30 years, ch. 144 has expanded from 8 pages to almost 120
pages in the printed statutes. As a result of this growth, which has occurred
incrementally in each legislative session, some portions of ch. 144 are no longer
well-organized.
In discussing and responding to its charge, the special committee determined that
ch. 144 is not in need of extensive substantive revision. Although portions of ch. 144 are
not well-organized, there is very little in ch. 144 that is not currently viable and that is
not written so as to effectively accomplish the legislature's intent. The special committee
does not believe that its charge from the joint legislative council is to rewrite substantive
environmental policy in this legislation, but rather to make ch. 144 a more effective tool
for accomplishing the environmental regulatory policies currently expressed in that
chapter. Therefore, the special committee recommends, in this bill, the reorganization
of ch. 144, which the special committee believes will make these statutes significantly
more readable.
This bill separates ch. 144 into 8 newly created chapters of the statutes and
reorganizes the material incorporated into each of the newly created chapters as
necessary. In order to have sufficient consecutive chapter numbers to keep the
environmental regulatory statutes together in a group, it is necessary to move the
environmental regulatory statutes to a location other than current ch. 144.
The special committee believes that the rationale for the reorganization of ch. 144
applies equally to the other environmental regulatory statutes, which include chs. 147
(pollution discharge elimination), 159 (recycling) and 162 (pure drinking water) and s.
146.20 (septage disposal). Although not directed to consider these provisions by the joint
legislative council, the special committee believes that these statutes should also be
reorganized as part of the special committee's recommendation and they are, therefore,
included in this bill.
The organization and numbering of the new group of environmental regulatory
statutes in this bill is as follows:
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See PDF for table ![PDF](https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/assets/image/file_acrobat.gif)
The special committee explicitly intends that this bill will make no substantive
changes in the environmental regulatory statutes. In a number of instances, the special
committee found it necessary to make judgments where an existing cross-reference could
not be simply renumbered into the new numbering scheme, either because of the way the
bill reorganizes the statutes or because the current cross-reference is imprecise. In each
instance where a cross-reference had to be modified rather than simply renumbered, the
special committee has taken care to avoid changing the effect of the current statutes and,
in many cases, has included a Note explaining its rationale for the modification. If a
question arises about the effect of any modification, the special committee intends that
the amendments in this bill be construed to have the same effect as the prior statutes.
For the convenience of the reader, a table of contents listing all section numbers of
the reorganized chapters is included in this Prefatory note. Also, a finding aid is
included at the end of this bill, which matches the current statute numbers with the new
statute numbers assigned by this bill.
The remainder of this Prefatory note consists of a table of contents for the
reorganized chapters:
Chapter 280
Chapter 281
water and sewage
Subchapter I
Subchapter II
Subchapter III
Water quality and quantity;
Subchapter IV
Water and sewage facilities;
Subchapter V
Subchapter VI
Subchapter VII
Subchapter VIII
Chapter 283
Pollution discharge elimination
Subchapter I
Subchapter II
Subchapter III
Subchapter IV
Subchapter V
Chapter 285
Air pollution
Subchapter I
Subchapter II
Subchapter III
Air Quality standards,
Performance standards;
Subchapter IV
Volatile organic compounds
and mobile sources;
Subchapter V
Sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxide
Subchapter VI
Waste incinerators;
Ozone depleting substances;
Subchapter VII
Subchapter VIII
Subchapter IX
Chapter 287
Recycling
Subchapter I
Subchapter II
Solid waste reduction,
Subchapter III
Subchapter IV
Subchapter V