Legislator Spotlight: Senator André Jacque, Wisconsin

What motivated you to get involved with environmental issues?

I’ve always had an interest in science and was involved in environmental cleanups from when I was fairly young, including leadership in environmental clubs while I was in school. It’s important to preserve our natural resources and I’m grateful that my platform as an elected official and background as an environmental consultant have allowed me to do that in substantial ways. I enjoy problem-solving, and environmental restoration allows for some pretty unique opportunities to take on significant challenges. Now that I have kids, I have even more reasons to help ensure a beautiful world for future generations.

What environmental issues are you most passionate about and why?

I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a pretty diverse array of environmental issues, but remediating brownfields, creating intervention points to stop contaminants, conserving and reclaiming natural areas, and improving water quality are areas that hold particular interest. When I worked in city government I played a major role in securing funding and developing plans for cleaning up a number of contaminated sites, and I’m proud to have authored landmark brownfields legislation that was signed into law while I was still in the State Assembly. Much of my current work focuses on leading water quality improvement efforts in the Great Lakes basin as the Chair of the binational, nonpartisan Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River Legislative Caucus, and I’m pleased to have led bi-partisan coalitions to spread best practices and assist a number of my bills in this area into being enacted.

How has NCEL helped you in your work?

NCEL serves as a great resource to compare approaches and policies that have been successful in other states. The information and experts that NCEL has access and experience for connecting legislators to has been helpful in the research phase of drafting legislation so that I can find the right policy fits for Wisconsin without completely re-inventing the wheel.

What is your greatest environmental policy success story?

The efforts outlined above are certainly contenders, but I’d like to think that my greatest environmental policy success stories are still to come, and that my involvement with NCEL will have expanded the impacts that those policies will have not just in Wisconsin but in every other state that is able to pick up on them as a result. I’m happy to be part of the NCEL’s Outdoor Engagement taskforce and one recent success I am very proud of is the law I wrote to enable beach nourishment instead of trucking clean, beneficial re-use sand from dredging operations miles inland to fill up landfills and be treated as solid waste at a considerable cost to taxpayers and the environment.