Wisconsin hosted a Great Lakes governors' energy summit this week that produced lofty promises to coordinate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

A few hours later, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation released the schedule to spend a record-setting $1.9 billion to add another north-south traffic lane on I-94 between the Mitchell interchange near the airport for 35 miles south to the Illinois state line.

So we're inducing more driving at a time of record oil prices, knowing that driving releases greenhouse gases?

And we're spending this money on highway expansion based on gasoline costing $2.30 a gallon, when today's price is more than 25% higher and only going higher?

And the funding sources for this giant sop to road-builders aren't even nailed down, as Gretchen Schuldt points out on her blog?

These contradictions make a mockery of the Governors' energy summit and the state's commitment to sound fiscal and environmental stewardship.

Wisconsin's energy policy is still firmly in the grip of the highway lobby, and its control of historic sums of public funds that are intentionally directed away from transit and other conservation tools is flat-out crazy, embarrassing and, frankly, deflating.

There is a natural coalition statewide that needs to rein in this completely unacceptable dynamic:

Smaller communities outstate whose road needs are left behind; transit systems starved for operating and equipment resources; conservation groups promoting clean air and land preservation; businesses investing in energy-saving technologies, individuals fed up with government waste and tone-deaf indifference to today's issues - - these interests have to be harnessed to stop Wisconsin's capture and control by the highway lobby.