quote [ What Reisner called a “discrete alliance” of environmentalists and fiscal hawks backed the 1986 Water Resources Development Act, which forced local governments to fund a chunk of future dam projects themselves. Beard said that bill never would have become law without support from Republicans like Tom Petri, a Wisconsin representative at the time. “He was this sort of noble warrior about dams, saying, ‘This is wrong! This is wrong!’ ” Beard said, chuckling. “We were like, ‘Yeah, well, we all know it’s wrong.’ ” ]