State environmental regulators can require large livestock farms to obtain permits that seek to prevent manure spills and protect state waters, a state appeals court has ruled.
Last year, a Calumet County judge ruled in favor of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in a case challenging the agency’s authority to require permits for concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs. Those farms have at least 1,000 animal units or the equivalent of 700 milking cows.
In 2023, the WMC Litigation Center sued the DNR on behalf of the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative. They argued that agency rules that require CAFO permits and regulate stormwater runoff from farms can’t be legally enforced because they’re inconsistent with state and federal law.
In a decision Wednesday, a three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s decision.
“Because we conclude the two challenged rules do not conflict with state statutes and do not exceed the DNR’s statutory authority, we affirm the circuit court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the DNR,” the panel wrote.
A DNR spokesperson said it’s reviewing the decision and unable to comment further at this time.
An attorney for farm groups had argued the DNR can’t go beyond federal requirements under state law, adding that state and federal laws exempt farms from regulation of their stormwater runoff.
Federal appeals court rulings in 2005 and 2011 found the Clean Water Act doesn’t allow the Environmental Protection Agency to require CAFOs to get wastewater discharge permits until they actually release waste into waterways. The three-judge panel noted state permitting programs may impose more stringent requirements than the EPA’s permitting program.
In a joint statement, Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative said the decision is disappointing for Wisconsin’s ag community.
“We believe that there is no place for bad actors and that polluters should face penalties, but this case had nothing to do with weakening environmental laws. Our sole mission in challenging the DNR’s authority was to ensure that Wisconsin farmers are held to standards consistent with federal law,” the groups wrote.
“We continue to believe that a ‘presumption of guilt’ runs contrary to the very fundamentals of the American justice system. We are disappointed with today’s outcome and will continue to fight for Wisconsin farmers regardless of the size of their farm,” the groups continued.
The ruling affects the state’s 344 CAFOs. Under permits, large farms must take steps to prevent manure spills and runoff that include developing response plans, nutrient management plans and restricting manure spreading when there’s high risk of runoff from storms.
Midwest Environmental Advocates is among environmental groups that intervened in the case. They said the legal challenge could have severely limited the DNR’s ability to protect state waters from manure pollution, noting CAFOs can house thousands of cows that produce more waste than small cities.
Adam Voskuil, an MEA attorney, said the ruling affirms environmental regulations.
“We’re continuing to protect water resources in the state, and (it’s) a prevention of rolling back really important, necessary regulations,” Voskuil said.
Without them, Voskuil said the DNR would be responsible for proving whether each individual CAFO has discharged pollutants to surface water or groundwater. He said it’s likely the agency wouldn’t have the resources to do that work, meaning many farms wouldn’t be permitted or taking required steps to prevent pollution.
Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said there has to be oversight of any industry.
“There needs to be some kind of authority that can call out the bad actors and make sure our water supply is safe,” Von Ruden said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice has been defending DNR in the case. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has previously said the state should be strengthening protections for state waterways, not weakening them.
Manure has been linked to nitrate contamination of private wells. Nitrate contamination can lead to blue-baby syndrome, thyroid disease and colon cancer. Around 90 percent of nitrate in groundwater can be traced back to agriculture.
The lawsuit is not the first to challenge DNR’s authority to require permits for CAFOs. In 2017, the Dairy Business Association sued the agency in part over its permit requirements, dropping that claim as part of a settlement with the DNR. Large farms have also challenged the agency’s authority to impose permit conditions on their operations. In 2021, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the DNR had authority to impose permit requirements on large farms to protect water quality.
This story was originally published by WPR.
Wisconsin DNR can require CAFO permits to protect water, appeals court rules is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
In welcoming you behind the scenes of our reporting, we’ve shared plenty about how our newsroom operates — from how we’re covering Washington’s disruption to how your tips shape our coverage of everything from rural homelessness to the return of measles.
Today I want to discuss something more fundamental: Out of the infinite stories we could report at a given time, how do we decide which to pursue with our finite resources?
This requires us to evaluate whether a potential story would fit within our mission and deliver impact for residents. How we do that is something we’re constantly refining.
Our mission is to make the communities of Wisconsin strong, informed and connected through our journalism. Our intended impact: that people use our reporting to navigate their lives, be seen and heard, hold power to account and come together in community and civic life.
Before green-lighting a story, we consider its potential impact. If we can’t identify any, it’s likely not worth pursuing — at least not yet. We ask where the idea originated (bonus points for ideas directly from the public) or whether other newsrooms have covered this topic. Recognizing that we want to fill gaps rather than re-report the news, we consider whether the story will add knowledge and understanding to previous reporting — and whether our story would elevate different perspectives.
Another question: Why is it important to tell this story now, as opposed to other stories?
We’ve formalized this process, which begins with a pitch form that reporters fill out and discuss with their editor. The process has sparked productive conversations about how we can best serve the public. In some cases, we’ve decided an idea doesn’t fit. In other cases, the process has persuaded a skeptical editor that a story is worthwhile.
If you have questions about why we have — or have not — reported a particular story, feel free to reach out. I’m at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.
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What makes a Wisconsin Watch story? Mission and impact matter is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to reflect that the 12 assistant district attorney positions are existing positions funded by expiring federal funding, not new positions.
A provision in the recently passed state budget that diverts $2.2 million annually from schools to fund 12 Milwaukee County prosecutors may violate the Wisconsin Constitution, that had been paid for with federal funding set to expire.
The budget act redirects all traffic fines and forfeiture revenues in Milwaukee County to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to fund 12 new assistant district attorney positions.
But under Article 10, Section 2, of Wisconsin’s constitution, all “clear proceeds” from traffic fines are required to go to the Common School Fund.
A statute later established the “clear proceeds” at 50% of total revenue, while counties could retain the other 50% to reimburse the cost of prosecuting traffic violations or seizing and managing forfeitures.
In a 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court case, the court granted limited power to the Legislature to define “clear proceeds.” In doing so, the decision said counties couldn’t keep so large a percentage of fine and forfeiture revenue that “the sum left for the school fund is merely nominal.” It also ruled that a county can only use these funds to reimburse for the prosecution of the fines and forfeitures.
By giving all revenue to the Milwaukee County DA, the new law, part of the biennial budget, contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision that all “clear proceeds” — or net profits — from forfeitures and fines be directed to the Common School Fund.
Established in 1848 under the state constitution, the Common School Fund is used by public schools to purchase school library books and instructional materials and may be the only source of library funding for some counties. The Office of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) manages the fund.
In two recent BCPL meetings, board members discussed how the amendment appears to contradict the Supreme Court decision — raising the prospect of litigation, according to meeting minutes.
“This provision appears to directly violate the 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion regarding Article 10 of the Constitution,” Tom German, board executive secretary of BCPL, said during an Aug. 19 meeting. “That opinion expressly limited the Legislature’s authority to define clear proceeds in order to prevent only a nominal amount of fines and forfeitures going to the school fund. Zero is less than nominal.”
The provision is projected to reduce revenue directed to the fund by $2.2 million annually. Wisconsin’s remaining 71 counties are still required to direct 50% of revenue from fines and forfeitures to the Common School Fund. A report from April 2025 estimated the 2024-25 library aid to be $8.3 million for more than 130,000 pupils in Milwaukee County.
The Milwaukee County DA’s office has about 120 ADAs and 160 support staff. The provision allows the county to maintain 12 ADA positions, which German says also violates the Supreme Court opinion.
The Legislature’s budget committee added the provision during the last executive session of this budget cycle under a “miscellaneous items” section of the motion as part of a budget deal with Gov. Tony Evers.
Before the provision was proposed and passed by the committee late in the budget process, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not publish budget papers to explain the redirection of revenue from fines and forfeitures, as it often would for other budget proposals that come before the Joint Finance Committee during normal budget deliberations.
“The DPI will work with our partners in state government and professional organizations to ensure the Common School Funds — which are critical to student learning — continue,” a DPI spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch in response to the funding change.
In the last BCPL meeting, German said he informed the Wisconsin Legislative Council — the nonpartisan state agency in charge of providing legal and policy analysis — of this violation, and the council is currently investigating the provision.
The Legislative Council declined to comment. Evers’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
A Milwaukee County spokesperson said the funding for the 12 assistant district attorneys was a “bipartisan solution” to an “urgent need” to address court backlogs in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
“Without this funding, Milwaukee County will lose a dozen assistant district attorney positions, which will significantly increase court backlogs that will impact public safety efforts now and in the future,” the county spokesperson said in an unsigned email.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin’s budget shifts money from schools to Milwaukee prosecutors. That may violate the state constitution. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Ascension Wisconsin will not move forward with a controversial plan to outsource some of its intensive care unit doctors.
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Officials are monitoring the health of a nearby creek after millions of gallons of sewage spilled from a cracked pipe in south Madison.
The post Millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled from busted pipe in Madison appeared first on WPR.
UW police are actively investigating the source of the false report.
The post UW-Madison part of a wave of active shooter hoaxes across US appeared first on WPR.
Although the 988 “press 3” option has ended, the lifeline itself is still operational and available for LGBTQ+ youth to call.
The post Wisconsin LGBTQ+ mental health resources face funding challenges appeared first on WPR.
Gov. Tony Evers formally requested a presidential disaster declaration from President Donald Trump Wednesday, seeking federal help for flooding damage in six Wisconsin counties.
The post Gov. Tony Evers requests presidential disaster declaration for Wisconsin flooding appeared first on WPR.
A Wisconsin appeals court has ruled that state environmental regulators can require large livestock farms to obtain permits that seek to prevent manure spills and protect state waters.
The post DNR can require CAFO permits to protect water, appeals court rules appeared first on WPR.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will challenge her removal, her attorney said Tuesday, arguing President Donald Trump “has no authority” to fire her.
Trump announced late Monday that he would fire Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, over allegations that she falsified documents to obtain a favorable mortgage rate. She has not been charged with a crime.
Cook has consistently voted not to lower interest rates, rejecting requests Trump has made of the independent central banking board.
Cook’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell of Lowell & Associates, said in a statement to States Newsroom that she would sue to block the firing. Former president Joe Biden appointed Cook in 2022. Her term ends in 2038.
“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” Lowell said. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis.”
Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, referred Cook’s mortgage application to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Pulte has made similar accusations against political enemies of the president.
Pulte has accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, who investigated Trump’s business dealings and won a finding of fraud in state court, and California U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, who led the investigation into Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, of mortgage fraud.
Trump posted a letter on social media, arguing that the allegations of Cook’s mortgage fraud had called “into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”
He said the Federal Reserve Act gave him the authority to dismiss a governor for gross misconduct.
The president defended his decision to dismiss Cook to reporters during a more-than-three-hour Cabinet meeting.
“We need people that are 100% on board,” Trump said, adding that he’s already considering someone else for the job.
Cook is not the only Federal Reserve Board member Trump has trained his criticism on. He has long gone after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell for not lowering interest rates.
Trump has pushed for lower interest rates to boost the economy, but rates have remained lower amid concerns that the president’s tariffs will produce price hikes.
“I think we have to have lower interest rates,” Trump said Tuesday.
The dismissal has drawn outrage from economists and Democrats, including the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Yvette D. Clarke of New York.
“President Trump is attempting to oust Dr. Lisa Cook — the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board — with no credible evidence of wrongdoing,” she said in a statement.
“Let’s be clear: this is a racist, misogynistic, and unlawful attack on the integrity and independence of the Federal Reserve,” Clarke said. “It is a dangerous attempt to politicize and exert control over the central bank — one that will only continue to damage the economy, harm hardworking Americans, and undermine our credibility on the world stage.”
Heather Boushey, a top economist under the Biden administration, said in a statement that Trump’s move to fire Cook undermines the independence of the Federal Reserve.
“It is clear from his actions that he does not believe he is bound by rule of law, but can — and will — intimidate experts to bend to his own ends,” Boushey said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a late Monday statement that any attempt to fire Cook “shreds the independence of the Fed and puts every American’s savings and mortgage at risk.”
“This brazen power grab must be stopped by the courts before Trump does permanent damage to national, state, and local economies,” Schumer said. “And if the economy comes crashing down, if families lose their savings and Main Street pays the price, Donald Trump will own every ounce of the wreckage and devastation families feel.”
The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal of Massachusetts, slammed the president, calling Cook’s firing unlawful.
“President Trump’s illegal removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is (an) economic assault,” Neal said in a statement. “Instead of taking responsibility for his own economic failures, he’s manufacturing a villain to blame. As seen around the world, politicizing the central bank means rampant inflation, higher mortgage rates, unstable retirement accounts, and more uncertainty for the people. All of which will threaten the financial security of every American.”
A sign acknowledging Stewardship program support at Firemen's Park in Verona. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Democrats in the Wisconsin state Legislature released their proposal for saving the broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program from lapsing next year. The bill marks the latest step in a legislative effort to save the conservation program — a goal for which members of both political parties have expressed optimism.
The stewardship grant program through the Department of Natural Resources allows the state to fund the purchase and maintenance of public lands. Created 35 years ago, the program is supported by a large swathe of Wisconsin voters, but a subset of Republicans in the Legislature have grown increasingly hostile to its continuation.
Those Republicans argue the burden of land conservation falls largely on their rural districts in northern Wisconsin, which has the most land available for recreational purposes but the state purchasing that land takes it off the property tax rolls.
Republicans have also complained that the program lacks legislative oversight since the state Supreme Court ruled in a 6-1 decision last year that the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee doesn’t have the authority to hold up projects through the program.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), one of the program’s strongest critics, has suggested she’d support re-authorizing the program if it included provisions that capped the amount of government-owned land in a county or allowed counties to sell off existing conservation land.
Without action, the program will end next summer. In his initial budget proposal, Gov. Tony Evers had asked for the program to be provided $100 million per year for 10 years. The version of the budget signed into law in July did not include the program’s re-authorization.
Another bill authored by Republican Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) would re-authorize the program for six years at $28 million per year. To gain the support of the Republicans who want more oversight of the program, the bill would require that any land acquisitions that cost more than $1 million be approved by the full Legislature.
Tuesday’s proposal from Democrats would re-authorize the program for six years at $72 million per year. The bill would also create an independent board with oversight authority over the program.
The 17-member board would include members of the majority and minority in both chambers of the Legislature; two representatives from environmental organizations; two representatives of hunting, fishing or trapping interests; two DNR representatives, including one member from the Natural Resources Board; one representative from the Department of Tourism; one representative of the outdoor recreation industry; one representative from the Ice Age Trail Alliance; a representative of a federally recognized Native American tribe in the state; one local government representative and two members of the public. Members of the board would serve staggered three-year terms.
Under the bill, the board would meet at least quarterly and have the authority to advise the DNR on all projects through the program. On projects involving grants of more than $2.5 million, the board would have full approval authority. If the board doesn’t meet to vote on a project within 120 days, it would be automatically approved.
The Democratic proposal has been co-sponsored by all 60 Democrats in the Assembly and Senate, signaling the broad support for the bill among the Democratic caucuses.
Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) tells the Wisconsin Examiner that the proposal involves a lot of thoughtful effort from Democrats trying to make a “good faith” effort to answer Republican concerns about oversight over the program while getting it re-authorized.
“Our intent in introducing these companion bills in the Senate and the Assembly was premised on a great deal of thought and seriousness,” she says. “That we have the expectation that Republican legislators will take it seriously, because, like us, they have been hearing from their constituents and constituents from across the state. This is an issue that people in Wisconsin 90% approve and they want action, and they want legislators to demonstrate that they can work together and lead with our shared values to get something done.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Kurtz said his intention remains working to find a bipartisan solution to re-authorizing the program.
“It’s always been our intention to find a bipartisan path forward to ensuring the Stewardship Program’s future,” the spokesperson said. “We haven’t reviewed their proposal yet, but look forward to continued discussions on this important issue this fall.”
Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives at the non-profit land trust organization Gathering Waters, says the fate of the program is now up to Republican leaders and their ability to compromise. Carlin points out that it’s clear there aren’t 17 Republican votes in the Senate to support reauthorization.
“As far as anybody can tell, there’s not 17 Republican senators that are going to vote to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson,” he says. “If they were to choose that strategy of trying to do this with only Republican votes, my fear and expectation is the bill would wind up becoming so weighed down with poison pills and anti-conservation measures, it would wind up not being a workable proposal. On the other hand if leaders in the Senate were willing to say ‘OK, this can be a bipartisan exercise, nobody’s going to get quite what they want,’ I think we’re going to see there are 15 Democratic senators eager to find a solution and we could get a decent bill passed with pretty overwhelming support from both parties.”
Carlin says he sees the Democrats’ oversight board idea as a good way to avoid the Joint Finance Committee “veto fiasco” that previously held up projects through the program while allowing the board to make “smart, educated and informed decisions” separate from the political games of the legislative process.
However in recent years under Wisconsin’s divided government, legislative proposals have been met with hopes for bipartisan compromise only to end in partisan bickering. Last session, a proposal to get $125 million out the door to clean up PFAS contamination across the state died after initial optimism after Democrats and Republicans couldn’t agree on the bill’s language.
“That’s a real concern. Where we had the most heartburn and worry coming out of the state budget, this Legislature does not have a good track record of getting things done,” Carlin says. “Even though there were promises made that legislators would come back to work and get Knowles-Nelson done, there’s not a lot of precedent for legislators working together. There are folks on the Republican Senate side who are simply not going to work in good faith to get this done.”
He says Felzkowski’s ideas on the subject are “not serious proposals” but that there are 10 or 12 Republicans in the Senate who value conservation and understand how important it is to the state’s voters.
“If they really engage with the Democrats’ proposal and find middle ground, we can find that success without too much heartache,” he says. “We do know that everybody’s constituents want to see this get done.”
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The Hubert H. Humphrey Building, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., as seen on Nov. 23, 2023. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration demanded Tuesday that dozens of states remove from sex education materials any references to a person’s gender departing from their sex assigned at birth, or lose federal funding.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families warned in letters to 40 states, the District of Columbia and several territories that they could lose a total of $81.3 million in remaining federal funds for the Personal Responsibility Education Program, or PREP, if they do not get rid of these references within 60 days.
The policy appears to target any reference to transgender or nonbinary people. For example, in a letter to an adolescent health program specialist at Alaska’s Department of Health and Social Services, the federal agency asked that a definition of transgender and related terms be deleted from school curricula.
In a statement shared with States Newsroom, Laurel Powell, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, said the move was part of Trump’s “all-out fight to erase government recognition of transgender people.”
“Sexual education programs, at their best, are age-appropriate, fact-based and informative at a time when young people need this information to keep themselves healthy,” Powell said. “When they do not acknowledge the existence of trans people they fail in their goal to inform, and cutting this funding denies young people the information they need to make safe, healthy, and informed decisions about their own bodies.”
PREP focuses on preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and targets youth who are experiencing homelessness or in foster care, or reside in rural areas or places with high rates of teen birth, according to the agency.
The states that HHS sent letters to Tuesday are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The demand marks the latest effort from the administration to do away with “gender ideology,” which the administration says includes “the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex.”
GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, noted in a fact sheet that “gender ideology” is “an inaccurate term deployed by opponents to undermine and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary people.”
The letters came less than a week after the administration terminated California’s PREP grant after refusing to remove “radical gender ideology” from the education materials.
Failure to comply with this demand, the agency said, could result in the “withholding, suspension, or termination of federal PREP funding.”
“Accountability is coming,” Andrew Gradison, acting assistant secretary at HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, said in a statement.
Gradison added that the administration “will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress, not the priorities of the left.”
The effort also comes as the administration continues to crack down on gender-affirming care.
Trump signed earlier executive orders that: restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids; make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female;” bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military; and ban trans women from competing on women’s sports teams.
Protesters gather outside of the Milwaukee FBI office to speak out against the arrest of Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
A federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan in the immigration enforcement-related case that has drawn national attention as an example of the Trump Administration’s effort to punish judges it sees as antagonistic to its increased deportation efforts.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman issued a 27-page order denying Dugan’s motion. Dugan’s attorneys had filed to dismiss the case earlier this summer, arguing that the prosecution violated judicial immunity and represented extreme federal overreach into the operations of the state court system.
Dugan was arrested in April after federal prosecutors alleged she had acted to conceal a man without legal authorization to be in the U.S. from federal agents. The man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, was in Dugan’s courtroom to appear for a hearing on a misdemeanor battery charge against him when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI came to the courtroom to arrest him. The agents were in possession of an administrative warrant signed by an ICE official, rather than a judicial warrant granted by a federal judge.
The administrative warrant did not give the agents the authority to enter private spaces in the courthouse.
Dugan directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a side door of the courtroom, which led them to the same hallway where the agents were standing but not directly past them. An agent rode down in the elevator with Flores-Ruiz and he was later arrested on the street. Dugan has been charged with a felony and a misdemeanor for allegedly trying to help Flores-Ruiz evade arrest.
Adelman’s decision Tuesday is an important step toward Dugan’s case moving to a trial. In his order, he cited the report of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph several times. Joseph had recommended that the motion to dismiss not be granted.
“There is no basis for granting immunity simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered ‘part of a judge’s job,’” Adelman wrote. “As the magistrate judge noted, the same is true in the bribery prosecutions, concededly valid, where the judges were prosecuted for performing official acts intertwined with bribery.”
Adelman gave Dugan’s attorneys until Sept. 3 to appeal his order. If the order is appealed, Dugan’s trial likely wouldn’t occur until 2026. However if there isn’t an appeal, a trial could take place much sooner.
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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy rides on a FrontRunner train in Salt Lake City during a media event on Monday, April 7, 2025. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)
Three states are at risk of losing some federal transportation funding because they are not enforcing President Donald Trump’s executive order that commercial truck drivers must be proficient in English, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday.
New Mexico, Washington and California will have 30 days to comply with the order or risk losing funding from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — among the smaller of the Transportation Department’s agencies — Duffy said, standing behind a lectern with an “America First” banner on it at the department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.
California stands to lose $33 million, Washington could lose $10.5 million and New Mexico would lose $7 million, Duffy said. He urged the states to comply with the executive order, which Trump signed in April and took effect in June, or face increasingly draconian penalties.
“We don’t want to take away money from states,” Duffy said. “But we will take money away and we will take additional steps that get progressively more difficult for these states. There’s a lot of great tools that we have here that we don’t want to use.”
All three states contributed to a Florida crash this month in which three people were killed, Duffy said. The truck driver involved had a commercial license from California and Washington, and had been pulled over for speeding in New Mexico prior to crashing in Florida, Duffy said.
“So this one driver touched all three states,” he said.
The Florida driver, an immigrant from India who did not have permanent legal authority to be in the country, made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike, according to local reports.
Duffy said the Florida driver did not understand road signs, but did not further specify how his lack of English comprehension led to the crash, which reportedly involved making a U-turn across lanes of traffic. But Duffy repeatedly said the issue was one of safety.
Duffy said that when the Trump executive order went into effect, it received negative publicity.
“There was a lot of press that complained to us that we were being unfair to people, that we were being mean to people,” he said. “And what we said was, ‘No, this is a safety issue.’ Making sure drivers of very heavy, 80,000-pound rigs can speak the language is truly a critical safety issue. And some complained about it.”
On social media, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office said the federal government approved a permit for the Florida driver.
“This is rich,” Newsom’s office wrote on X. “The Trump Administration approved the federal work permit for the man who killed 3 people — and now they’re scrambling to shift blame after getting caught. Sean’s nonsense announcement is as big a joke as the Trump Administration itself.”
A DHS spokesperson denied the federal government issued the driver a work permit and blamed Newsom.
“These innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsom’s California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an illegal alien a Commercial Driver’s License—this state of governance is asinine,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to States Newsroom.
Newsom has increasingly over the past few months used his social media channels to mock Trump.
Washington State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis wrote in an email that the agency was “reviewing the matter with our state transportation partners” and would soon have a more detailed response.
A spokesperson for Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said he had not received Duffy’s letter.
“We will review it when we receive it and carefully evaluate next steps,” the spokesperson, Brionna Aho, said.
That state’s Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, made a defiant statement last week about complying with the Trump administration’s demands on immigration enforcement.
“Washington State will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations,” he wrote to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
He has amplified that message several times since.
The New Mexico Department of Transportation deferred a request for comment to the state’s Department of Public Safety, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Duffy said he was puzzled by commercial drivers who were able to pass a skills test without understanding English, and said the department was investigating that issue.
“This is something we’re looking at and working on when someone, an individual, comes in to take their test to become a commercial driver, and then they do a skills test… at that point, it would be clear that this driver doesn’t understand all the road signs and doesn’t speak the language, but miraculously, they’re passing the skills test,” he said. “I think any common-sense analysis would say, well, that doesn’t make sense.”
The federal department would be looking at whether the skills tests are being correctly administered and whether there is “some gaming of the system that we have to address.”
Milwaukee Fire Department Chief Aaron Lipski. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
“We’re gathered here today to help people,” said Aaron Lipski, chief of the Milwaukee Fire Department, during a Monday press conference with local and state elected leaders, the American Red Cross and first responders, calling for more volunteers to staff emergency shelters in Milwaukee serving people displaced by unprecedented floods.
Lipski praised the Red Cross as “an amazing partner,” but added, “When we see them feeling the strain, we feel like we should step up and help.”
Following the historic Aug. 9-10 floods which overwhelmed the streets and infrastructure across Milwaukee County, the Red Cross opened two emergency shelters for people who could not return to their homes. Those two shelters were closed down and re-located to Marshall High School, with about 50 people reportedly depending on the shelters.
During the Monday press conference, Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the flood was particularly hard on people who already depend on strained public services, particularly unhoused people in Milwaukee.
As of Aug. 19, more than 3,400 homes were assessed as either destroyed or sustaining major damage from the flooding, which occurred as some parts of Milwaukee County received over 10 inches of torrential downpour. The estimated price tag exceeded $34 million for public property damage.
“Now, we’ve all seen the shock and the tears in the eyes of folks who’ve been affected by those floods,” said Johnson.
“The trauma’s enormous, and the sadness is really, really deep,” he added. “… all these folks, they need a place to go — a safe place to go.”
At least two people drowned during the floods, the mayor said, including 49-year-old Juan Carlos Sierra Campos, whose body was discovered in Lake Michigan the morning after the floods, and 72-year-old Isaias Serna, who was found drowned four days after the floods in Port Milwaukee. “Now, both these men apparently were unhoused individuals, and that circumstance may have been part of the reason why they ended up losing their lives,” Johnson said. Both men were reportedly known to live in the same encampment under the bridge, at the intersection of South Chase Avenue and South 1st St. Two other men from the same encampment are reportedly still missing.
“I want all of our neighbors to be sheltered, and to be sheltered safely,” said Johnson. “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to think, really take in account, about how you might be able to assist.”
Milwaukee officials are calling on local residents to pitch in however they can. Whether by opening the doors of a church or business to become a shelter, or volunteering at an existing shelter. The Milwaukee Public School district has provided emergency shelter space, Johnson said, but that will be coming to an end in just a few days when the new school year starts.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said it made him feel hopeful to see residents step up to help each other. But he also said the struggle to find shelter for flood victims shows the severity of Milwaukee’s housing shortage. “The bottom line is this,” said Crowley, “we need more safe and accessible shelter locations throughout the community so when emergencies like the floods happen, we’re prepared.”
We want folks to understand that by opening your doors, especially in times of crisis, that you can help to provide more of our residents with not only safety, but some stability, and a hope that they need during the hardest times of their lives.
– David Crowley, Milwaukee County Executive.
Catherine Rabenstine, CEO of American Red Cross of Wisconsin, said that after disasters “one of the most urgent needs is a safe place to stay,” somewhere that “people can catch their breath, gather their thoughts, and begin to recover.” Many people who were displaced by the floods can only find shelter space far from their own neighborhoods, schools, jobs and support systems, she said. “It makes an already difficult time even harder.”
While the Red Cross has 14 shelter partner facilities across Milwaukee County, only two are located on the North Side “where most apartment fires occur, and where flooding recently hit the hardest,” said Rabenstine. She added, “we need to grow this network, so that no family has to wait for safety.”
Crowley, who has worked to create more affordable housing opportunities, said the flood’s impact has rippled out to touch other areas of need in the community.
“This has really shown … that we have a huge need for housing just in general,” he said. “ … whether we’re talking about people being displaced due to the natural disaster, or people being displaced due to evictions or not having enough money to actually make their rent,” Crowley told Wisconsin Examiner, “I think this shows that we need greater partnership between municipalities, with the state, as well as the federal government to really focus on housing issues.
Scientists have long warned that more intense rainfall and greater flood risks would be among the ways climate change would affect Wisconsin. Rep. Omokunde, who has worked on climate change legislation, told the Examiner, “We know that when you have fossil fuels that are burning, and they’re going into the air, it causes heavier rains. And we have to cut down our carbon emission. If it’s not more evident with these kinds of floods, it needs to be more evident now.”
Omokunde said that Wisconsin should focus on ways to capture carbon and support legislation to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2050. “So let’s come to the table, and come up with a plan to say that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson said that although the Legislature is on break, conversations are happening around the flood aftermath. Officials are also waiting to see how the federal government assesses the damage in Milwaukee, and whether additional federal assistance will be approved. “It’s still a huge concern for us, even with FEMA’s involvement,” Johnson told Wisconsin Examiner.
While touring damage with Gov. Tony Evers, Johnson said she saw houses that had been completely washed off their foundations. ‘There is no salvaging those properties for some of those homeowners, but they still have mortgages,” said Johnson. “So what happens to those dwellings? And we know that even if FEMA does step up, their job isn’t to make people 100% whole. So what does that look like for some of those homeowners and landlords, and how do they get those properties back on the market?” With affordable housing already scarce in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, Johnson wonders what will happen “with even more houses taken off the market” due to flood damage.
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