The Milwaukee County Courthouse. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Two people have been arrested at the Milwaukee County Courthouse by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, the sheriff’s office said Friday. Although the Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) was aware of the first arrest, the office states that it was not given advance notice of the second arrest. MCSO stressed in a statement that it did not participate in either arrest, and that it’s “not uncommon for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to search available databases for upcoming court hearings of individuals they are seeking.” 

MCSO has not responded to a request for more details. A spokesperson for ICE said the agency was unable to confirm the arrests without additional information about the specific targets. Fears of immigration operations have been heightened since President Donald Trump announced that the government would pursue mass deportations. ICE has made hundreds of arrests in recent months, including of people who were not convicted of any  crime and activists who participated in  protests on college campuses. 

Local groups and officials are condemning the arrests at the courthouse. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said that the courthouse “stands as a cornerstone of justice where residents come to seek information, resources and fair participation in the legal process.” Crowley said that “an attack on this safe, community-serving space undermines public trust, breeds fear among citizens and staff and disrupts the due process essential to our courts.” Crowley called on local leaders to protect Milwaukee’s institutions, as well as due process for people in the judicial process. 

Tim Muth, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, said in a statement that “such actions create fear among immigrant members of our community coming to the courthouse to seek justice as crime victims or witnesses.”  Muth added, “Research by the ACLU has shown that when ICE is known to be active in courthouses, members of the immigrant community are less likely to report crimes, less likely to cooperate with police and prosecutors, and less likely to make their court appearances. Our communities become less safe as a consequence.” 

In 2017, according to the ACLU’s “Freezing Out Justice” report, a survey sample of police officers reported that immigrants appeared less likely to report crimes after immigration operations conducted during Trump’s first term. Crime victims and witnesses were reluctant to assist police due to the fear of being deported. Legal service providers who worked with immigrant communities also reported encountering that victims chose to stay in abusive or dangerous situations rather than expose themselves to ICE operations. 

Muth and the ACLU call on the Milwaukee County court system and sheriff’s office to prevent similar actions in the future. “The last thing we want is to interfere with the legal process or sow doubt in those summoned to the courthouse about whether or not they will receive fair, impartial justice,” said Crowley. “I will continue working with our partners across the county and state to maintain safety and justice for all.”

The Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression also condemned the arrests. “We take this to be a sign of heightened racist and political repression against immigrants,” the Alliance said in a statement. “Furthermore, we are concerned by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office acceptance of these arrests, stating that it’s not uncommon practice for agencies to access databases of people scheduled to appear before court. There is already very little trust with the MCSO, and now people have to fear for their safety inside the courthouse?”

The activist group, which has called for civilian oversight of law enforcement in Milwaukee County, stressed that people use the courthouse for all sorts of reasons, most of which are not related to criminal activity. “With today’s arrests, there is a further stigma placed on immigrants who enter the courthouse, making them feel even more criminalized,” the Alliance said in a statement. “We need city and county officials like the Sheriff to take a clear stance against ICE operating in Milwaukee. Sheriff [Denita] Ball has the authority to not collaborate with ICE, but this is a sign that she may very well choose to do so.” 

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The James H. Shannon Building on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by  Lydia Polimeni, National Institutes of Health)

Sixteen states with Democratic attorneys general sued the National Institutes of Health on Friday, claiming the agency has purposefully delayed and disrupted medical research grant awards and terminated grants that had already been issued.

In an 82-page complaint that names Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya as defendants, the attorneys general said since President Donald Trump retook office, NIH has delayed the review approvable process for grants that should have been awarded.

The agency has refused to pay for multi-year grants that were approved under previous administrations, citing disagreements over race and gender issues, the suit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts says.

Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin filed the suit.

NIH work ‘in jeopardy’

The attorneys general in those states praised the NIH as “the crown jewel” of health research that has fueled medical breakthroughs and spurred economic growth across the country.

“That critical work is now in jeopardy,” they wrote. “By law, NIH provides much of its support for scientific research and training in the form of grants to outside institutions. Since January, however, the current Administration has engaged in a concerted, and multi-pronged effort to disrupt NIH’s grants.”

Starting last month, NIH sent “hundreds of letters” to research institutions in the states canceling grants that had already been issued. The institutions were told the grants “no longer effectuate… agency priorities,” according to the complaint.

Those cancellations stem from three executive orders Trump signed on his first day back in office targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and recognition of transgender people. Agency leaders followed up with directives to pause related grants.

The letters to research institutions declare “the grant in question has been terminated because of some connection to ‘DEI,’ ‘transgender issues,’ “vaccine hesitancy,” or another topic disfavored by the current Administration,” the attorneys general wrote.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Yet another legal battle

The department is also facing a suit from a wider group of Democratic states over the cancellation of other grants that were initially issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those states say the department overrode extensions of the grants and rescinded $11 billion in funding that has led to layoffs and work stoppages.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered those grants to be temporarily restored as the case unfolds.

(Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Four county sheriffs in Wisconsin have signed agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent months stating they’ll cooperate with the federal agency on immigration enforcement actions. 

Since March, Washington, Waupaca, Winnebago and Wood counties have signed onto ICE’s Warrant Service Officer program, which authorizes sheriff’s deputies to serve immigration warrants against undocumented immigrants in the county jail, according to an updated ICE list of participating agencies across the country. 

These four counties have joined eight others that already had existing agreements with the agency prior to the inauguration of President Donald Trump. 

In January, Tim Muth, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner these agreements were a method the Trump administration would use to find allies in its effort to deport millions of undocumented people. 

“What they do indicate is which are the counties who have already raised their hands and said, ‘we are happy to assist with deporting people from the state,’ and I anticipate that the Trump administration is going to start with that list and say ‘we know who our allies are in this in the state of Wisconsin,’” Muth said. “Let’s see if one: We can get more allies signing these agreements, and, two: For the ones who already have, let’s see what we can do to get them more active in this area.”

Immigrant rights advocates say the pre-existing agreements with ICE were hardly used under President Joe Biden, but under Trump they can be used to deport any undocumented person in the jail, even if they’re there for a low-level offense or before they can defend themselves in court against the charges they’re accused of. 

Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature have been pushing for more county sheriffs to participate in these types of programs, authoring a bill that would require counties to verify the citizenship status of people in custody for a felony offense and notify ICE if citizenship cannot be verified. It would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people held in the county jail for a criminal offense.

Under the proposed legislation, counties that don’t comply would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state in the next year. 

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Sal Miranda (C) and Tony Chang of the nonprofit GRID Alternatives install no-cost solar panels on the rooftop of a low-income household on October 19, 2023, in Pomona, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A multibillion-dollar Environmental Protection Agency program designed to spur investment in energy-efficiency improvements nationwide is tied up in a legal battle that threatens to upend planned projects across the United States focused on affordable housing, the adoption of electric vehicles and more.

The EPA last month said it was terminating grants tied to the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program Congress created as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, “based on substantial concerns regarding… program integrity, the award process, programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse, and misalignment with agency’s priorities.” President Joe Biden signed the act into law.

Funds had already been dispersed into awardees’ bank accounts at Citibank as part of the program.

But the Trump administration, according to a document shared related to the lawsuit, directed Citi to freeze activity on those accounts. As a result, organizations around the country either already awarded money or in advanced talks to obtain funding are unable to access capital for planned projects.

The projects run the gamut, focusing on anything from installing energy-efficient technology in affordable housing units with the aim of lowering residents’ utility bills to adding solar panels to schools.

“There will be … very real capacity constraints if the funding is frozen indefinitely,” said Kari Groth Swan, executive director of the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority, a state body that finances clean-energy projects.

Groth Swan’s organization was awarded $25 million from the Coalition for Green Capital, one of the groups allocated funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

Seeding energy-efficiency projects

The goal of the fund is to catalyze investment in energy-efficiency technology and other initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases.

“We loan it out, we get it back, we do it again,” Groth Swan said. “It acts like a revolving loan fund.”

The Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority is one of many betting on funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to help get these projects off the ground. Organizations have been relying on this money to further pad much larger funding pools that include capital from outside investors.

In Minnesota, for example, the $25 million the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority was awarded from the federal program makes up about one-fifth of the capital Groth Swan is planning to go toward a host of projects.

They include making an old school that’s being turned into a workforce development site more energy efficient and putting solar and storage technology on schools in north Minneapolis to keep the lights on during severe weather, according to Groth Swan.

Her organization also plans to loan money to an ice hockey arena for a new electric cooling system so it can stop using a toxin the EPA wants ice rinks to get rid of, she said.

Suit to unfreeze funds

The Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority is one of several organizations that last month sued both the EPA and Citibank over the freezing of money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

The fund drew ire from Republicans long before President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Democrats, who held majorities in both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2022, passed the law creating the program without any Republicans supporting it.

After Trump’s return to office, his EPA said it was terminating $20 billion in grants from the fund, and recipients sued to retain the funding.

A federal judge last month ruled that Citibank couldn’t move any of the federal funding in question out of the accounts, stating that the agency hadn’t provided “credible evidence” that there was “waste, fraud, or abuse” associated with the grant agreements.

When an attorney for the Department of Justice was asked in court last month whether he could provide evidence that the law had been violated through conflicts of interest or fraud, the attorney said he did not have that. The attorneys listed as representing the EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment and an EPA spokesperson said in an email that it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The court on April 2 held a hearing over the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, but a judge has yet to hand down a ruling.

Citibank did keep the money in awardees’ accounts, said Brooke Durham, a spokesperson for Climate United, one of the funding awardees and plaintiffs in the lawsuit. But one thing Durham and others expressed concern about is the uncertainty surrounding the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money affecting other investors in these projects.

“There are a lot of people counting on these investments across the field all the way from developers to community lenders to private capital,” Durham said.

Citibank declined to comment.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, on the same day the judge issued a temporary restraining order, addressed the Greenhouse Reduction Fund in a post on the social media platform X, alleging the grants were “riddled with self-dealing and wasteful spending.”

“I will not rest until these hard-earned taxpayer dollars are returned to the U.S. Treasury,” he said in the post.

A letter from the EPA to the agency’s inspector general last month raised concerns with the structure of the grant awards and bank account agreements and alleged that a grant awarded to a Biden official’s former employer violated conflict-of-interest standards.

Seeking alternatives

The temporary restraining order hasn’t stopped potential funding recipients from trying to find alternative funding to keep their projects going.

Megan Lasch, owner and president of Texas-based affordable housing organization firm O-SDA Industries, said her organization was going through the process to get $4 million in funding from one of the groups already given funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for a $30 million affordable housing renovation in southwest Fort Worth.

The project is focused on renovating 116 homes, most of which are two and three-bedroom units. Lasch’s company is aiming to lower residents’ utility bills by installing things like energy-efficient light fixtures and more efficient heating and air-conditioning systems.

“It’s really important dollars that a lot of developers, real estate professionals are utilizing in their capital stack to help create and preserve affordable housing,” Lasch said.

Lasch said her firm called in a favor from another nonprofit organization as a “Hail Mary” to get a loan to fill a potential void from the federal money O-SDA was counting on, but the plan is to pay the organization back. She’s not optimistic other projects will be able to move ahead without the federal funding, though, she said.

“I think there’s going to be several developments that just don’t happen because there’s not another source that can get some of these deals done now,” she said.

Rising costs for consumers

Similarly to Lasch, Homewise, a housing-focused developer and financial firm based in New Mexico, was also working on procuring money from different programs under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and had moved forward in the due diligence process, according to deputy CEO Johanna Gilligan.

Gilligan said she hopes that either the state or philanthropic organizations could step in to help fill the funding void.

Homewise’s plan is to use the money for a program to help low- to moderate-income homeowners in big cities like Albuquerque and Santa Fe reduce their utility expenses by undertaking energy-efficiency upgrades, she said.

As part of that program, Homewise sends representatives out to people’s houses to help them understand where they’re losing energy and how they could lower their costs. That person might explain what tax credits or rebates people can use, Gilligan said. She described the program as “a one-stop shop for energy-efficiency improvements” and said the goal of the organization is to make these processes simpler for everyday people to understand.

“That’s the real loss here,” she said. “For working-class people and those who are contributing significantly to the economy, often … this change makes it harder to help those folks to in turn be able to improve their homes and save money on their bills.”

Robert Sheppard, the co-founder of Vital Housing, an affordable housing investment firm that does work in the Pacific Northwest, said his firm was awarded a 3% interest loan from one of the organizations awarded funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The plan is to use the $1.5 million loan to reduce carbon emissions and energy use in an affordable housing project in Portland, Oregon, to limit residents’ utility costs.

“We don’t have a source to replace the financing at this point,” said Sheppard, who has raised a total of $24 million for the project. Without the federal funding, residents would see higher energy costs, he said.

“We would not do the work that is scheduled to be done, which would leave carbon exposure and maintain energy costs at a level that is above where it should be for the residents and the building,” he said.

Dollars aside, some of the recipients of the federal money expressed concern that even if the funds do become available for withdrawal again, the agency’s posture toward the program could still be problematic for them.

“We can win the battle of getting the funds unfrozen but we still (have) to make sure that we have a(n) EPA that understands the value of our mission and our mandate,” Minnesota’s Groth Swan said.

Protestors outside the U.S. District Court of Maryland in Greenbelt rally in support of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was deported to El Salvador in an "administrative error,” calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge in Maryland Friday ordered the Trump administration to return a national from El Salvador by April 7 who was erroneously deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite an order blocking such removal.

The ruling from U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis sets up a fight with the Trump administration. Officials have admitted the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was a mistake, but have stood by their actions.

The case could also mean that the more than 250 Venezuelan men in a separate case who were removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 without due process can be returned to the U.S. 

Cheers could be heard outside the courthouse after the order, as dozens of protestors waited for the decision.

Hours later, the Department of Justice appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

‘It was unconstitutional’

Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said “there is no evidence to hold” Abrego Garcia at the notorious prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT, and even noted his March 12 arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no basis for removal.

“That means from the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional,” Xinis said.

The attorney representing the Department of Justice, Erez Reuveni, said the Trump administration is not challenging the merits of the case and the only argument it has is that the Maryland court lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador.

Xinis pressed on what grounds Abrego Garcia was removed to the prison.

Reuveni said he has no idea and was not given any information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

She asked why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the United States, which is what his family was seeking in Friday’s preliminary injunction hearing.

Reuveni said that he has asked officials that same question, and has not received an answer that is “satisfactory.”

Reuveni made one request to the court, that Xinis give the administration of President Donald Trump 24 hours to try to rectify the situation.

U.S. paying $6 million

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia are not only asking for him to be returned, but for the Trump administration to cease payments to the mega-prison for his detainment. The White House has stated it’s paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to detain nearly 300 men.

Reuveni said because Abrego Garcia is in custody in El Salvador, he is no longer in U.S. custody and therefore cannot be retrieved.

Xinis pushed back on that argument, noting that the U.S. and El Salvador have a contract to detain the men at the prison.

Reuveni said that it’s not a contract the U.S. and El Salvador have.

Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, contended that “there is significant coordination between the two governments.”

He noted that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has filmed herself while visiting CECOT and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a close relationship with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

Xinis said to Reuveni that because the U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men, “I can draw the logical argument that the U.S. is the payer.”

She asked Reuveni if he has any evidence to show her that contradicts that knowledge.

“The government made a choice here to produce no evidence,” Reuveni said.

Wartime law invoked

On March 15, three deportation flights left for El Salvador with two planes carrying Venezuelans removed under the wartime law and a third plane that carried nationals from El Salvador, including Abrego Garcia.

A 2019 order from an immigration judge deemed that Abrego Garcia should be removed from the U.S. However, he was granted protection because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

Attorneys for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have challenged that decision, but did not. Instead, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE every year, including earlier this year.

When Abrego Garcia was driving his 5-year-old son home on March 12, he was pulled over by ICE and informed that his “status had changed,” and was quickly transferred to a detention center in Texas. Within three days he was on a plane to CECOT, despite the order barring his removal to El Salvador.

Xinis asked Reuveni under what authority Abrego Garcia was removed and he said he didn’t know. All he was given was a declaration by ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna, he said.

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.

Xinis said if the government could not cite what legal authority he was being removed under, “then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That’s how I’m looking at it.”

ICE and the Department of Justice have admitted the removal was an “administrative error,” but the Trump administration has stood by its decision.

White House gets involved

Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on social media, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia was a convicted member of the MS-13 gang and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt this week echoed Vance.

“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.

Because of those comments by Leavitt, Sandoval-Moshenberg asked the judge to “keep the government on a tight leash.”

Abrego Garcia does not have a criminal record in the U.S., El Salvador or anywhere else, Sandoval-Moshenberg has stated.

Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records. Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.

While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.

The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.

While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.

"We remain confident Wisconsin schools and the DPI are in full compliance with the law," DPI Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement. Underly at a rally in February. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is reviewing a request by the Trump administration that state education agencies ensure they aren’t using diversity, equity and inclusion programs — or risk losing federal funding. 

According to WisPolitics, state Superintendent Jill Underly said the agency is looking at the U.S. Department of Education’s “justification and authority to request sign off from Wisconsin schools on the federal agency’s political beliefs.” 

“Now more than ever, Wisconsin’s students, educators and schools need support – not threats of federal funding cuts that are vital to their success,” Underly said in a statement. “As we stated in February, we remain confident Wisconsin schools and the DPI are in full compliance with the law and remain committed to providing the best education possible for our students.”

In a letter, the Department of Education said that state agencies need to certify their compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the responsibilities outlined in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard — the landmark Supreme Court decision that said race-based programs in higher education violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and effectively ended consideration of race in admissions programs. 

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal antidiscrimination requirements. Unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI.” 

The request comes as a part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing attack on DEI efforts across the country.

State agencies were given 10 days to collect certification from local education agencies and respond, according to the release. 

Underly, who was reelected to a second term this week, also urged state lawmakers Wednesday to invest in Wisconsin’s public schools amid the threat of funding cuts by the federal government.

“An unprecedented number of our school districts have been forced to turn to referenda, asking their communities to raise property taxes just to compensate for the state’s underfunding. On top of that, the Trump administration’s reckless cuts threaten the critical federal funding that Wisconsin schools depend on,” Underly said at a public hearing held by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee in Kaukana. Underly was not invited for an agency briefing before the committee, so she traveled to deliver her message at the public hearing.

Her requests for state investment include increasing the state’s special education reimbursement for schools, funding universal free school meals and investing in mental health supports for students.

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Harmeet Dhillon,  confirmed on April 3, 2025, as President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant attorney general for civil rights, prepares for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Feb. 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Senate cleared two more of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice nominees Thursday, installing another attorney who defended Trump last year and a new lead on civil rights who has drawn intense criticism from advocacy groups.

The Senate confirmed California lawyer Harmeet Dhillon in a 52-45 vote to the role of assistant attorney general, heading up the agency’s Civil Rights Division, one of the largest at Justice. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to oppose the nomination.

Dhillon, a Trump legal adviser and the managing partner at Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, specializes in commercial litigation, employment law, First Amendment rights and election law matters, according to the biography on her firm’s website.

Dhillon is also the CEO and founder of the Center for American Liberty, which states its mission as “defending the civil liberties of Americans left behind by civil rights legacy organizations.”

Dhillon previously sat on the ACLU Northern California board and defended members of the Sikh community, to which her family belongs, from attacks after 9/11, according to reporting from San Francisco-based KQED-FM.

But Dhillon also has a trail of controversies, including repeatedly denying the 2020 presidential election results and fueling conspiracies following the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

Civil rights advocates also point to her recent legal work challenging voting and transgender rights.

“She’s not out there to protect the rights of all of us, and that’s what her record has demonstrated,” Lena Zwarensteyn, of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told States Newsroom Thursday.

In an eight-page letter to senators, led by the Leadership Conference and signed by dozens of advocacy groups, the coalition wrote Dhillon has “relentlessly tried to limit access to the ballot box” and “denied, diminished and tried to erase” the existence of transgender youth.

States Newsroom reached out to the White House for comment.

Former Missouri AG elevated

The Senate also confirmed in a party-line vote, 52-45, Dean Sauer, former Missouri solicitor general and Trump’s defense lawyer, to lead government litigation.

After representing Trump’s presidential immunity argument before the U.S. Supreme Court last year, Sauer will now argue before the high bench on the DOJ’s behalf.

Sauer made headlines in January 2024 when he suggested to a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that a president might be shielded by presidential immunity for ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a rival. 

Children engaged in sensory exercises, often used in special education classrooms. (Photo by Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump takes drastic steps to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, disability advocates are worried about whether the agency can carry out its responsibilities to serve students with disabilities.

Representatives of several disability advocacy groups cited “chaos,” “fear” and “uncertainty” in describing the situation to States Newsroom. They said there’s a lack of clarity about both proposed changes within the realm of special education services and the impact overall of sweeping shifts at the agency, calling into question whether the department can deliver on its congressionally mandated guarantees for students with disabilities.

“It’s only been a few weeks since these things started happening, so I don’t think we’re seeing any of the effects trickle down right now, but we do have parents reaching out to us, calling and feeling really scared,” said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Among the department’s chief responsibilities is guaranteeing a free public education for students with disabilities through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, and enforcing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, part of which bars programs and activities receiving federal funding from discrimination on the basis of disability.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was enacted in 1975 under a different title and later renamed in 1990.

IDEA “governs how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education, and related services” to students with disabilities, per the department.

The department notes that before the 1975 law, “many children were denied access to education and opportunities to learn” and in 1970, “U.S. schools educated only one in five children with disabilities.” 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 15% of all public school students in the country received services through IDEA during the 2022-2023 school year.

In fiscal year 2024, $15.4 billion was appropriated for IDEA.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 states that: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States … shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Closing the department

Trump signed an executive order in March that called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the agency to the maximum extent she’s permitted to by law.

The department also announced earlier that month that it would be slashing more than 1,300 positions through a “reduction in force,” or RIF effort, sparking widespread concerns about how the department could deliver on its core functions.

For special education services, advocates question significant cuts to units like the Office for Civil Rights, which is tasked with investigating discrimination complaints, including those that are disability-based.

Linscott said parents are asking questions such as: “‘What does this mean? Is my child still going to be able to have an (Individualized Education Program)? Is the state going to be required to uphold the IDEA? Or, I have a pending complaint with (the Office for Civil Rights), what does this mean for how long it’s going to take to settle this case or to investigate this claim?’”

Heather Eckner, director of statewide education at the Autism Alliance of Michigan, said it’s been “all-consuming” trying to keep up with what she calls a “chaos factory,” noting that it’s a lot of work for advocacy groups and policy analysts “to try to sort through and figure out what’s real, what’s actually happening, what might happen, and where the impact might be.”

“Ultimately, this is just having a significant destabilizing effect,” said Eckner, whose statewide organization focuses on expanding opportunities for people with autism.

Moving special education services to HHS

That uncertainty also stems from Trump’s announcement in March that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs.”

The proposal sparked concern and confusion among disability advocates, both for what that transfer would look like and the legality of the proposed move. 

The president offered little detail into the proposal, but HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on social media that the agency is “fully prepared” to take on that responsibility.

Meanwhile, HHS is witnessing its own drastic changes and restructuring, including beginning to lay off 10,000 workers — further calling into question how that agency could take on the Education Department’s special education services.

In response to a request for comment, HHS directed States Newsroom to Kennedy’s social media post regarding the proposed transfer but did not provide any further details.

“We have a lot of concerns over both the legality of that, but also just what that means for kind of how we view the education of students with disabilities in general, and how do we view disability in this country, and then what those actual implications on students are,” Linscott said. 

Jennifer Coco, interim executive director at the Center for Learner Equity, told States Newsroom that any move to separate the education of students with disabilities from the education of all students “further pathologizes disability and is treating 15% of all the children in our public school buildings like they’re medical issues — they’re not.”

“They are students who learn differently, a vast majority of whom could learn at the same grade level as their peers if they were provided appropriate instruction,” said Coco, whose national nonprofit focuses on ensuring students with disabilities have access to quality educational opportunities, including public school choice.

Any transfer of responsibility for these federal laws, such as IDEA, would require an act of Congress — a significant undertaking given that at least 60 votes are needed to break through the Senate’s filibuster and Republicans, with their narrow majority, hold just 53 seats.

The Education Department told States Newsroom that no action has been taken to move federally mandated programs out of the agency at this time.

“As President Trump and Secretary McMahon have made clear, sunsetting the Department of Education will be done in partnership with Congress and national and state leaders to ensure all statutorily required programs are managed responsibly and where they best serve students and families,” Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Judge James E. Boasberg on Thursday strongly implied there was probable cause that the Trump administration violated his orders over deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“It seems to me … that the government acted in bad faith throughout that day,” he said of March 15, when the administration sent three flights of Venezuelan nationals to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison and seemingly defied his order to return them.

“If you believed everything you did was legal, I can’t believe you would have operated the way you did that day,” Boasberg said to Drew Ensign, a deputy assistant attorney general who is representing the administration in the case.

An order of contempt could come as soon as next week, Boasberg said. He said if he finds the government in contempt, there would be hearings to determine the official, or officials, who defied his order and the possible consequences of those actions.

Contempt would allow Boasberg to issue a fine against certain officials in order to force compliance or he even could order U.S. marshals to jail an official.

During Thursday’s hearing, Boasberg questioned why the proclamation was signed “in secret,” noting it was put into use before a judge could review it.

“Is there any other inference (than) that there was an expedited effort to get people on planes…before my hearing,” Boasberg asked, referring to a March 15 hearing that ended with the judge placing the temporary restraining order blocking the use of the law.

For more than an hour Thursday, Boasberg grilled Ensign about the timing of three deportation flights after the wartime law was invoked.

In the order, Boasberg also required the return of any mid-air flights to the U.S.

But rather than return the flights, the government delivered more than 261 men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador known as CECOT. 

Boasberg questioned Ensign on which government officials were aware his temporary restraining order was in place and asked for the name of the person who decided not to turn the flights around.

Ensign said he was not sure and then cited attorney-client privileges, which Boasberg seemed skeptical about. Ensign then said he was not aware of who made the decision to not turn the flights around.

The Trump administration has denied it violated any orders and has said that it followed the law.

Contempt hearings possible

Boasberg asked American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt what process for a contempt finding they would recommend.

Gelernt said having the government write sworn declarations answering pointed questions and having officials questioned under oath would be acceptable steps.

“We feel the order was violated,” Gelernt said. 

ACLU has already filed for a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

In the motion for a preliminary injunction, ACLU argued that the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act violates administrative and immigration laws and constitutional rights to due process.

“Plaintiffs will suffer severe and irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, as demonstrated by class members who have already been removed and consigned to a life sentence in a Salvadoran prison without … notice or the opportunity to contest the government’s designation,” according to the brief.

A hearing for a preliminary injunction is set for April 8.

The Trump administration on March 28 made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow for deportations under the wartime law – something that until now, had only been used during wars: the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. A decision from the high court is expected soon.

Seeking information

President Donald Trump has publicly attacked Boasberg, calling for his impeachment. The Justice Department has also tried to have Boasberg removed from the case.

Attorney General Pam Bondi invoked the “state secrets privilege” late last month to refuse to answer Boasberg’s detailed questions about the flights.

Boasberg rejected that argument in Thursday’s hearing, asking Ensign if the information was classified.

Ensign said it was not classified.

Boasberg then questioned why the Trump administration refused to show him the information he was seeking, as is common in cases with sensitive information such as national security details.

There are specific rooms called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIFs, where sensitive information can be discussed with officials, such as a federal judge.

Boasberg said the administration was acting “pretty sketchily” in not showing him the information. 

In various hearings, Boasberg has expressed doubt that the Trump administration can use the wartime law to deport Venezuelans accused of gang ties without due process. Boasberg has agreed that the president has broad authority over foreign policy and deportations, but has deemed deportations can’t be done without due process.

Aside from determining if the Trump administration violated his restraining order with the deportation flights, Boasberg is trying to determine if the president violated the Alien Enemies Act by deporting Venezuelans without proper judicial review.

Department of Justice attorneys have argued that those subject to the Alien Enemies Act do not need to be notified. Instead, they argue anyone subject to the proclamation who wants to challenge it can make a habeas corpus claim – that is, challenge the legality of their detentions.

Flights to El Salvador

At issue are three deportation planes that eventually went to the prison in El Salvador on March 15. Two of the planes left before Boasberg gave a verbal order to pause deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

One plane left after Boasberg issued a written order, but the Trump administration has said those on the third flight had removal orders under Title 8, not the wartime law.

Ensign said the proclamation was signed on March 14, but didn’t go into effect until the next day.

Boasberg questioned how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was able to have enough time to load up three planes and deport Venezuelans under the proclamation if they only knew about it that day.

Ensign conceded that ICE likely was preparing for the proclamation ahead of time.

“If that’s true, one could infer, they were working on the proclamation before it was public,” Boasberg said.

Boasberg also noted public comments the president made, where Trump said he wasn’t sure who signed the proclamation or when it was signed.

Ensign said he had not seen the press conference during which the president made those remarks.

Deportation errors

Boasberg questioned Ensign about who was notified when he first placed the temporary restraining order. Ensign stuttered and seemed uncomfortable, and said he could not remember. Boasberg gave him time to recall.

Ensign listed off members of his DOJ team and points of contact at the State Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Boasberg again noted the “rushed” nature of the flights and how the government has erred in deporting people, including a Maryland father who originally from El Salvador who was sent to prison due to what ICE and DOJ have called an “administrative error.”

Boasberg also noted that eight women and one Nicaraguan national were returned from the March 15 flights because the prison was only for men and El Salvador was only taking Venezuelans and their own nationals.

Boasberg asked Ensign why the Trump administration would “risk putting people on these planes that should not be on (the) planes.”

Ensign said he didn’t have specific operational details.

Family members and attorneys for many of the men have disputed the Trump administration’s claims that those taken to El Salvador were members of the Tren de Aragua. They claim the men were deported because ICE agents misinterpreted their tattoos. Many deportees had no criminal record and were in asylum hearings before an immigration judge, they added. 

MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of students in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) have been tested for lead poisoning as the district continues navigating controversy after several school closures due to lead contamination. City officials said during a Thursday morning press conference that 249 students and their siblings have been tested since January. Three schools remain closed including Fernwood Montessori School, Starms Early Childhood Center, and LaFollete School, while four other schools which were previously closed have been re-opened. 

MPS also announced that its senior director of facilities director and management is leaving the district, effective immediately. The district is now looking for a new director to help address lead hazards in MPS schools. Sean Kane had been with MPS for 25 years. MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius thanked him for his service during the Thursday morning press conference at the MPS Administration Building. 

“I will immediately begin a search for a permanent replacement to lead the district,” said Cassellius, adding that Michael Mannan, the Milwaukee Health Department’s director of home environmental health, and Mike Turza, a retired MPS employee who was re-hired in March after nine years of retirement are assisting during the transition. Turza was brought onto Cassellius’ transition team to help with an operational audit requested by the governor’s office.

Kane has become a central figure in the MPS lead contamination controversy. While working as facilities director, Kane had failed to keep his architecture license current. In March, the state Department of Health Services issued a letter blasting lead remediation work done by MPS employees overnight at Fernwood Montessori. The letter said that 11 employees conducting the lead remediation may not have been trained to do so, and that students had been allowed back into classrooms which were still contaminated. 

“We must move forward with a plan that everyone has confidence in, that everyone trusts, and that puts the wellbeing of our students and staff at the forefront,” said Cassellius. Mayor Cavalier Johnson was also in attendance, and praised the collaborative efforts between MPS, the health department and the state government, as well as MPS leaders’ care and attention to families. “There’s nothing, absolutely nothing more important than the health and wellbeing of kids in Milwaukee,” said Johnson. “We recognize that there are issues, and we are actively working to address those issues with keeping the health and again, the wellbeing, of kids at the forefront.” 

This week, Kane was fined $1,319 by the state Department of Safety and Professional Services for violating state law, and misrepresenting himself as an architect since his license lapsed nearly five years ago. While his license was invalid, Kane was appointed facilities and management director in October 2021.

Cassellius wouldn’t comment on personnel matters involving Kane. During the Thursday press conference, however, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Dr. Mike Totoraitis said, “I never want to see anybody lose their job or their role, however I do think at this moment, it was warranted to help move us into this next step.”

Totoraitis also answered questions from media about emails showing that Kane did not allow health department staff into Golda Meir School to do a full lead risk assessment, and did not disclose that lead remediation work was ongoing after a student was found to have lead poisoning. “I was frustrated,” said Totoraitis. “Our team was also ready to send a staff of about eight individuals and lead risk assessors to go to the schools. We were ready to work that weekend.” 

The health commissioner said that 249 students and their siblings have been tested for lead poisoning. Others have received  routine screening at pediatric offices. Totoraitis also said “we have pivoted” from using dust swab samples inside buildings to using a checklist and visual inspection — which he said is outlined in state statute — “to ensure that we are quickly assessing the schools, as opposed to doing the dust wipe samples which usually take a week and a half to get processed.” In some cases, Totoraitis said that ceiling and floor tiling is being checked and sealed to prevent lead intruding into the schools. 

A plan to tackle the lead contamination has been drafted and officials said it will eventually be released to the public. Testing and screening of students will continue, “because that’s the best way for us to determine if children have been poisoned or not,” said Totoraitis. 

In late March, Totoraitits said that the city issued a formal request to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for additional assistance, and had received federal assistance in recent months. Mass layoffs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and funding cuts by the Trump administration have put additional assistance in question. 

On Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers highlighted a plan to tackle lead contamination in his weekly radio address. The plan includes over $300 million to fund initiatives aimed at removing lead service lines contaminating drinking water and supporting lead renovation programs. Childhood lead contamination has been linked to cognitive disorders including degraded impulse control, learning disabilities, and violent behavior. About 85 MPS schools were built before 1970 and are therefore at high risks of lead contamination. 

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The Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest near Boulder Junction includes stands of mature conifers. (Jonathan Kult | Wisconsin DNR)

As a teenager in the early 1970s, I recall listening to evening news broadcasts that featured smog reports, along with stories about nearby lakes and streams which pollution had rendered unfit for wildlife — and for humans. Responding to the urgency of that time, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and began 50 years of progress. These laws and the regulations that came with them required the clean-up of industrial processes, reduced auto emissions and drove energy efficiency. Our natural environment today is better because of it. 

President Trump has never supported policies related to environmental stewardship, let alone climate change. His actions since taking office were expected, but not at the speed and scale we are seeing. He is reneging on federal grants and loans for clean energy projects already appropriated by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA); firing Federal workers in the EPA, the Department of Energy, NOAA and more; and purging any mention of climate change from government websites. It’s as if his goal is to take us back 50 years to the pollution of my boyhood days.

President Trump’s approach amounts to a colossal strategic mistake for our country. As he and his loyal staff decimate our clean energy investments, European and Asian nations — particularly China – watch with glee. They realize the U.S. is ceding our chance to be a leader in the clean energy economy of the future. The drill-baby-drill mantra sounds catchy to some, but the facts are indisputable that burning fossil fuels is harmful to human health. And there is no question that the severity and number of extreme weather events is rising, shattering lives and costing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up and rebuild. These are not Democrat or Republican issues; they affect us all and we should be motivated to address them instead of burying our future in fossil fuels.

You may wonder, “What can I do?” Contact your congressional representatives and tell them that the IRA should be left intact, especially the tax credits for clean energy. The IRA has incentivized hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy and manufacturing investments, 80% of which have flowed to “red” states. In Wisconsin, investments have been made in over 40 clean energy and manufacturing facilities totaling over $3.2 billion. In my rural congressional district alone, represented by U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, there are nine projects totaling $1.5 billion in investments, most of which is attributed to the Vista Sands solar project. On top of that, Dairyland Power received a $580 million Empowering Rural America (ERA) grant for clean energy projects.  Another 87 investments totaling $16.5 million have enabled clean energy projects like solar arrays for farmers, rural businesses and communities. And this doesn’t include the 30% tax credits these projects would also have filed for. Over 90 projects in less than two years benefiting our rural community: These are investments to be taken seriously.

Rather than labeling clean energy projects “the green new scam,” the Trump administration should embrace them as a key component of achieving “American energy dominance.” To meet the rapid growth in energy demand to boost domestic manufacturing and to help power AI and data centers, clean energy must be a part of the solution. 

The best way your legislators can serve you is to act in a bipartisan manner, especially when it comes to the environment. Like 50 years ago, urgent action is needed. Future generations of Americans depend on it.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. departs after testifying in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

A federal judge in Rhode Island will grant a request from Democratic state officials to temporarily prevent President Donald Trump’s administration from cutting state health grants, the judge said at a Thursday afternoon hearing.

U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy said the 24 Democratic attorneys general and governors were likely to prevail on the merits of their case seeking to restore funding that the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services abruptly rescinded late last month.

““I’m going to grant the temporary restraining order. The balance of the equities are to maintaining the funding as it is,” McElroy said after brief arguments from attorneys representing a consortium of state governments and HHS. “The harm to the plaintiff states and the plaintiff agencies if we cease that … is clearly irreparable.”

HHS, under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., revoked $11 billion in grant funding to states beginning on March 24, the states wrote in a Tuesday filing requesting the court block the move.

McElroy indicated at least part of her decision was based on the broadness of the Trump administration’s argument.

The administration was hampered from fighting the case after receiving the states’ motion for a temporary restraining order and “4,000 pages of exhibits” mere days ago, Leslie Kane, who represented HHS, said.

“Given the time limitation … it really significantly limits any substantive argument I can make at this time,” Kane said. She still offered a general objection to the “extraordinary emergency relief” she said the states were seeking.

But McElroy, whom Trump appointed during his first presidency, ruled that the “voluminous” record provided by the states weighed in favor of granting the order.

“Given that the government really hasn’t had time to make any kind of objection except a broad objection, I don’t see how I can deny the temporary restraining order on the record that’s before the court, which, again: quite voluminous,” McElroy said.

States scrambling

The rescissions of grant funding in late March from COVID-19-era laws surprised state health departments and led to rapid layoffs and pauses in contract work while states scrambled to understand what other cuts they would need to make.

Sarah Rice, an assistant attorney general in Rhode Island who argued for the Democratic states, listed several effects already or soon to be felt by the states.

In Minnesota, 170 employees had already been laid off, with hundreds more at risk of job loss. Rhode Island employees with extensive training on vaccine storage might be laid off. Subcontractors in Wisconsin were told to pause their work, and Washington state may be unable to move substance abuse and mental health patients from a “high-acuity” treatment setting to community treatment, Rice said.

“These are just exemplars from the very many declarations that the state employees put together,” she said.

States had no advance warning their funding would be pulled, and were especially shocked by the reversal of funding because HHS had told them how to continue to use COVID-19 funding, Rice said.

“This was quite a surprising turn because HHS had prior issued guidance that instructed the states how to modify these programs to comply with the appropriations statutes after the public health emergency related to COVID-19 had ended,” Rice said.

The department had even granted states extensions for various grants as late as June 2027, Rice added.

The attorneys general of Colorado, Rhode Island, California, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin and Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania brought the case.

New Nissan cars are driven onto a rail car to be transported from an automobile processing terminal located at the Port of Los Angeles on April 3, 2025 in Wilmington, California. The Japanese automotive maker is being impacted by President Trump’s new 25 percent imported automobile tariffs. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Markets and business owners in the United States and around the world reeled Thursday following President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping and steep tariffs that are not “reciprocal” but rather punish many countries that U.S. importers heavily rely on, experts say.

U.S. stocks plummeted, posting the worst one-day drop since June 2020, financial media reported at the closing bell Thursday. Business groups issued criticisms, experts predicted increases in household spending and even a conservative Republican senator pushed legislation that would increase congressional power over tariffs.

Trump unveiled the tariffs Wednesday during a White House Rose Garden event billed as “Liberation Day,” where he told the crowd that trading partners and allies have “torn apart our once beautiful American dream.”

His answer: Signing a “historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. Reciprocal. That means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple.”

But economists say the new U.S. tariffs Trump revealed Wednesday — illustrated on a large display table — do not match one-for-one other countries’ levies, as Trump said during his remarks.

Trump held in his hands a chart that claimed to show a list of other countries’ taxes on American imports.

But it was wrong.

The problem with the chart

Vietnam does not charge a 90% tariff on American imports, as the chart said. Rather its rate for imported U.S. goods was on average 9.4% in 2023, according to the World Trade Organization.

“The actual calculation (circulated by the White House) doesn’t factor in other countries’ tariffs,” said Brad Setser, senior fellow on global trade at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank focused on international affairs.

In other words, Setser told States Newsroom Thursday, “It’s a tariff on big bilateral trade deficits.”

And so, what does that mean? And why did the president’s chart say that the U.S. would now be charging a 46% tax on every imported good from Vietnam?

Vietnam is a small country, but a competitive exporter, particularly in broadcasting equipment, microchips and computers. And the U.S. is a big customer.

In 2023, the U.S. imported $118 billion in goods from Vietnam, while Vietnam imported about $9.6 billion in U.S. products that year, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, a trade data project with roots at MIT.

The White House claimed on the chart that Vietnam applies a 90% tariff on the U.S. — when actually that percentage is roughly the dollar amount of the U.S. trade deficit divided by the dollar amount of how much the U.S. imports from the country. So, $120B – $10B = $110B, then divide that by $120B, and you get roughly 91%.

Trump said he would be “kind” and give trading partners “discounted” tariff rates by about half, and that’s how Vietnam landed at a 46% tax on its imports into the U.S.

“So Vietnam got hit with a huge tariff. It is literally that simple,” Setser said.

Economists and journalists almost immediately took to social media to question the glaring inaccuracy.

‘Bombshell’ tariffs

The new rates are a “bombshell” on U.S. allies and trading partners, said Jack Zhang, a professor of political science who runs the Trade War Lab at the University of Kansas.

Vietnam tried to head off Trump’s announcement in March by cutting levies on U.S. imports and signing “big purchase agreements,” Zhang said, but it didn’t work.

Historically countries have negotiated tariffs product by product in “laborious” talks, Zhang said.

“You know, ‘You reduce tariffs on your stuff, I will reduce tariffs on maybe some other stuff.’ And it nets out to be fair. This sort of lazy, back-of-the-envelope kind of calculation based on the trade deficit, it makes it really hard to negotiate in those terms,” he said.

Products from the European Union will now be taxed at 20%, Japan’s new rate is 24%, and South Korea’s 25% — all significant U.S. allies and trading partners. The EU has already threatened to retaliate if the U.S. does not come to the negotiating table.

Countries carrying a trade surplus with the U.S. — meaning they import more American goods than they sell back to the U.S. — did not escape the policy, as Trump imposed a universal 10% tariff on every nation.

The United Kingdom, which runs a trade surplus with the U.S. and in 2023 charged an average of 3.8% on imported American products, will now see a 10% tax on its items headed to U.S. buyers. Australia, whose Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the tariffs “totally unwarranted,” faces the same situation.

Trump’s informational table falsely stated that the U.K., Australia and a host of other countries — including the Heard and McDonald Islands, inhabited by penguins and seals — have been charging a 10% tax on American goods.

‘Damage to their own people’

Trump did not include Canada and Mexico in his announcement Wednesday.

But those countries are already subject to up to 25% taxes on steel, aluminum and other imports that the administration enacted in March, after declaring emergencies over illicit fentanyl and immigrants crossing the northern and southern borders.

Additionally Trump’s 25% foreign car tax launched Thursday.  The neighboring countries factor big into the automobile supply chain.

“Given the prospective damage to their own people, the American administration should eventually change course, but I don’t want to give false hope. The president believes that what he is doing is best for the American economy,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday in remarks that streamed on C-SPAN. Carney said he and Trump have agreed to economic and security negotiations next month.

The proposed tariffs will amount to an average $2,100 tax increase per American household, according to an analysis released Thursday by the center-right Tax Foundation, which advocates for lower taxes.

The average levy on all imports will reach 18.8%, compared to 2.5% in 2024, according to the foundation’s modeling.

Numerous trade and advocacy groups spoke out against the tariffs.

The National Association of Manufacturers urged the Trump administration to “minimize tariff costs for manufacturers that are investing and expanding in the U.S.”

The center-right Taxpayers Protection Alliance issued a scathing statement Thursday. “​​American consumers and taxpayers should be appalled by this executive overreach,” said its president David Williams.

States Newsroom spoke to small business owners from around the country who expressed fear about the cost of day-to-day supplies. One Arizona coffee shop owner told the news outlet that he purchased a year’s supply of disposable coffee cups from China last year in anticipation of Trump igniting a trade war.

Trump announced a 34% tax on Chinese imports Wednesday, and some experts say that will stack on top of the existing 20% tariffs Trump imposed during his first administration that were kept in place by former President Joe Biden.

Senators want more control over tariffs

A bipartisan pair of senators introduced on Thursday what they’ve titled the “American Trade Review Act of 2025,” aiming to claw back congressional power over the president’s near unilateral decision-making on U.S. tariffs.

“Inflation and high costs are a threat to the stability and prosperity of American businesses of all sizes, to our farmers and to our consumers,” Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state said on the Senate floor. She and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa are co-sponsoring the legislation.

“We live now in an interconnected world, a global economy, and advances in technology and transportation have brought that world closer and closer together. We have a global economy,” Cantwell continued.

States Newsroom sent a list of questions to the White House regarding their informational table of tariffs presented Wednesday and an opportunity to respond to criticism.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “Trillions in historic investment commitments from industry leaders ranging from Apple to Hyundai to TSMC are indicative of how this administration is working with the private sector while implementing President Trump’s pro-growth, pro-worker America First agenda of tariffs, deregulation, tax cuts, and the unleashing of American energy.

“These America First economic policies delivered historic job, wage, and investment growth in his first term, and everyone from Main Street to Wall Street is again going to thrive as President Trump secures our nation’s economic future,” the statement continued.

TSMC, a Taiwanese mega semiconductor producer, received $6.6 billion in direct funding from the U.S., plus $5 billion in cheap loans, under Biden’s administration after he signed the CHIPS and Science Act, according to an analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations. The country announced an additional $100 billion investment in early March.

Trump announced a 32% tariff on the island nation.

The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments in 2023. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case related to a statewide literacy program that considers Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto power and lawmakers’ handling of emergency funds.

The case comes as the result of the last state budget and efforts by state lawmakers, Gov. Tony Evers and the Department of Public Instruction to overhaul literacy programs in Wisconsin. 

During the 2023-25 budget cycle, lawmakers placed $50 million aside in an emergency fund controlled by the Joint Finance Committee that was meant to go towards funding new literacy programs. Lawmakers also passed AB 321 — now 2023 Wisconsin Act 20 — to establish the policy portions of the initiative, which included creating a new office in the Department of Public Instruction and instructing the agency to hire literacy coaches and create a grant program. 

Lawmakers subsequently passed SB 971, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 100, to create a mechanism for DPI to spend the money when the funds were transferred. A partial veto by Gov. Tony Evers caused lawmakers to sue, saying it wasn’t an appropriations bill therefore not subject to a partial veto.  Evers argued that the law included an appropriation and further asserted that DPI has been urging lawmakers to release the funds, which will lapse back into the state’s $4 billion budget surplus if not used before June 30.

Before the Supreme Court heard the case, a Dane County judge had ruled Evers’ veto proper, but said there wasn’t a case for the release of the funds. Both parties appealed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to take the appeal directly

Assistant Attorney General Charlotte Gibson, the Department of Justice lawyer for DPI and Evers, argued that lawmakers don’t have the power to withhold the money and the court should order the release of the money to DPI. 

The issues at hand, Gibson said, “reflect an interlocking strategy to control how the executive branch spends funds and to limit the governor’s partial veto power. It involves dissecting appropriations into multiple bills and crediting funds set aside for executive agency programs to [the Joint Finance Committee] to control their destination and use. Those efforts are illegal, and they misread the governor’s veto authority.” 

Gibson said that the intention of the law, and the money being placed in the emergency fund, was to give money to specific agencies for specific purposes. A brief notes that “over the past few decades, the Legislature has increasingly used that appropriation not for emergencies, but rather to fund anticipated expenses through a legislative committee that purports to retain veto power over how the executive branch spends appropriated money.” 

Gibson said that the purpose of the emergency fund statute was not to serve as “a holding pen for lots of money that the Legislature wanted to give [the committee] power over,” but lawmakers are using it “to say, actually, we can spend it on whatever purpose…” 

“We think to correct the constitutional violation here, this agency can order those funds to be released,” Gibson said. 

Justices questioned Gibson on why the funds would need to be released to DPI if there was never an appropriation.

“The reality is the money’s sitting in a fund right now, and it hasn’t done anything with it,” Justice Rebecca Dallet said. “For all, we know they are going to use it for an emergency and not give it to anybody for anything else … that just hasn’t happened yet.”

Gibson replied that DPI has asked for the money and lawmakers haven’t given it to the agency. 

“But, I’m saying, [JFC] hasn’t appropriated it anywhere,” Dallet said. “Is DPI having an emergency where you think this is emergency money that you should get…?” 

“No, we think it’s unconstitutional for DPI not to get the money.” Gibson said. 

“Even if you were right, that the statutory structure here is constitutionally problematic, I still don’t see how you win and get the money, because that is not what the law says,” Justice Brian Hagedorn said. “There’s no provision of law that actually gives the money to DPI or appropriates the money to DPI.”

Gibson noted that the co-chairs of the committee Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born have said the money is earmarked for the purpose of the literacy programs. 

“What we’re struggling with is that we understand that there are hints and clues, earmarks — so different from an appropriation — and the way I’m looking at it, it could probably be parked in that fund indefinitely and that’s where I’m struggling with what’s the legal nexus,” said Justice Janet Protasiewicz. 

Ryan Walsh, the attorney representing the Legislature, argued Evers’ veto was inappropriate because the bill was not an appropriation bill, and that the remedy should be that the bill is law as passed by the Legislature, without Evers’ veto. 

“You can’t have an appropriation bill that makes no appropriation. It just doesn’t make sense,” Walsh said. However, he also said that if he is wrong then it means the law was improperly enacted because lawmakers passed it by voice vote, not roll call as is required of appropriations bills. 

Walsh said that under his argument the money would stay in JFC and go back to the treasury at the end of the biennium. 

“It doesn’t go to DPI,” Walsh said. “There is no obligation for [JFC] to disperse this money.” 

Justice Jill Karofsky said that she didn’t disagree about the discretion of the committee, but asked about the potential for lawmakers to abuse the discretion. 

“There aren’t really any guardrails here,” Karofsky said. 

Walsh said abuse “just doesn’t happen.” 

“What would stop the Legislature from emptying every last dollar of the Wisconsin treasury into a [JFC] emergency account?” Karofsky asked further. 

Walsh said many things could prevent that from happening, including the governor refusing to sign a budget that does so. 

Walsh also said the emergency account is a small portion of the state budget. He said that in the last 10 years the percentage of the budget that has gone to the supplemental account has ranged from 0.06% in the 2017-19 budget to 0.33% in the 2021-23 budget.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley said she thought “part of why we are here [is] that some want us to take a look at this structure — allowing JFC to have this discretion — and that to not address it would be a rather lame opinion.”

Walsh said that he didn’t think the Court needed to reach the constitutional question. 

“I don’t think anybody is insisting that you decide whether [Wisconsin should retain the] supplemental funding structure, which has been in place a long time, and by the way, the governor and the Legislature are assuming it’s still in place,” Walsh said. “We have a new budget pending… There are lots of reasons to be cautious here.”

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Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during a confirmation hearing with the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Oz has been confirmed as President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed former television personality and onetime Pennsylvania political candidate Mehmet Oz as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The 53-45 party-line vote places Oz at the helm of the federal agency responsible for administering health care programs relied on by 1 in 4 Americans, including children, seniors and lower-income people.

His confirmation comes as Republicans in Congress look to Medicaid, a state-federal partnership that covers medical expenses for some low-income and older Americans, as a source for hundreds of billions in spending cuts to help pay for extending the 2017 GOP tax law.

Oz testified during his confirmation hearing in mid-March that there are several “painful truths” confronting federal programs within CMS.

“Health care expenditures are growing 2 to 3% faster than our economy; not sustainable. The Medicare trust fund will be insolvent within a decade, that’s the 2.9% taken out of your paycheck,” Oz said. “Medicaid is the number one expense item in most states, consuming 30% of those state budgets, and that’s crowding out essential services like schools and public safety that many of you spent your careers trying to develop. Our health care cost per person in this country is twice that of other developed nations.”

Oz said that chronic disease, which he argued is “linked to poor lifestyle choices,” drives much of the federal spending on health care. He singled out obesity as a central issue.

Oz testified he intended to “empower beneficiaries with better tools and more transparency,” “incentivize health care providers to optimize care with real-time information” in part by using artificial intelligence to “liberate doctors and nurses from paperwork,” and modernize efforts that track waste, fraud and abuse.

‘Ludicrous wellness grifting’

Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during the hearing that Oz’s comments during a failed Senate campaign about privatizing Medicare were unacceptable.

Wyden also criticized Oz for promoting products on this daytime television show that had no scientific research supporting their claims of improving people’s health or preventing disease.  

“Dr. Oz has used his program to promote some of the most ludicrous wellness grifting that I’ve heard about to date,” Wyden said.

Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the committee, said during a floor speech Thursday that Oz was well qualified to run CMS.

“At his hearing, Dr. Oz spoke strongly about his desire to modernize the CMS and encourage a healthy lifestyle for all Americans,” Crapo said. “His vision for treating the underlying causes of chronic disease and equipping providers with innovative technologies to serve patients will also be a much- needed sea change at CMS.”

CMS scope

The agency manages several federal health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.

The agency spent more than $1.5 trillion during the last full fiscal year, about 22% of all federal spending.

The more than 6,000 people who work at CMS as well as contractors “process over one billion Medicare claims annually, monitor quality of care, provide the states with matching funds for Medicaid benefits, and develop policies and procedures designed to give the best possible service to beneficiaries,” according to the latest financial report.

CMS is one of many agencies housed in the Department of Health and Human Services that is subject to restructuring plans from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oz background

Oz received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University before earning a joint M.D. and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School.

He starred in the daytime show “Dr. Oz,” which ran from 2009 until 2022.

He won the Republican primary in the 2022 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race but was defeated during the general election by Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.

When President Donald Trump announced in November he intended to nominate Oz to lead CMS, he wrote that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.”

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley speaks at an election night party for Justice-elect Susan Crawford. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley will retire from the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July with one more title on her curriculum vitae: chief justice.

Bradley, the Court’s most senior member, was elected by her colleagues Thursday to serve as the leader of the Court. She’ll succeed outgoing Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, whose second two-year term in the top position ends April 30.

Bradley’s term will run about two months starting May 1, and she’ll step down June 30 in anticipation of her retirement. In preparation for that, the justices also elected Justice Jill Karofsky to fill out the remainder of the two-year chief justice term, ending April 30, 2027. 

Both Bradley and Karofsky, who was elected to the Court in 2020, are members of the Court’s liberal majority. 

From the late 19th century to the mid-2010s, the state Supreme Court’s chief justice had been selected by seniority. In 2015, a constitutional amendment drafted by the Legislature’s Republican majority changed the selection process to a majority vote of the Court’s seven justices. The amendment also instituted a two-year term for the chief justice.

The amendment was aimed at unseating Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the Court’s first woman justice. Abrahamson had been chief justice since 1996, the second-longest to serve in the position. After voters ratified the amendment in April 2015, a majority of the justices — at the time, five conservatives — elected Justice Pat Roggensack chief. They reelected her in 2019, then elected Ziegler as her successor in 2021.

Bradley said in a statement that her election as chief justice is a “tremendous honor.”

“It has been my life’s goal to honor the rule of law, enhance access to justice, and serve the 5.9 million people who call Wisconsin home,” Bradley said. “Serving as Chief Justice enables me to further those goals.” 

Bradley also participated in her final oral arguments Thursday morning, where Ziegler delivered kind words about her and called attention to her thorough resume and accomplishments

Prior to her time in law, Bradley served as a high school teacher before earning her law degree at UW-Madison Law School in 1976. Bradley worked in private practice, as a city attorney and as a public defender, including being appointed to the state public defender board in 1983.

In 1985, Bradley was appointed to serve as a circuit court judge in Marathon County. 

Bradley won her first term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1995, and was reelected for two consecutive terms in 2005 and 2015. She decided to retire this year and will be succeeded by Justice-elect Susan Crawford, who defeated her challenger Brad Schimel Tuesday ensuring a 4-3 liberal majority on the Court until at least 2028. 

Ziegler said Bradley has likely heard over 2,400 cases in oral arguments, give or take some cases, during her many years of service.

“I can assure you it’s quite impressive,” Ziegler said. “I don’t know how many opinions that you’ve written, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, but that number is also certainly impressive, and so, I would like to thank you Justice Ann Walsh Bradley for your service to the public and your service on this court.” 

Bradley thanked Ziegler and said that it’s been an honor to serve. She also thanked her husband and family for their support throughout the years. 

“People ask me, ‘Will you miss this place and miss this job?’ And, of course, I will,” Bradley said. “What makes this job is not only the heavy responsibility and an opportunity to serve, but an opportunity to serve with people who care deeply about the rule of law and care deeply about the people of this state.”

Karofsky said in a statement about her election to serve as chief justice that she appreciates the confidence of her colleagues and she will “continue to work respectfully with every member of this Court to ensure the administration of Court business is conducted in a fair and efficient manner.” 

“The people of Wisconsin have great faith in this Court, and I intend to be a Chief that increases the people’s confidence even further,” Karofsky said. “I hope to be someone that every judge and staff person in the judicial system finds approachable, so we can continue to improve the service we provide in all 72 counties, keeping each of us safe and ensuring access to justice.”

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The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

This story was updated at 6:44 p.m. EDT.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education demanded in a letter to state education leaders on Thursday that they certify all K-12 schools in their states are complying with an earlier Dear Colleague letter banning diversity, equity and inclusion practices if they want to keep receiving federal financial assistance.

The department’s sweeping order gives K-12 state education agencies 10 days to collect the certifications of compliance from local school governing bodies, and then sign them and return them to the federal department.

The new demand stems from a February letter threatening to rescind federal funds for schools that use DEI, or race-conscious practices, in admissions, programming, training, hiring, scholarships and other aspects of student life.

Craig Trainor, the department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said “federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” in a statement Thursday.

“When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal antidiscrimination requirements,” Trainor said. He added that “unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI.”

He did not cite examples in the statement.

Trainor said the department “is taking an important step toward ensuring that states understand — and comply with — their existing obligations under civil rights laws and Students v. Harvard.”

In the February letter, Trainor offered a wide-ranging interpretation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023 involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The nation’s highest court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

Trainor wrote that though the ruling “addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly.”

The four-page letter raised a slew of questions for schools — from pre-K through college — over what exactly falls within the requirements. 

The department later released a Frequently Asked Questions document on the letter in an attempt to provide more guidance.

In the document, the department noted that it’s prohibited from “exercising control over the content of school curricula” and “nothing in Title VI, its implementing regulations, or the Dear Colleague Letter requires or authorizes a school to restrict any rights otherwise protected by the First Amendment.”

The agency also clarified that “programs focused on interests in particular cultures, heritages, and areas of the world” are allowed as long as “they are open to all students regardless of race.”

Teachers unions react

Meanwhile, legal challenges are already underway against the Dear Colleague letter, including one spearheaded by the American Federation of Teachers and another from the National Education Association. 

“In the middle of a school year, the president is trying to bully the very same school districts that he insisted, just a few weeks ago, should be in charge of education,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a Thursday statement.

Weingarten added that “this is a power grab and a money grab — and it’s also blatantly unlawful.”

“We know the administration wants to divert federal education funds into block grants, vouchers or tax cuts, but it’s simply not legal; only Congress can do that. Further, federal statute explicitly prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach, and funds cannot be withheld on the basis of Title VI Civil Rights Act claims without due process,” she said. 

In a Thursday statement, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said “educators and parents know that teaching should be guided by what is best for students, not by threat of illegal restrictions and punishment.”

“That is why we sued the Trump administration — and we stand by our lawsuit,” she said.

“This latest action by the Trump administration to shut down free speech and coerce educators to abandon inclusive practices at school remains illegal and unconstitutional as we pointed out in our legal filing,” she added. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General announced Thursday it has opened an investigation into Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly criticized use of the Signal messaging app to communicate about plans to bomb Yemen.

The evaluation stems from a letter the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, sent last week, asking the watchdog agency to look into the matter. 

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins wrote in a memo announcing the investigation that the Inspector General Act of 1978 “authorizes us to have access to personnel and materials as we determine necessary to perform our oversight in a timely manner.”

The purpose of the evaluation, he wrote, “is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business. Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”

The investigation will take place in Washington, D.C., as well as U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Concerns about the use of Signal, an encrypted messaging app available commercially, began after The Atlantic published an article detailing how its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a group chat exchanging messages about national security plans. The ensuing controversy has been dubbed “Signalgate.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others were all in the group.

They were discussing plans for U.S. troops to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has raised significant concerns about how senior Trump administration officials are communicating and handling classified information. 

A NOAA NO-XP radar antenna prior to operations in VORTEX 2 in Norman, Oklahoma, on Oct. 5, 2010.  (Photo credit NOAA)

Democrats on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee and a panel of experts on Wednesday blasted the Trump administration’s reduction to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget and workforce, citing consequences for everyday weather data, national security and affected industries.

Virtually every American interacts with NOAA’s weather data, which supplies forecasting services across the country.

The agency’s climate and oceanic research supports the U.S. Navy’s operations and even the commercial fishing industry – described during the forum as having “a love-hate relationship” with the agency – depends on NOAA to open and close fisheries, the lawmakers and experts said.

But those missions were imperiled in February by the firings of 7% of NOAA’s staff of scientists and others overseeing federal research and monitoring of weather and oceans, the group of Democrats said.

“These critical functions are being dismantled by the sweeping, indiscriminate layoffs of nonpartisan public servants and facility closures,” U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat who led the forum, said.

The reductions in force at NOAA, which houses agencies including the National Weather Service, National Ocean Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, were part of across-the-board cuts to the federal workforce sought by President Donald Trump and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk.

The group of Democrats, who met without involvement of the committee’s Republican majority, said the cuts would hurt a wide range of Americans who depend on the agency’s data collection and rulemaking.

Data collection and dissemination

One of NOAA’s core missions is collecting and publishing weather data across the country used in forecasting apps and other common sources of weather information.

“There is no weather forecast that’s produced in this country that isn’t dependent on NOAA, none” Mary Glackin, a former deputy under secretary for operations at the agency under presidents of both parties, said.

The availability of federal data made possible the creation of companies like Accuweather, which started by collecting data in a garage, Glackin said.

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Jon White told the panel NOAA’s extensive forecasting data was also critical to naval operations, saying reductions in that data would hurt the military’s readiness, both shipping out of domestic stations and in potential conflict zones.

“Hurricane forecasting and typhoon forecasting rely on the data from NOAA, whether it’s satellite data,” White said. “Reductions in that data and that information provide critical threats to our military infrastructure. Ships that (start) out of Norfolk and San Diego rely on that information about upcoming storms, especially hurricanes on the East Coast. … It’s not just billions of dollars of ship damage: It’s lives that are at stake.”

Industry needs NOAA

Magaziner was the one who called the commercial fishing industry’s connection with NOAA “a love-hate relationship,” but he and witnesses noted that the agency oversees the most basic functions the industry needs to operate.

Sarah Schumann, a fisherman with operations in Rhode Island and Alaska, criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for allying too strongly with offshore wind developers, but said the new administration’s actions were also detrimental to the industry.

“These cuts will bog down the agency’s ability to serve the public for fishermen,” Schumann said. “Because of climate change, we desperately need faster, more nimble and more collaborative data collection and decision-making, and there is a very slim chance we’re going to get that with this.”

Trump’s slowdown of regulations – requiring federal agencies to withdraw 10 regulations for every one new regulation put into place – has also hampered commercial fishing operations.

Opening and closing fisheries for a season are done through NOAA rulemaking, environmental attorney Lizzie Lewis told the panel. Bluefin tuna fisheries were not closed on time and were overfished by 125% and fisheries in New England are unlikely to open on time, she said.

Efficiency?

The cuts, part of Musk’s initiative to make government more efficient, are not having their intended effect in streamlining government, Magaziner and others on the panel, including New Mexico’s Melanie Stansbury, said.

“The assertion that mass layoffs will somehow improve efficiency is not only misleading, it is outright dangerous,” Magaziner said. “Real people, real jobs and real lives are on the line. Without NOAA’s real-time data,  emergency responders are left without the critical information they need to respond to impending disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, floods and severe storms putting millions at risk.”

The layoffs also decimated morale at the agency and made attracting qualified young people to its public service mission more difficult, Lewis told the panel.

“We are losing an entire generation of scientists and leaders who can help this country,” Lewis said. “We can keep its people safe and can grow its economy. And that to me is the devastating human cost.”

The U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans released an updated budget resolution Wednesday that sets a May 9 deadline for more than a dozen committees to approve their slice of the massive package that will permanently extend the GOP tax cuts and make significant reductions in spending.

The 70-page budget resolution, however, includes different guidelines for the House and Senate committees, allowing GOP leaders to sidestep their differences on policy for the moment, but not the long haul.

The budget resolution also sets the stage for the House to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion and the Senate to lift it by not more than $5 trillion in the reconciliation package.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement that final approval of the budget resolution would “unlock the ability for the appropriate Senate committees to fully fund our border needs for four years, provide much-needed financial relief to our military at a time of great danger, make the 2017 tax cuts permanent to energize the economy, and do what has been promised for decades: go through every line item of the budget to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending — hopefully by the trillions.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., released a statement of his own, saying the “parliamentarian has reviewed the Budget Committee’s substitute amendment and deemed it appropriate for consideration under the Budget Act.”

“It is now time for the Senate to move forward with this budget resolution in order to further advance our shared Republican agenda in Congress,” Thune wrote.

The Senate parliamentarian is the nonpartisan scorekeeper who ensures everything included in a reconciliation bill meets the chamber’s strict rules.

Here comes the vote-a-rama

The complicated reconciliation process will allow the GOP to approve its core policy goals without needing support from Democrats in the Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to advance legislation. Reconciliation does, however, come with several hoops to jump through.

One of those hurdles will come later this week when the Senate endures the dreaded vote-a-rama; a marathon amendment voting session that typically lasts overnight. After that, senators will be able to send the budget resolution to the House for final approval.

The tax-and-spending blueprint released Wednesday will send a dozen House committees instructions on how to draft their pieces of the package, while 10 Senate committees will write bills.

Typically, the committee instructions, which just include a budget target, are similar, if not identical, for the House and Senate. But differences of opinion between Republican leaders about how much to cut federal spending, as well as other disagreements, led to differing instructions.

The House has a significantly higher threshold for cutting government spending than the Senate.

The Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Spending cuts in Senate

Senators set a much lower bar for themselves in terms of spending cuts, though the way the reconciliation instructions are written, as a floor and not a ceiling, will give leeway for those committees to cut much more.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

Once the House and Senate both vote to adopt the same budget resolution, the committees can formally begin drafting and marking up their bills.

Those bills, according to the instructions, must be sent to the Budget committees before May 9. That panel will then bundle all of the various pieces together into one reconciliation package and send it to the floor.

The House and Senate must vote to approve the same reconciliation package before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature and become law.

Republicans have a paper-thin majority in the House and will need to ensure that lawmakers from across the party support all of the elements going into the reconciliation package. Even a few defectors in that chamber could block the bill from moving forward.

Senate GOP leaders have a bit more wiggle room, but cannot lose more than three of their members and pass a reconciliation bill.