An advocacy group's report highlights the financial impact Trump administration policies is having on Wisconsin residents. (Getty Images)

Democrats hoping to end GOP control of the state Legislature and Congress are stepping up their argument that the administration of President Donald Trump along with Republican majorities in both the U.S. and Wisconsin capitols have driven up costs for average members of the public.

On Monday, an advocacy group that opposes the Trump administration released a six-page document that focuses on Wisconsin examples of higher costs across the board, from groceries to utilities to health care. The report, from Defend America Action, draws on news reports, government data and polling to argue that federal policies “are ripping away Wisconsinites’ economic security.”

The opening page of the document — signed by five state Senate Democrats and Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski — declares, “Between his massive cuts to government spending, the Trump-GOP Big, Ugly Bill, and his disastrous tariff regime, Trump’s agenda is hurting the local economy in all areas, stoking a dire affordability crisis as food prices, energy bills, health care costs, and housing costs spike.”

“What I am hearing in the district every day is that ‘Everything is getting more expensive. I am working more and I am getting less in return,’” state Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), one of the signers, told the Wisconsin Examiner via email.

“The common theme here is who is looking out for them,” Drake said. “Trump and the Republican Party are praising higher stocks, but that investment is not trickling down to working families, and they are paying the price.”

Combining the answers of people who are “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned,” the report cites the finding that 89% of people who answered a Marquette Law School poll released Oct. 29, 2025, were worried about the state of the economy. The poll also found 95% of those surveyed were concerned about inflation.

The same poll found that 80% of Wisconsin voters surveyed were concerned about housing affordability, including 53% who answered that they were “very concerned.”

The October poll was the most recent from Marquette Law School focusing on Wisconsin’s 2026 elections and voter issues. (Two subsequent Marquette poll reports, in early November and late January, surveyed national samples on national issues, focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court.)

The report marshals data from across nearly all sectors of the economy. It cites the persistence of higher grocery prices and increases in health insurance premiums, particularly for people who buy their own coverage through the HealthCare.gov marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

Enhanced subsidies to lower the cost of those premiums expired at the end of 2025. A bill to extend them for another three years has passed the U.S. House but has been stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), who also signed the report, said in an interview that he recently heard from a farmer in his district whose insurance through the marketplace, which used to cost $50 per month last year, is now $500 per month due to the loss of the subsidies.

“It went from $600 a year, I guess, to $6,000,” Pfaff said. Referring to the federal government’s decision to end enhanced subsidies, he added, “When we are telling the self-employed and those at small businesses that purchase their health insurance though the marketplace that, you know what, we’re not going to do that anymore because of partisan politics, that causes real consternation.”

The report also cites recent data showing a cooling job market and cuts to clean energy projects that had been initiated under President Joe Biden. It blames agricultural economic turmoil on see-sawing tariffs as well as, in some sectors, the Trump administration’s focus on deporting immigrants.

Farmers “are being squeezed on both ends,” Pfaff said, with the rising costs for seed, fertilizer, machinery repairs and other inputs.

“When farmers need certainty, you add on top of that the fact that they continue to struggle to move their crop commodities in the marketplace because of this ping pong that’s being played at the national level by the White House when it comes to trade policy,” Pfaff said. “When you have a situation in which grocery prices are rising, but yet farmers struggle in order to put a crop in the ground, there’s something wrong.”

The Defend America Action report pins responsibility for other impending cost increases on the 2025 federal tax- and spending-cut bill that Republicans in Congress passed and Trump signed in July. The bill rolled back clean energy tax credits enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and also made changes to Medicaid and to the federal Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP).

A clean energy advocacy organization has estimated that canceling clean energy tax credits will raise utility costs for Wisconsin consumers by 13% to 22%. Gov  Tony Evers has projected Medicaid changes could cost Wisconsin $284 million.

A separate report Feb. 3 from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that overall the megabill — referred to by Trump and Republican authors as  the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — “will redistribute trillions of dollars upward over the next decade, making it harder for families with modest incomes to meet their basic needs while helping those at the top accumulate more wealth.”

The bill cuts taxes by $4.5 trillion, primarily benefiting the wealthiest households, the CBBP reported. The bottom 20% of households by income “will lose more from the cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and other programs than they will gain in tax cuts,” the CBPP said, citing Congressional Budget Office data. 

For the bottom 10% of earners, average household incomes will fall by $1,200, or 3.1%, the report said, and the top 10% of earners  will see their household incomes rise by $13,600 on average, or 2.7%.

Drake told the Wisconsin Examiner that she believes the Trump administration’s actions attacking democracy and targeting immigrants are aimed at distracting people from policies that redistribute wealth upwards.

“Affordability is the underlying issue affecting everyone regardless of who you are,” said Drake. “Instead of helping people and holding those with the most power accountable, he wants Americans to blame our neighbors and communities of different backgrounds for the reasoning behind their struggles.” 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Alabama state Sen. Matt Woods, a Republican, speaks to a colleague on the floor of the Alabama Senate in January. The Senate passed a bill Woods sponsored that would prohibit civil courts from issuing nondisclosure agreements against survivors of child sexual abuse. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

Cindy Clemishire was 12 years old on Christmas night in 1982 when a traveling evangelist staying with her family first abused her.

According to Clemishire, the sexual abuse continued over the next four years. She eventually told her family and the abuse stopped. But her abuser, Robert Morris, went on to found Gateway Church in Texas, which became one of the largest megachurches in the nation.

When Clemishire sought restitution in 2007, Morris’ attorney offered her $25,000 if she would sign a nondisclosure agreement that would prevent her from speaking publicly about the abuse. She refused.

“Had I agreed to that NDA, Robert would have continued to have power over me,” Clemishire told Texas lawmakers last May, as she urged them to pass a state law that would ban nondisclosure agreements in child sexual abuse civil cases.

“Because I refused to sign that NDA at 37,” she said, “I am able to sit here today at 55 years old and share my story in hopes of helping others.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the bill into law last June. Texas joined other states, including California, Missouri and Tennessee, in prohibiting nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, from being used in civil settlements that involve child — and in some states, adult — sexual abuse.

Morris pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges in October, publicly admitting what he did to Clemishire.

This year, Clemishire’s home state of Oklahoma, as well as Alabama and Georgia, are considering similar laws.

Oklahoma’s bill was introduced this week. Last month, Alabama lawmakers unanimously passed identical bills in the state House and Senate. If one of the bills passes the other chamber, it will head to the governor’s desk. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp announced during his final State of the State address last month that he would support a version of the law.

Kemp said the bill would “further protect our children, expose abusers, and save lives by preventing the silence imposed on far too many victims.”

Many of the new bills are versions of Trey’s Law, model legislation — first passed in Missouri — named for Trey Carlock, a survivor of child sexual abuse. Carlock died by suicide in 2019 at age 28. Though his abuser was convicted of sexually abusing several boys, Carlock had signed a nondisclosure agreement in a civil settlement that prevented him from speaking about his abuse at Kanakuk, a popular Christian sports camp based in Missouri, and the camp’s role in enabling the abuse.

Elizabeth Phillips, Carlock’s sister, later founded the Trey’s Law movement in his memory. Trey’s Law works to get NDA bans passed at the state and federal levels.

Such bills attempt to address a civil litigation issue that gained increased attention during the #MeToo movement. Organizations such as Kanakuk that are caught up in child abuse allegations sometimes offer financial settlements to abuse survivors in exchange for their signing agreements that legally restrict them from speaking publicly about the abuse or the organization’s role in it.

Critics of these kinds of NDAs say they’re a legal tool — originally intended to protect confidential corporate information — that’s been misused to suppress survivors’ stories and shield organizations that enable abuse.

“NDAs may be presented as legal formalities, but in cases like mine, they are tools that continue the abuse,” Clemishire told Texas lawmakers last year. “They protect the abuser and keep victims in shame. They prevent the children from being protected and they make it harder to stop abuse from happening again.”

State laws vary in their protections. California enacted a law in 2016 banning NDAs for felony sex offenses, child sexual abuse and sexual assault against vulnerable adults, such as older adults and those with disabilities. Tennessee‘s 2018 law voids NDAs in child sexual assault claims. New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have placed restrictions on NDAs. Various courts have also struck down some NDAs that appeared to be designed to hide misconduct.

There’s not currently a federal law analogous to Trey’s Law, though Congress has tried to address the issue. The 2022 federal Speak Out Act specifically targets preemptive NDAs used in workplaces. It nullifies nondisclosure contracts that are signed, often as a condition of employment, before a dispute involving sexual assault or sexual harassment happens. But the law doesn’t apply to NDAs signed after allegations are made.

Much of the new state legislation, such as in Oklahoma and Texas, applies retroactively, nullifying older NDAs. Alabama’s bill would only apply to contracts entered into or amended after the measure is signed into law.

It’s difficult to find public detractors for such legislation. It’s one of the few issues that has, so far, united both sides of the political aisle. In the handful of states that have enacted bans on NDAs in sexual assault cases, they’ve passed with unanimous or near-unanimous bipartisan support.

But in Alabama last month, Republican state Sen. Greg Albritton expressed concern that a blanket ban could harm churches and institutions like the Boy Scouts of America that have faced civil allegations that they ignored child abuse or protected abusers.

“That nondisclosure statement is a lifeline, very often, for the institution to continue its efforts in trying to do good,” Albritton told Alabama lawmakers from the Senate floor, adding that he believes NDAs allow organizations to implement reforms and move forward. “If we pass this, we could be doing damage to institutions — including churches, including those not-for-profit organizations — that are doing their best to do good in the communities.

“I would caution that eliminating that tool from civil procedure does more harm to our society than it does good.”

The lawmaker sponsoring Alabama’s bill is another Republican, state Sen. Matt Woods. The Alabama version of Trey’s Law is his first bill in the Senate, after he was elected in a June 2025 special election. He said the bill was brought to his attention by some of Carlock’s relatives who live in his home county.

“We need to allow victims of this terrible act to heal,” Woods told the Alabama Reflector in January.

“The only way they can heal is to be able to disclose what’s happened to them, talk about it, and move on with the healing process.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

FBI agents load boxes of election documents onto trucks at an elections warehouse in Fulton County, Ga. State and local election officials are bracing for the prospect of federal action after President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

President Donald Trump’s calls this week to “nationalize” elections capped a year of efforts by his administration to exercise authority over state-run elections. The demands now have some state and local election officials fearing — and preparing for — a tumultuous year ahead.

“I don’t think we can put anything past this administration,” Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read told Stateline in an interview. “I think they’re increasingly desperate, increasingly scared about what’s going to happen when they are held accountable by American voters. So we have to be prepared for everything.”

Ever since Trump signed an executive order last March that attempted to impose a requirement that voters prove their citizenship in federal elections, the federal government has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to influence how elections are run. Under the U.S. Constitution, that responsibility belongs to the states.

Then came Trump’s remarks on a podcast Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections and take over voting in at least 15 places, though he didn’t specify where. In the Oval Office the next day, the president reaffirmed his view that states are “agents” of the federal government in elections.

“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, despite the Constitution’s clear delegation of that job to states.

Across the country, election officials are watching recent developments and, in some instances, grappling with how the Trump administration’s moves could affect their preparations for November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Local election officials say they are considering how they would respond to the presence of federal law enforcement near polling places and what steps they need to take to ensure voting proceeds smoothly.

Several Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have spoken out. Placing voting under control of the federal government would represent a fundamental violation of the Constitution, they note.

The U.S. Constitution authorizes states to set the time, place and manner of elections for Congress but also allows Congress to change those regulations. The elections themselves are run by the states.

“Oh, hell no,” Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a video statement posted to social media about federalizing elections. Bellows, who is running for governor, said she would mail the White House a pocket Constitution, “because it seems they’ve lost their copy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice already has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia to obtain unredacted voter rolls that include sensitive personal information that it says is needed to search for noncitizen voters. The Department of Homeland Security wants states to run their voter rolls through a powerful citizenship verification tool. Those opposed to the demand say sharing the data risks the privacy of millions of voters. Many fear the administration could use the information to disqualify eligible voters, challenge the legitimacy of a victory in a closely contested midterm election, or use the information to target political enemies.

In recent weeks, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the presence of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in part to Minnesota’s refusal to turn over its voter rolls. And the FBI seized ballots from an elections warehouse Fulton County, Georgia — a state that was a central focus of Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I think it does affect our planning as far as, what if there is some sort of federal law enforcement presence on Election Day or before or after? So that definitely factors into our planning,” said Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes Madison.

Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat running for secretary of state, said she and other election administrators conduct tabletop exercises and keep emergency plans for numerous scenarios. Those used to focus on floods, power outages and cyberattacks.

“Now, unfortunately, it’s turning into the president of the United States meddling in elections,” Byrum said. “We will be prepared. Voters will hopefully not see anything different at their polling locations. … But we need to be diligent.”

Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the election security nonprofit Verified Voting, said election officials and their lawyers need to study up on laws and regulations, including chain-of-custody requirements for ballots.

David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which operates the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said more than 10,000 lawyers have been recruited who are ready to provide pro bono legal assistance or advice to election officials.

Trump doubles down on calling for the feds to take over state elections

When Stateline asked Read whether he anticipates Oregon facing federal pressure over its voter rolls, the secretary of state said he was set to meet this week with county clerks in the Portland metro area “to talk about that very question.” Read’s office later confirmed the meeting took place.

Oregon’s largest city, Portland, has been a focus of the Trump administration. Last year, Trump deployed federalized Oregon National Guard members to the city after protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. And federal agents last month shot two people in a hospital parking lot. Portland is a self-described sanctuary city that does not aid the federal government in immigration enforcement.

The concern in Oregon comes after Bondi on Jan. 24 sent a letter to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in separate shootings in Minneapolis that were captured on video.

Bondi’s letter outlined three “common sense solutions” that would help end the “chaos” in Minnesota, she wrote. One of those solutions called for the state to provide the Justice Department with its full, unredacted voter rolls.

Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon has called Bondi’s letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota” into handing over the data. Simon hasn’t provided the voter list, but White House border czar Tom Homan is pulling 700 immigration agents from Minnesota amid outrage over their presence. Roughly 2,300 agents will remain in the state.

In North Carolina, Durham County Director of Elections Derek Bowens called Trump’s rhetoric and recent federal actions concerning. Bowens, a nonpartisan official appointed by the Durham County Board of Elections, said that as long as the rule of law persists, a “constitutional guard” will protect election administration.

Still, Bowens, who oversees elections in a largely Democratic area in a presidential swing state, said he and other local officials are preparing to prevent potential “intrusion” into the process.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what that would be in terms of security protocols, but that’s definitely in the forefronts of our minds,” Bowens said in an interview, adding that he would be working with local emergency services officials “to make sure we’re positioned to ensure everyone that is eligible has unfettered access to the ballot box.”

Trump wants federal control

Trump appears to be crossing a line from urging Congress to set additional election requirements into wanting the federal government’s hands on states’ election administration infrastructure, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Elections Research Center at the university.

“That would be brand new,” Burden said.

After Trump called for nationalizing elections during Monday’s appearance on the podcast of Dan Bongino, a right-wing media personality who was previously a top FBI official, the White House said Tuesday that the president had been referring to legislation in Congress that would require individuals to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate.

But Trump late Tuesday doubled down on his original comments during an unrelated bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office. He suggested the federal government should take a role in vote counting.

“The federal government should get involved,” Trump said. “These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Even before Trump’s nationalization comments, Democratic state chief election officials and some Republicans had refused to turn over copies of voter rolls containing driver’s license numbers, date of birth and full or partial Social Security numbers after the Justice Department began demanding the data last spring.

Federal judges in California and Oregon have ruled those states don’t have to provide the data; numerous other lawsuits against other states are ongoing.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Trump-supporting Republican who campaigned for office on calls to hand-count ballots, told a Missouri House committee on Tuesday that he wouldn’t provide the state’s full voter list without a court order. He said his office had only shared a public version of the voter rolls; Missouri hasn’t been sued by the Justice Department.

The Trump administration has previously confirmed it is sharing records with Homeland Security, which operates an online program that it uses to verify citizenship. The Justice Department has also offered some states a confidential agreement to search their voter lists.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a statement to Stateline.

“The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a Jan. 15 decision that the voter roll demands risk a chilling effect on Americans who may opt not to register to vote over concerns about how their information could be used. He dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking California’s voter rolls.

“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left. The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans,” Carter wrote in a 33-page decision.

Some Republicans oppose nationalization

Amid Trump’s call for nationalizing elections, some Republican election officials have broken with the president even as they have avoided criticizing him directly. State control has long been a central tenant of conservatism, though Trump has challenged elements of Republican orthodoxy over the past decade.

Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, told state lawmakers on Tuesday, “I personally don’t believe we should nationalize elections.”

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a news release on Monday urged lawmakers to focus on strengthening state administration of elections. He said that was better than “moving to federalize a core function of state government.”

Raffensperger, who is running for governor this year, was famously targeted by Trump following the 2020 election to overturn his loss in Georgia. In a phone call, Trump told Raffensperger he wanted to “find 11,780 votes” — the size of his loss in the state. Raffensperger refused to aid Trump.

Five years later, Raffensperger now faces pressure from Georgia state lawmakers to provide the state’s unredacted voter list to the Justice Department. The Georgia Senate on Monday passed a resolution calling on the secretary of state to fully comply with the department’s request.

Georgia Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, the resolution’s lead sponsor, said during a state Senate committee hearing last month that federal law supersedes limits on data sharing in Georgia law. He didn’t respond to an interview request.

In a statement to Stateline, Raffensperger said that state law is “very clear” that officials aren’t allowed to turn over the information. “I will always follow the law and the Constitution,” Raffensperger wrote.

The Georgia Senate vote came less than a week after the FBI searched the Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots. Fulton County, which includes much of the Atlanta metro area, was where Trump was indicted on charges of conspiracy and racketeering related to his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. The case was dismissed last year.

The Justice Department didn’t answer a question from Stateline about whether it plans to seek search warrants for other election offices.

On Wednesday, Fulton County filed a motion in federal court demanding the return of the seized ballots and other materials, Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said at a news conference. The motion also asks for the unsealing of the affidavit used by the FBI to support its search warrant application.

“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections,” Pitts said. “Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

An Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Va., in 2024. As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers.

For years, many states competed aggressively to land data centers, sprawling campuses full of the computer servers that store and transmit the data behind apps and websites. But many officials are now scrutinizing how those power-hungry projects might affect the electric bills of households, small businesses and other industries.

Oregon last year became one of the first states to enact a law requiring utilities to charge data centers different electric prices than other industries because of how they drive up the cost of energy production and transmission.

“We are now making data centers pay a higher rate commensurate with the amount of energy they’re sucking out of the system,” said Oregon state Rep. Tom Andersen, a Democrat.

Republican and Democratic leaders in at least a dozen states have targeted data centers with separate, higher electric rates to protect other customers. States also are requiring long-term commitments and financial guarantees through collateral before greenlighting infrastructure investments for new data center projects. But lawmakers acknowledge that numerous factors affect energy prices, so targeting data center-specific costs can be complicated.

An increasingly digital world and the rise of energy-intensive artificial intelligence has led to major expansion of data centers: Consultant McKinsey & Company expects companies to spend nearly $7 trillion worldwide on data centers by 2030. But the industry is facing growing scrutiny, from neighbors who don’t want to live near the massive server farms and from residents worried about how data centers will affect their own swelling utility bills.

Delaware legislation that would charge data centers higher rates advanced out of committee last week. On Tuesday, a Florida state Senate committee approved a bill that would create new rate structures for data centers.

In Oklahoma, a Republican state senator has proposed a moratorium on new data centers until late 2029, allowing the state to study how data centers affect utility rates, the environment and property values.

Separate legislation from state Rep. Brad Boles will seek to protect other ratepayers from the costs of data centers. Boles, the Republican chair of the state Energy and Natural Resources Oversight Committee, said his in-the-works measure would ensure data centers pay their fair share.

Boles told Stateline that his constituents are increasingly worried about data centers, with a dozen potential major ones proposed across the state.

“We’re trying to ensure that those data centers pay for their own infrastructure and we don’t shift that cost or burden to everyday Oklahomans,” he said.

In Oregon, Andersen’s legislation created a new rate structure for data centers with long-term contracts and required regulators to separate the costs of those facilities from other ratepayers.

But consumer advocates have already accused the state’s largest utility of trying to skirt the new law by making residential customers pay part of the long-term cost of supplying large data centers in a pending rate case.

Andersen, a member of the state House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment, said the new rate structure is unlikely to immediately lower consumer bills. Rather, it aims to curb future increases as data centers require more power generation and transmission.

“We’re not going to change the rates that are being currently paid by the ratepayers and the users of the electricity,” he said. “It’s just going to stop future raises.”

The data center boom

Rising utility bills continue to outpace inflation, sparking anger from consumers and more scrutiny from state regulators, governors and lawmakers.

The boom of data centers is frequently cited as a prime reason for rising electricity prices, as their operation requires more power generation, transmission and distribution upgrades. A Bloomberg News analysis in September found wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas with significant data center activity.

Data center companies say they aren’t the only reason prices are rising.

“It’s inaccurate to draw a clear line between large load customers like data centers coming online and increases in prices. It’s just not that simple,” said Lucas Fykes, senior director of energy policy and regulatory counsel at the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing data center owners and users, including Amazon, Meta and Visa.

He said many factors have contributed to higher electricity prices, including extreme weather events and the nation’s aging electric grid.

Fykes said his organization opposes rate structures that treat data centers differently from other large electric users such as industrial sites. The organization is working with regulators as states increasingly implement practices to ensure residents and small businesses aren’t on the hook for big energy investments if major projects including data centers don’t come to fruition.

Fykes said the country is likely just in the “beginning innings” of a longer ramp-up in technology and power needs.

“We are also in a global race to build out data centers, to support AI, to support cloud infrastructure,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that we maintain those assets here in the United States.”

That can pose competing interests for political leaders, including mayors, who have pushed hard to land investments from tech companies.

“We want to be leaders in AI, but we don’t want the infrastructure needed to support it,” said Rusty Paul, the mayor of Sandy Springs, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area.

He was among several mayors addressing the issue of data centers at last month’s winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. On a data center panel, Paul acknowledged the effect of Georgia’s tax incentives for data centers: “They’re just popping up everywhere,” he said.

But utilities and regulators are also making long overdue grid upgrades that aren’t tied to data centers, he said.

“The cost of electricity is going up for everybody — and it’s not all related to data centers,” he said.

A bipartisan push

The Georgia Public Service Commission last year created new rules that officials said would protect ratepayers from data center costs. In addition to covering costs of power consumed at their facilities, data centers would have to fund the costs incurred by upstream generation, transmission and distribution, the regulator said.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced those steps went far enough.

State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Republican, is again pushing legislation that would solidify the regulator’s rules into law. His bill would prohibit utilities from passing along the fuel, generation or transmission costs of data centers to other customers.

He told Stateline that the regulator’s rules need to be codified into law so they can’t be weakened later.

Hufstetler said rising utility bills are among the biggest issues facing his constituents. High prices played a key role in November’s election, when Democrats flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission board — the first time Democrats won statewide constitutional office in nearly two decades.

“I saw people with MAGA hats going into the election polling places that were saying, ‘I’m not voting for those guys that raised my rates,’” Hufstetler said, referring to the Republican incumbents who lost.

Hufstetler said the bill, which passed out of committee last year, has already gained major bipartisan support in the Senate, where it is sponsored by multiple Republicans and Democrats.

“This is very bipartisan,” he said. “We have all heard from our people around the state of Georgia.”

The Georgia Public Service Commission agrees in principle with the legislation, said agency spokesperson Tom Krause. But he said the regulator worries about losing flexibility if its rules are written into law.

“Not just this bill, but whenever the legislature codifies a rule that we put in place, we get a little nervous because it can tie our hands in special circumstances,” he said.

A complex challenge

As part of implementing a law enacted last year, Maryland’s utility regulator is weighing a new rate structure for data centers and other large load users.

Proposed regulations would require certain preapproval analysis for heavy power users, a separate rate tariff for data centers and collateral to ensure other ratepayers don’t end up paying for major investments if projects do not come to fruition.

Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel, an independent agency representing residential utility users, said the proposed changes meet statutory requirements but could do more to protect consumers.

In a news release last month, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said residents are already facing higher costs from data centers from outside the state.

“While we push for better federal rules to address those costs, Maryland has the power—and customers a clear need—to make sure data centers within Maryland take on every cost that they impose on residential customers,” Lapp said.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore recently joined 12 other governors and the Trump administration in urging the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to shield residents and businesses from the infrastructure costs from data centers.

Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat, said the grid operator has for years failed residents in the 13 states plus the District of Columbia that it serves. By delaying renewable energy projects, she said, PJM has kept older, more expensive power plants online, driving up prices as data centers increase demand.

PJM’s board last month rolled out a new data center plan that it said would improve demand forecasting, accelerate the addition of new generation projects and give states a larger role.

Charkoudian said states and utilities struggle to determine just how much power is needed. Data center users shop around for sites, which can cause wildly inaccurate forecasts of just how much power a utility will need.

“It actually has a very concrete financial impact on ratepayers,” she told Stateline. “And so that’s why one of the things that really could make a difference for ratepayers is if we actually had an accurate count of how much we’re getting online.”

While some of those challenges lie outside the realm of state control, Charkoudian said there are things the state can do, including the new rate structure for larger users. She’s crafting a bill encouraging data centers to curtail their power usage during peak periods, such as hot days, when the electrical system is taxed by heavy usage of air conditioners, Maryland Matters reported.

Charkoudian said adding solar generation and storage are low-cost ways to respond quickly to demand. And states can avoid the need for more generation by doubling down on energy efficiency programs that lower demand and also consumer costs.

“The best time to fix this was five years ago,” she said. “The next best time is right this minute, because it’s only going to get worse.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira contributed to this story. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, R.I. A new study shows that women with breast cancer living in Rhode Island and other states that expanded Medicaid eligibility were less likely to die from the disease. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)

Women with breast cancer living in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility were less likely to die from the disease — but not everyone benefited equally, according to a recent study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open.

Researchers from Howard University, the University of Alabama, Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, and others looked at data from about 1.6 million women ages 40 to 64 who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2006 and 2021.

They compared survival rates among women living in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, with the rates in states that did not expand. About 58% of the women lived in expansion states, and roughly 42% lived in nonexpansion states. States began expanding Medicaid in 2014.

The researchers found that Medicaid expansion was associated with lower overall mortality — no matter the disease stage, race or ethnicity, or neighborhood income of the women. Women in expansion states whose cancer had spread to other organs — the most advanced stage of disease — saw the most significant decline in deaths.

Among racial and ethnic groups, the largest relative gains were among Hispanic women — they were 19% less likely to die if they lived in an expansion state. There were smaller gains among non-Hispanic Black women and residents of low-income areas. The smallest difference was among white women.

Hispanic women’s large gains could be due to many previously lacking insurance, said Dr. Oluwasegun Akinyemi, director of Howard University College of Medicine’s Clive O. Callender Outcomes Research Center and a coauthor of the study.

Black women have higher breast cancer death rates compared to white women, even though there are fewer cases among them, partly because they are often diagnosed with the disease at a later stage.

Overall, Black women with breast cancer benefitted less from Medicaid expansion than other groups because they are disproportionately located in the South, where most states have not expanded, Akinyemi noted. The expansion holdout states include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

The remaining three nonexpansion states are Kansas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The researchers also compared mortality rates in low- and high-income neighborhoods. Women living in the highest-income neighborhoods, as well as those who received immunotherapy treatment, had lower mortality rates. Akinyemi said that result suggests that coverage leads to greater access to treatment.

In July, President Donald Trump signed a broad tax and spending bill  that will cut federal Medicaid funding by more than $900 billion over the next decade. As a result, about 15 million people may lose Medicaid coverage, according to estimates by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promotes "real food" at a rally in Harrisburg, Penn., last month. Over the next decade, obesity rates across the nation could surge to close to half of U.S. adults, a new study says. (Photo by Whitney Downard/Pennsylvania Capital-Star)

Over the next decade, obesity rates across the nation could surge to close to half of U.S. adults, a new study published in the medical journal JAMA estimates.

Researchers at the University of Washington conducted the analysis using body mass index data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and self-reported weight data from a national survey of adults ages 20 and older. They examined the 2022 rates and created estimates for 2035 based on current trends. The researchers also looked at race, ethnicity and state-level data, finding wide disparities across states and racial groups.

About a fifth of U.S. adults were living with obesity in 1990. By 2022, the percentage increased to nearly 43%. Obesity was more prevalent in states in the Midwest and South.

If current trends continue, about 47% of U.S. adults will be living with obesity by 2035, according to the researchers. Obesity rates are projected to increase among Americans of all ages and racial groups.

In 2022, non-Hispanic Black women had the highest age-standardized obesity rate, at about 57%, followed by Hispanic women at 49%. Hispanic males, non-Hispanic white males and females, and non-Hispanic Black males had similar rates, ranging from about 40% to nearly 43%.

The study comes amid exploding demand for weight-loss drugs, and as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues to push his Make America Healthy Again campaign.

HHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture last month made changes to the federal food pyramid, placing a greater emphasis on animal protein, dairy and fats. Like the previous guidelines, the new pyramid discourages the consumption of processed foods, which can cause weight gain.

Despite disparities between men and women and between racial groups, HHS says its nutrition strategy moves away from the “health equity” focus of the Biden administration, in favor of making “the health of all Americans the primary goal.”

For Hispanic people, obesity rates were generally higher in states in the Midwest and the South in 2022, a pattern that is expected to continue through 2035.

In 2022, the obesity rate for Hispanic women was highest in Oklahoma, at about 54%. For Hispanic men, the rate was highest in Indiana, at roughly 47%. In 2035, Indiana is projected to have the highest rate of obesity among Hispanic men at about 54%, while the highest rate for Hispanic women, nearly 60%, is expected to be in South Dakota.

The Midwest and South also had high rates of obesity for non-Hispanic white men and women. In 2022, West Virginia had the highest obesity rates for white men and women — about 47% and 49%, respectively. In 2022, obesity rates for white men and women were lowest in the District of Columbia, at roughly 24% for men and 26% for women.

Among Black women, obesity rates were over 50% for all states, except Hawaii, in 2022. That pattern is expected to continue through 2035. Black men have lower obesity rates than Black women across all states. In 2022, the highest obesity rate for Black men was in Oklahoma, at about 44%. That rate projected to rise to 49% in 2035.

“While no locations were predicted to have decreases in obesity prevalence between 2022 and 2035, there were many with small increases over this time,” the authors wrote. They pointed to Mississippi, where Black women had the highest obesity rates between 1990 and 2022, but are projected to see one of the smallest changes — an increase of about 1.8% — by 2035.

“Predictions in states with historically high levels of obesity, such as Mississippi, suggest that the prevalence of obesity may be plateauing in some locations,” the researchers wrote.

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

 With the resumption of Venezuela's oil trade under U.S. management, shipments from state oil company PDVSA have resumed, including some shipments abo...

 [By Tom Baxter]Last year, Chinese companies’ “engagement” in 150 countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached its highest level s...

 The recent movements of the sanctioned chemical/oil products tanker Silver (IMO 9309576) are a rich illustration of how the attractions of profit so...

 The United States appears committed to staying with the International Maritime Organization and attempting to win arguments on the inside, in contras...

 Mexico has launched its first research campaign in Antarctica, with the country leveraging on science diplomacy to access polar frontiers. The resear...

 Hailed as "the preeminent voice of the seaport industry in the Americas" and representing more than 130 public port authorities, the AAPA is a vocal...

 [By Alicia M. Battaglia]As the world races to electrify everything from cars to cities, the demand for high-performance, long-lasting batteries is so...

 On Friday, the Indian Coast Guard busted three sanctioned tankers allegedly engaged in a "smuggling racket" in the Arabian Sea.   The agency identifi...

 French private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners has reached an agreement to buy the American shipyard company Vigor Marine Group, bringing n...

 China’s ambassador has chosen a public platform to apply pressure on Australia, shape domestic debate and threaten retaliation over a sovereign natio...

The Royal Thai Navy rescued the 16 crewmembers from Bangladesh on a small containership that issued a distress signal on Saturday, February 7. They ar...

There is a lot of new excitement around nuclear energy these days, and no coincidence, it comes as we face staggering energy demands from AI data centers. Now, the Trump Administration is relaxing environmental and safety regulations for new nuclear reactors. In this episode, a look at what would happen to our environment - and our energy bills - if utilities race to meet AI demand by building more nuclear reactors.

Host: Amy Barrilleaux

Guest: Katie Nekola, General Counsel, Clean Wisconsin

💾

A centuries-old Chinese medicinal root is getting new scientific attention as a potential game-changer for common hair loss. Polygonum multiflorum, long believed to restore dark, healthy hair, appears to work on multiple fronts at once—blocking hair-shrinking hormones, protecting follicles from damage, activating natural regrowth signals, and boosting blood flow to the scalp.

Forests around the world are quietly transforming, and not for the better. A massive global analysis of more than 31,000 tree species reveals that forests are becoming more uniform, increasingly dominated by fast-growing “sprinter” trees, while slow-growing, long-lived species are disappearing. These slower species act as the backbone of forest ecosystems, storing carbon, stabilizing environments, and supporting rich webs of life—especially in tropical regions where biodiversity is highest.