Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

The U.S. Senate is currently working on its version of  the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—a deeply misleading attempt to dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and derail America’s clean energy future.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t just political posturing. This bill, backed by fossil fuel interests and already passed in the House, would strip away the very tools Wisconsin families, businesses, farmers and communities are using to lower energy costs, create jobs and build a more resilient future. The damage to our state would be both immediate and long-term.

In Wisconsin alone, 82 clean energy projects are currently in the pipeline. These projects represent not just thousands of jobs and billions in investment — they’re the backbone of a 21st-century economy. From wind turbine manufacturing in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley to solar installations in rural communities, Wisconsinites are hard at work powering our future.

If the “Big, Broken Bill” becomes law, it threatens to cancel or delay many of these efforts. Clean energy tax credits would vanish. The Solar for All program and clean manufacturing investments would be eliminated. Tax incentives for electric vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, and sustainable agriculture would be repealed. These aren’t just policy tools — they’re direct investments in our people, places and potential. Many Wisconsin communities have used these credits to launch local projects that reduce taxpayer dollars through direct pay for solar, geothermal and clean vehicles.

And we can’t afford to go backward. Energy demand is skyrocketing — especially with the rapid expansion of AI and data centers. Experts warn electricity bills could jump by 70% in the next five years if we don’t act. Clean, renewable energy remains the cheapest and fastest option to deploy. Gutting these investments would lead to higher prices, more power interruptions and less energy reliability — leaving Wisconsin families and businesses to bear the cost.

Without these programs, household energy costs could rise by up to $400 a year. That’s a hidden tax hike on working families — piled on top of rising costs from tariffs and supply chain disruptions already straining our economy.

Even worse, the bill guts EPA pollution standards and allows major polluters to sidestep environmental compliance. It’s a taxpayer-funded giveaway to fossil fuel interests, trading our health, air and water for short-term corporate profits.

Let’s not forget Wisconsin’s farmers, who were just beginning to benefit from billions in IRA investments for conservation, renewable energy and carbon-smart agriculture. With grant contracts abruptly canceled, many family farms are left holding the bag, having made plans in good faith only to be blindsided.

We can do better. Wisconsin has the talent, tools and environmental leadership tradition to lead the clean energy economy. Clean energy already supports more than 71,000 jobs in our state. With the right investments, we could add 34,000 more and grow our economy by $21 billion by 2050.

We’re also home to over 350 clean energy supply chain companies. With support from IRA tax credits and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), we can expand local manufacturing of batteries, solar panels, wind components, EV systems and smart grid technology — positioning Wisconsin as a national clean energy hub.

This is the kind of forward-thinking, common-sense investment we need. It creates good jobs, lowers energy bills, strengthens supply chains and revitalizes communities.

The Senate still has time to act. Let’s urge our lawmakers, regardless of party, to reject this harmful bill and stand with the workers, innovators and families building a cleaner, stronger Wisconsin. Our policies should reflect our shared values of fairness, innovation, resilience and stewardship — not special treatment for polluters.

This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about economic survival, energy independence and the future we want to leave our children.

It’s time to move forward, not backward, with a smarter stronger, and more sustainable Wisconsin.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

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

In a 5-2 ruling on Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) authority to regulate polluters who produce hazardous substances such as PFAS through the state’s toxic spills law. 

The court’s ruling reverses the decisions of the circuit and appeals courts that could have threatened the DNR’s ability to force polluters to pay for the environmental damage they cause. For more than 40 years, the spills law has allowed the DNR to bring civil charges and enforce remediation measures against parties responsible for spills of “harmful substances.” 

The lawsuit was brought by an Oconomowoc dry cleaner and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s largest business lobby, after the owner of the dry cleaner, Leather Rich Inc., found PFAS on her property. 

In preparation to sell the business, Leather Rich had been participating in a voluntary DNR program to remediate contamination on its property in exchange for a certificate of liability protection from the department. During that process, the DNR determined that PFAS should be considered a “hazardous substance” under the spills law and communicated that on its website. 

If PFAS were present on a site, the DNR stated, participants in the voluntary program would only be eligible for partial liability protection. 

While conducting a site investigation through the program, Leather Rich determined three of four wells on the property exceeded Department of Health Services standards for PFAS concentration in surface or drinking water. The DNR requested that future reports from Leather Rich to the department include the amount of PFAS found on the property. Leather Rich responded by withdrawing from the program and filing suit. 

At the circuit and appeals courts, Leather Rich was successful, with judges at each level finding that the decision by the DNR to start considering PFAS a “hazardous substance” under the spills law constituted an “unpromulgated rule” and therefore was against the law. That interpretation would have required the DNR to undergo the complicated and often yearslong process of creating an administrative rule each time it determines that a substance is harmful to people or the environment.

SpillsLawDecision

In the majority opinion, authored by Justice Janet Protasiewicz and joined by the Court’s three other liberal leaning justices and conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, the Court found that the DNR spent nearly 50 years administering the spills law responding “to about 1,000 spills each year, without promulgating rules listing substances, quantities, and concentrations that it deems ‘hazardous substances.’”

Protasiewicz wrote that when the Legislature wrote the spills law, it left the definition of “hazardous substance” intentionally open-ended but required a potentially harmful substance to meet certain criteria if it would apply under the law. 

“The definition of ‘hazardous substance’ is broad and open-ended in that it potentially applies to ‘any substance or combination of substances,’” Protasiewicz wrote. “But the definition is limited in that the substance or combination of substances must satisfy one of two fact-specific criteria.” 

She wrote that the law considers “a substance or combination of substances is ‘hazardous’ if,” its quantity, concentration or characteristics may cause or contribute to an increase in mortality or serious illness or may pose a potential hazard to human health or the environment

Leather Rich and WMC had argued that the Legislature’s failure to include chemical thresholds in the statutory text left while including the use of terms like “significantly,” “serious,” and “substantial,” meant that the law was ambiguous and therefore any DNR determinations of what counts as hazardous must be delineated in an administrative rule. They argued that under this interpretation of statute, spilling milk or beer on the ground could constitute a toxic spill. 

Protasiewicz wrote if that were the case, “then scores of Wisconsin statutes on a wide range of subjects would be called into doubt,” and that their hypotheticals are undermined by the text of the statute. 

“It is possible for an everyday substance like milk or beer to qualify as a ‘hazardous substance,’ but only if it first satisfies [the statute’s] fact specific criteria,” she wrote. “A mug of beer or a gallon of milk spilled into Lake Michigan may not ‘pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment,’ but a 500-gallon tank of beer or milk discharged into a trout stream might well pose a substantial present hazard to the stream’s fish and environment.” 

The majority opinion also found that communications the DNR made on its website and in letters to Leather Rich counted as “guidance documents” not as rules.

Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley, who once gave a speech to WMC in which she declared to the business lobby that “I am your public servant,” wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Annette Ziegler that the majority’s interpretation of the spills law left the state vulnerable to a “tyrannical” government that could both create the rules and enforce them. 

“This case is about whether the People are entitled to know what the law requires of them before the government can subject them to the regulatory wringer,” she wrote. “The majority leaves the People at the mercy of unelected bureaucrats empowered not only to enforce the rules, but to make them. Americans have lived under this unconstitutional arrangement for decades, but now, the majority says, the bureaucrats can impose rules and penalties on the governed without advance notice, oversight, or deliberation. In doing so, the majority violates three first principles fundamental to preserving the rule of law — and liberty.” 

After the decision’s release, Democrats and environmental groups celebrated its findings as an important step to protecting Wisconsin’s residents from the harmful effects of pollution. 

“This is a historic victory for the people of Wisconsin and my administration’s fight against PFAS and other harmful contaminants that are affecting families and communities across our state,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s decision today means that polluters will not have free rein to discharge harmful contaminants like PFAS into our land, water, and air without reporting it or taking responsibility for helping clean up those contaminants. It’s a great day for Wisconsinites and the work to protect and preserve our state’s valuable natural resources for future generations.”

But WMC said the Court’s interpretation leaves businesses guessing what substances count as hazardous under the law. 

“The DNR refuses to tell the regulated community which substances must be reported under the Spills Law, yet threatens severe penalties for getting it wrong,” Scott Manley, WMC’s Executive Vice President of Government Relations, said in a statement. “Businesses and homeowners are left to guess what’s hazardous, and if they’re wrong, they face crushing fines and endless, costly litigation. This ruling blesses a regulatory approach that is fundamentally unfair, unworkable, and impossible to comply with.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Smoke from Canadian wildfires started making air quality worse in the eastern U.S. on Wednesday as several Midwestern states battled conditions deemed unhealthy by the federal government.

The fires have forced thousands of Canadians to flee their homes and sent smoke as far as Europe.

In the U.S., smoke lingered on the skylines of cities from Kansas City to Minneapolis, and a swath of the region had unhealthy air quality Wednesday, according to an Environmental Protection Agency map.

In Stoughton, Wisconsin, Nature’s Garden Preschool was keeping its kids indoors Wednesday due to the bad air quality, which interferes with the daily routine, said assistant teacher Bailey Pollard. The smoke looked like a coming storm, he said.

The 16 or 17 kids ages 12 weeks to 5 years old would typically be outdoors running or playing with water, balls and slides, but were instead inside doing crafts with Play-Doh or coloring. The situation was unfortunate because kids need to be outside and have fresh air and free play, Pollard said.

“It’s something where we’ve got to take precaution for the kids,” he said. “Nobody wants to stay inside all day.”

Iowa issued a statewide air quality alert through early Thursday, urging residents to limit certain outdoor activities and warning of possible health effects due to the thick smoke. Wisconsin officials made similar suggestions as the smoke drifted southeast across the state.

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, authorities advised people to shut windows at night, avoid strenuous activity outside and watch for breathing issues.

Parts of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York had areas of moderate air quality concern, and officials advised sensitive people to consider reducing outdoor activity.

Unhealthy conditions persist in Midwest

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an alert for almost the entire state into Wednesday, but the Twin Cities area got the region’s worst of it Tuesday.

Children’s Minnesota, a network of pediatric clinics and hospitals in the Twin Cities area, has seen a “modest increase” increase this week in patients with symptoms that doctors attributee to polluted air, Dr. Chase Shutak said.

Their symptoms have included breathing problems, including asthma and other upper respiratory issues, said Shutak, who stays in close touch with other pediatricians in his role as medical director of the Minneapolis primary care clinic at Children’s.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources warned that air quality in a band from the state’s southwest corner to the northeast could fall into the unhealthy category through Thursday morning. The agency recommended that people — especially those with heart and lung disease — avoid long or intense activities and to take extra breaks during strenuous activity outdoors.

Conditions at ground level are in the red

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow map showed a swath of red for “unhealthy” conditions across Wisconsin and northern Iowa. Northern Michigan was also the site of many unhealthy zones, the agency said. The Air Quality Index was around 160 in many parts of the upper Midwest, indicating unhealthy conditions.

The Air Quality Index — AQI — measures how clean or polluted the air is, focusing on health effects that might be experienced within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. It is based on ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Particulates are the main issue from the fires.

The index ranges from green, where the air quality is satisfactory and air pollution poses little or no risk, to maroon, which is considered hazardous. That level comes with health warnings of emergency conditions where everyone is more likely to be affected, according to AirNow.

There were areas of reduced air quality all over the U.S. on Wednesday, with numerous advisories about moderate air quality concerns as far away as Kansas and Georgia.

The air quality was considerably better Wednesday in Minnesota, where only the barest hint of haze obscured the downtown Minneapolis skyline. The city experienced some of the worst air in the country on Tuesday. But the air quality index, which had reached the mid-200 range, or “very unhealthy” on Tuesday, was down to 60, or “moderate,” by Wednesday afternoon.

The Canadian fire situation

Canada is having another bad wildfire season. Most of the smoke reaching the American Midwest has been coming from fires northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg in Manitoba.

Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season was in 2023. It choked much of North America with dangerous smoke for months.

The smoke even reaches Europe

Canada’s wildfires are so large and intense that the smoke is even reaching Europe, where it is causing hazy skies but isn’t expected to affect surface-air quality, according the European climate service Copernicus.

This story was written by the Associated Press’ Patrick Whittle, in Portland, Maine, and Steve Karnowski, who reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan; and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Air quality worsens in eastern US as Canadian wildfire smoke hangs over Midwest is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.