Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, left, administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook, right, to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will take up in January the question of President Donald Trump’s firing of Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook, according to an order filed by the court Wednesday.

The unsigned order states Trump’s application to stay a lower court’s decision to keep Cook on board while the case plays out will be deferred until oral arguments on an unspecified date in January. 

Trump tried to remove Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in late August, alleging she lied on a mortgage application. A federal district judge sided with Cook in early September after she challenged the president in court.  

A three-judge panel then split 2-1 in rejecting Trump’s appeal to overturn the lower court decision and affirmed on Sept. 16 that Cook could keep her position as the case plays out. 

Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene, adding to his series of petitions to the justices since his second term began. The decision could have major bearing on Trump’s powers as the chief executive.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during Wednesday’s briefing that the administration remains confident about the legality of Cook’s firing.  

“Look, we have respect for the Supreme Court but they’re going to hear the actual case and make a determination on the legal argument in January. And we look forward to that because we maintain that she was fired well within the president’s legal authority to do so. She was removed from the board. And we look forward to that case being fully played out at the Supreme Court,” Leavitt said.

The legal battle is occurring against a backdrop of Trump’s ongoing pressure to insert himself in the decisions of the independent central bank. 

For months Trump and his allies have attacked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with antagonizing social media posts amid Trump’s continued campaign for lower interest rates.

The president and Senate Republicans recently installed White House economist Stephen Miran on the board. Miran is taking a leave of absence as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers while he serves in the role.

The Fed lowered interest rates for the first time in 2025 by a quarter percentage point on Sept. 17. Miran was the only board governor to vote against the change after lobbying for a half-point cut.

Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed board, was appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in a 51-47 vote.

The Federal Reserve’s dual mandate is to maximize the nation’s employment while also stabilizing prices by keeping inflation low and steady over a long period of time. Among the tools the central bank uses to accomplish the two missions is regulating interest rates to cool inflation or stimulate the economy.

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Wisconsin electricity rates – for residential, industrial and commercial users – have exceeded regional averages annually for 20 years.

From 2003 through 2022, Wisconsin rates exceeded the averages in each of the three user categories for eight Midwest states, Wisconsin Public Service Commission reports show.

For the three categories combined, Wisconsin’s rate was second-highest in 2023-24 and third-highest in 2024-25 among 12 central region states, federal Energy Information Administration figures show.

Here are the July 2025 cents-per-kilowatt hour rates in Wisconsin versus the north central region average:

Residential: $18.30/$17.84

Commercial: $13.39/$13.31

Industrial: $9.87/$9.46

Electric bills rose for residential customers of Wisconsin’s five largest utilities, according to the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board. For example, the average monthly We Energies bill for a typical residential customer was $128.65 in 2024, twice as high as $56.18 for 2004.

Booming data center construction in Wisconsin could affect utility rates.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Public Service Commission: Strategic Energy Assessment reports
• U.S. Energy Information Administration: Electric Power Monthly
• Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board: We Energies residential average bills
• Wisconsin Watch: Data center construction is booming, and it could affect utility rates

Have Wisconsin electricity price increases exceeded the Midwest average for 20 years? 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.

Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

Wisconsin farms applied about 16 million pounds more nitrogen than necessary to their fields in 2022, according to a recently released report from Clean Wisconsin and Alliance for the Great Lakes. 

The excess application of fertilizer poses serious risks to public health, raises costs for people who get their water from public utilities or private wells and increases costs for farmers, the report found. 

Throughout the report, the environmental groups included input from residents who have had their health and wallets affected by nitrate pollution. 

“I own a daycare center, and the mental toll of just staying in business because I did not cause the contamination of my well and yet am expected to solve the problem is exhausting…” Kewaunee County resident Lisa Cochart says in the report. “This could put me out of business. I work hard to provide my community with a service that assures that each child is receiving the best care and it can be shut down because of a nitrate test that I cannot control.”

The report makes a number of recommendations to better track the amount of nitrogen spread on Wisconsin’s fields and in Wisconsin’s water systems while better enforcing regulations meant to protect drinking water. But agricultural industry representatives have said the report places too much burden on farmers — even though agriculture produces up to 90% of the nitrogen in the state’s groundwater. 

“Wisconsin cannot afford to delay. The cost of inaction — both financial and human — is rising,” the report states. “A coordinated, science-based policy response is essential to reduce nitrate pollution at its source, protect public health and ecosystems, and ensure clean, safe drinking water for future generations.”

The report recommends tougher state standards for nitrates, improved enforcement of nutrient management plans on individual farms, creating a statewide registration system for manure haulers and requiring regular groundwater monitoring for factory farms. It also proposes collecting data on the cost of nitrogen contamination to public water systems, expanding the state’s existing private well compensation program and increasing the state’s nitrogen fertilizer tonnage fees.

While the report’s recommendations are aimed at a wide range of policy areas and farming is the major source of nitrogen contamination, dairy industry representatives have pushed back on its findings. Tim Trotter, CEO of the Dairy Business Association, told Wisconsin Public Radio farmers are already doing enough voluntarily to address the problem. 

“Our work with solutions-minded environmental groups and other stakeholders through a statewide clean water initiative has resulted in tailored changes to programs and policies that open up more opportunities for on-farm innovation that addresses this important issue,” Trotter said. “Reports like this one do little to bring practical, achievable solutions to water quality challenges, and can be counterproductive to progress.”

In the past, the Dairy Business Association has sued state regulators to weaken the state’s ability to regulate pollution sources such as runoff. 

The report states that the state Legislature and the courts have limited the authorities of state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, preventing them from doing all that is necessary to manage the contamination. 

“Because Wisconsin administrative agencies have been severely limited in their ability to establish new regulations, they have relied heavily on voluntary incentives, such as cost-sharing and price supports to incentivize farmers to implement conservation measures,” the report states. “However, it is clear that these voluntary incentives alone aren’t enough to solve Wisconsin’s nitrate problems.”

The report also found that in applying more nitrogen fertilizer than necessary, Wisconsin’s farmers are spending $8-$11 million more each year than they need to — “dollars that could be saved with more precise application.” 

More than one-third of the state’s residents get their drinking water from private wells, which are especially susceptible to nitrate contamination. The report recommends expanding the well compensation program, but adds that is just a band-aid solution. 

The program also limits participation to residents making less than $60,000 per year and includes a number of requirements that further restrict who is eligible, even if their wells exceed the state’s nitrate standard of 10 milligrams per liter, according to the report.  

Instead, the report argues, the state needs to better work to keep nitrates out of the groundwater in the first place. 

“Well compensation programs, while vital for near-term relief, are ultimately a stopgap,” the report states. “They do not address the root cause of nitrate pollution. Without stronger upstream controls on nitrate pollution, more families will face the high cost and growing scarcity of access to safe drinking water.”

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Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, left, administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook, right, to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — An appeals court late Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to move ahead with firing Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, as the president tries to pressure the independent board to lower interest rates. 

The 2-1 decision will allow Cook to partake in Tuesday’s Federal Reserve meeting, where the board will vote on whether to adjust interest rates. 

The Trump administration is likely to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. 

If Trump is successful in removing Cook and is able to nominate a replacement, he could have a majority of Fed members who are aligned with his desire to lower interest rates to boost the economy.

Trump nominee approved

Cook, appointed by former President Joe Biden, is the first Black woman appointed to the Fed, and she has consistently voted against lowering interest rates since joining the board in 2022. Her term ends in 2038. 

Late Monday, the U.S. Senate also approved Trump’s nominee for an open spot at the Fed, Stephen Miran, in a 48-47 vote.

While the Fed is an independent agency, Miran will continue to serve as the head of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.

In a social media post Monday, the president called out Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and pressed that he “MUST CUT INTEREST RATES, NOW, AND BIGGER THAN HE HAD IN MIND. HOUSING WILL SOAR!!!.”

Appeals court splits

In the appeals court decision on Cook, D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory G. Katsas, whom Trump appointed in 2017, split with Judges J. Michelle Childs and Bradley N. Garcia, both appointed by Biden.

Last week a federal judge ruled to keep Cook in her position, determining that Trump administration allegations of mortgage fraud lacked evidence and did not meet the threshold for removing Cook under “just cause.”

Katsas agreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the president has the right to remove a Fed member for “just cause.” 

“This broad definition ‘give[s] the President more removal authority than other removal provisions’ imposed by Congress or reviewed by the Supreme Court,” Katsas wrote in his dissent. 

Childs and Garcia did not address the “just cause” argument but said the lack of due process Cook received in her removal warranted blocking Trump’s attempt to fire her.  

“Because Cook’s due process claim is very likely meritorious, there is no need to address the meaning of ‘for cause’ in the Federal Reserve Act in this emergency posture,” the majority wrote in the opinion.

A Trump official referred Cook to the Department of Justice, accusing her of improperly filing paperwork about her residence that allowed her to get a more favorable mortgage rate. Reuters obtained Cook’s paperwork and found no evidence of tax rule violations. 

A child gets an MMR vaccine at a clinic put on by Lubbock Public Health Department in Lubbock, Texas, in March. States have been reporting steady increases in vaccination exemption requests for kids. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images)

Dr. Rana Alissa hears it daily in the clinic.

“It’s better for my kid to get the virus than get the vaccine.”

“The more you [doctors] vaccinate, the more money you get.”

“I did not vaccinate any of my kids, and I’m not going to vaccinate this one. So, please, don’t waste your time.”

The Jacksonville, Florida, pediatrician said on average, she’d hear vaccine skepticism from a couple of parents a month, at most, before the COVID-19 pandemic. “Now, it’s every day,” said Alissa, who is also president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Medical experts say hesitancy is likely to increase further as a result of misinformation pouring from the Trump administration — and turmoil at the federal agency largely responsible for setting vaccine policy.

On Thursday, three top officials were escorted out of the Atlanta headquarters of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

All three officials resigned to protest the effort by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to dismiss CDC Director Susan Monarez for pushing back against Kennedy’s vaccine policies.

One of the officials, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, posted on X that he’s resigning because “the intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines” will cause the nation to suffer.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricted access to updated COVID-19 shots. The new rules include limitations for young children that the American Academy of Pediatrics called “deeply troubling.” The FDA only approved COVID-19 vaccines for people who are 65 and older and those who are known to be at risk for a severe case. Consultation with a medical provider will be required before the shot is given to healthy children under 18, meaning parents can’t simply take their kids to a vaccination clinic or pharmacy.

In June, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee at the CDC, replacing them with some members who are vaccine skeptics. Many states use the committee’s recommendations to develop their vaccine requirements. And in May, Kennedy rescinded recommendations for kids to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

In his books, experts say, Kennedy appears to promote his own version of miasma theory, an obsolete belief dating back to ancient times that diseases are caused by vapors from rotting organic matter. Scientists have since proven that microbes, not bad air, cause infectious diseases.

Experts say Kennedy’s actions are likely to make vaccination rates worse, paving the way for more outbreaks.

“Every vaccine that we give prevents a serious and life-threatening disease,” New York pediatrician Dr. Jesse Hackell, chair of the Committee on Pediatric Workforce at the American Academy of Pediatrics, told Stateline. “I don’t want to force anybody, but I do want to make sure that the information they’re getting is quality information — and that’s not what is coming from HHS.”

Nonmedical exemptions

Every state requires kids to get certain shots to attend school. All states exempt children who can’t be immunized for medical reasons, but nonmedical exemptions for religious or personal reasons vary from state to state.

Vaccination rates among kids are declining. Flu vaccinations, for example, hit their lowest rate since 2019. And since the beginning of the pandemic, exemption requests have increased across the country.

Among kindergarteners, nonmedical exemptions have increased each year since 2020, from 1.9% in the first year of the pandemic to 3.4% in the 2024-25 school year, according to the latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Exemptions increased in 36 states and Washington, D.C. Seventeen states reported exemption rates over 5%.

The changes may seem small. But experts say even slight increases in exemptions and decreases in vaccinations make a big difference.

“With a disease that’s as infectious as measles … small increases in vaccination rates could really go a long way,” epidemiologist Sophia Newcomer, a University of Montana associate professor, said in a recent panel discussion hosted by Montana Families for Vaccines.

Alissa and other experts say rampant confusion around the shots, including federal officials casting doubt, is exacerbating the problem. Often, parents aren’t sure whom they can trust, finding conflicting information and unreliable sources, she said.

“[Parents] come to our clinic and the hospitals and they say, ‘We looked it up, and we just don’t want it,’” she said. “There’s different kinds of reasoning: the ingredients of the vaccine, the side effects of the vaccine, ‘vaccines don’t work.’”

But research consistently shows vaccines protect children from serious illness. Shots also protect the most vulnerable who can’t get vaccinated, such as babies who are too young, or children and adults who are immunocompromised. Babies up to age 2 are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19, making up the most hospitalizations among kids.

Ultimately, Alissa said, “We are endangering each other.”

In Florida, where Alissa practices, religious exemptions have increased monthly, according to a state report that tracked the numbers through April. Some counties have higher rates of children with religious exemptions than others, ranging from about 1.5% to 15%, the state department of health reported. Among kindergarteners in the state, the rate of nonmedical exemptions rose from 2.7% in the 2020-21 school year to 4.8% in the 2024-25 school year, CDC data shows.

Five states — California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia — don’t allow nonmedical exemptions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Two West Virginia families with immunocompromised kids brought lawsuits over Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s January executive order mandating religious exemptions despite state law.

Kennedy defended religious exemptions and endorsed the governor’s order in a post on X. His agency also sent letters to West Virginia health departments warning of civil rights violations if they don’t allow such exemptions.

“There’s a ton of variability across states in how easy it is to not get vaccinated,” Newcomer, of the University of Montana, said. Some states require parental vaccine education as part of the exemption request while others don’t.

“Increased exemptions needs to be fought at every level — working to make sure there’s access, to make sure that there’s good information, and to make sure that there’s strong policy at the state level, so that people aren’t exploiting exemption loopholes,” Northe Saunders, American Families for Vaccines president, said during the panel discussion.

Other vaccines

Doctors are worried that other vaccines will be targeted by the Trump administration, such as those for whooping cough. By April, preliminary CDC data showed more than 9,000 cases this year, about twice as many compared with the same time last year and more than there were right before the pandemic. Whooping cough, or pertussis, can be deadly for babies. Vaccines help prevent severe whooping cough illness.

Hackell said that when he was training in the 1970s, there were no pneumococcal and haemophilus vaccines. Babies would come in with 104-degree fevers and they were immediately tested for the infections, he recalled. For babies under age 2, those bacterial infections can show up as only a high fever, but the infection can rapidly turn fatal without treatment, he told Stateline.

“When I trained, we didn’t have these vaccines, and these kids kept us up at night,” Hackell said. “I never want to practice in those days. I never want to go back to that. … To me, that is unacceptable to submit my patients to those risks that we’ve been able to reduce.”

This week the FDA removed one of the available COVID-19 vaccines for young children, limiting the Spikevax vaccine to only kids with at least one serious health issue. Moderna’s shot is still available for children 6 months and older. Pfizer’s shot is no longer available for kids under 5, as the FDA is ending its emergency use authorization for the age group.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends COVID-19 shots for children 6 months to 2 years. It also recommends them for older children with underlying health issues. Healthy children whose parents want them to get the shot should also be offered them, the AAP says.

Hackell is concerned by the FDA’s new limitations on the shot.

“As a parent, as a grandparent and as a physician who takes care of vulnerable kids, it disgusts me,” Hackell said.

He’s also concerned about vulnerable kids who get their shots through the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program, which covers shots if parents can’t afford them and follows federal vaccine advisory recommendations.

“If you’re covered by VFC, which is basically kids on Medicaid and a few other populations, then you’re out of luck,” Hackell said. “To me, that’s a huge inequity in access to care, which is indefensible.”

He added that the move breaks with the administration’s emphasis on individual decision-making, saying the new restrictions limit parental decisions.

‘Normalization’ of outbreaks

During the Montana panel discussion, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, pointed to CDC data showing that over the past year alone, about 1 in 5 children and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 were put in the ICU. And between September 2023 and last August, 152 children died of COVID-19 and 213 children died of the flu.

While Texas officially declared its measles outbreak over — which means the state hasn’t reported a new case in six weeks — neighboring New Mexico continues to see new cases.

“What we’re going to see is, you know, sadly, a normalization of these outbreaks,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategy officer at The Immunization Partnership, a Texas-based vaccine education organization. “We need to make sure that kids are protected against the diseases that they can be protected against, because we truly are in a vulnerable state right now.”

Newcomer, the Montana epidemiologist, said that under-vaccination trends are usually due to disparities in access, such as challenges in reaching vaccine providers in rural communities. At rural health care centers lacking staff and technology, it’s harder to automate vaccination reminders for patients — which can increase the likelihood patients show up for appointments but require technical infrastructure, she explained.

Adding misinformation to the mix only makes matters worse, experts say.

“Parents are confused and understandably concerned,” Offit told Stateline. “It’s the most vulnerable among us that will suffer, and that will be our children.”

He added that he’s also wary about the federal administration’s removal of data, concerned that vaccination figures will be next.

“It’s nightmarish,” he said. “What worries me the most is we’re not going to know the degree that we’re suffering. We’re not, because the CDC is losing its capacity to do adequate surveillance across the country.”

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

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday said she would set an expedited briefing schedule for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s challenge to President Donald Trump’s attempted firing of her earlier in the week. 

Cook is aiming to keep her position until her term expires in 2038, arguing that Trump’s attempt to remove her has no legal basis. U.S. District of Columbia Judge Jia M. Cobb, whom former President Joe Biden appointed in 2021, gave Cook until Tuesday to respond to the government’s brief that seeks to justify her removal.

The deadline is part of a fast-tracked briefing process for the case that could test the ability of the Federal Reserve Board to operate independently. If Cook is removed, Trump would select another member of the seven-person panel, likely meaning a majority of the board would align with the president.

The legal challenge is likely to head to the Supreme Court. 

Cook filed a suit against the president Thursday after he posted to social media Monday that he would fire her over allegations she submitted improper paperwork in order to obtain a favorable mortgage on a second home. She has not been charged with a crime. 

An attorney for Cook, Abbe David Lowell, argued Friday that the allegations against Cook – that she engaged in mortgage fraud – did not qualify as “just cause” for removal. 

Trump has argued that under the Federal Reserve Act, he has the authority to dismiss a governor for “just cause,” which is typically defined as gross misconduct, but Lowell argued Trump was simply seeking to install a governor more aligned with his policy views. 

“Cause for the president means she won’t go along with the interest-rate drop,” Lowell said during Friday’s hearing. 

For months Trump has pressured the Fed to lower interest rates. Cook, the first Black woman appointed to the board, has consistently voted with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell to not lower rates. 

Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth, who is representing the administration, argued the statute defined just cause with open-ended language that gave the president broad discretion to fire a Fed member.

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, made the accusations of mortgage fraud. He referred Cook’s mortgage application to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.  

In court filings, the Fed did not take a position but pushed for a quick ruling in order “to remove the existing cloud of uncertainty.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, sued President Donald Trump Thursday, calling his move to fire her an “unprecedented and illegal attempt” that jeopardizes the independence of the board. 

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, sets up a fight between the Federal Reserve and the president who has tried to pressure the independent board to lower interest rates. The challenge could go all the way to the Supreme Court. 

The suit argues that the president’s Monday decision to remove her was political and violated her due process rights because she had no chance to respond to the allegations of mortgage fraud a Trump appointee lodged against her. Cook has not been charged with any crime.

“It is clear from the circumstances surrounding Governor Cook’s purported removal from the Federal Reserve Board that the mortgage allegations against her are pretextual, in order to effectuate her prompt removal and vacate a seat for President Trump to fill and forward his agenda to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve,” according to the suit. 

The suit also emphasized the importance of the Fed’s independence from elected officials.

“The operational independence of the Federal Reserve is vital to its ability to make sound economic decisions, free from the political pressures of an election cycle,” according to the suit.

The case is assigned to Jia M. Cobb. Former President Joe Biden appointed Cobb in 2021. 

The suit asks the district court to allow Cook to continue serving on the Fed as she challenges her removal. 

In a statement to States Newsroom, White House spokesperson Kush Desai defended the president’s decision to remove Cook.

“The President determined there was cause to remove a governor who was credibly accused of lying in financial documents from a highly sensitive position overseeing financial institutions,” Desai said. “The removal of a governor for cause improves the Federal Reserve Board’s accountability and credibility for both the markets and American people.”

Rift highlights policy differences 

Cook, the first Black woman appointed to the Fed, has consistently voted against lowering interest rates since joining the board in 2022. Her term ends in 2038. 

If Trump is successful in removing her and is able to nominate a replacement, he could have a majority of Fed members who are aligned with his desire to lower interest rates to boost the economy.

Despite Trump’s long-running pressure campaign, the Fed has kept rates steady amid concerns that the president’s tariffs will produce price hikes. 

The allegations of mortgage fraud stem from Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte accused Cook of making a false statement on a mortgage application to obtain a more favorable rate on her second home. He referred the matter to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. 

The suit does not address the merits of the allegations.

Pulte has made similar mortgage fraud accusations against two other political enemies of Trump’s: New York Attorney General Letitia James, who investigated the president’s business dealings and won a finding of fraud in state court, and California U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, who led the investigation into Trump’s first impeachment inquiry.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will challenge her removal, her attorney said Tuesday, arguing President Donald Trump “has no authority” to fire her.

Trump announced late Monday that he would fire Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, over allegations that she falsified documents to obtain a favorable mortgage rate. She has not been charged with a crime. 

Cook has consistently voted not to lower interest rates, rejecting requests Trump has made of the independent central banking board.

Cook’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell of Lowell & Associates, said in a statement to States Newsroom that she would sue to block the firing. Former president Joe Biden appointed Cook in 2022. Her term ends in 2038.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” Lowell said. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis.”

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, referred Cook’s mortgage application to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Pulte has made similar accusations against political enemies of the president.

Pulte has accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, who investigated Trump’s business dealings and won a finding of fraud in state court, and California U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, who led the investigation into Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, of mortgage fraud.

Trump posted a letter on social media, arguing that the allegations of Cook’s mortgage fraud had called “into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.” 

He said the Federal Reserve Act gave him the authority to dismiss a governor for gross misconduct. 

Trump’s fight with Fed

The president defended his decision to dismiss Cook to reporters during a more-than-three-hour Cabinet meeting. 

“We need people that are 100% on board,” Trump said, adding that he’s already considering someone else for the job.

Cook is not the only Federal Reserve Board member Trump has trained his criticism on. He has long gone after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell for not lowering interest rates. 

Trump has pushed for lower interest rates to boost the economy, but rates have remained lower amid concerns that the president’s tariffs will produce price hikes. 

“I think we have to have lower interest rates,” Trump said Tuesday. 

Dems defend Fed independence

The dismissal has drawn outrage from economists and Democrats, including the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Yvette D. Clarke of New York.

“President Trump is attempting to oust Dr. Lisa Cook — the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board — with no credible evidence of wrongdoing,” she said in a statement.

“Let’s be clear: this is a racist, misogynistic, and unlawful attack on the integrity and independence of the Federal Reserve,” Clarke said. “It is a dangerous attempt to politicize and exert control over the central bank — one that will only continue to damage the economy, harm hardworking Americans, and undermine our credibility on the world stage.”

Heather Boushey, a top economist under the Biden administration, said in a statement that Trump’s move to fire Cook undermines the independence of the Federal Reserve. 

“It is clear from his actions that he does not believe he is bound by rule of law, but can — and will — intimidate experts to bend to his own ends,” Boushey said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a late Monday statement that any attempt to fire Cook “shreds the independence of the Fed and puts every American’s savings and mortgage at risk.”

“This brazen power grab must be stopped by the courts before Trump does permanent damage to national, state, and local economies,” Schumer said. “And if the economy comes crashing down, if families lose their savings and Main Street pays the price, Donald Trump will own every ounce of the wreckage and devastation families feel.”

The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal of Massachusetts, slammed the president, calling Cook’s firing unlawful. 

“President Trump’s illegal removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is (an) economic assault,” Neal said in a statement. “Instead of taking responsibility for his own economic failures, he’s manufacturing a villain to blame. As seen around the world, politicizing the central bank means rampant inflation, higher mortgage rates, unstable retirement accounts, and more uncertainty for the people. All of which will threaten the financial security of every American.” 

The coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station operates in Kentucky last year. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered some retiring coal plants to stay online, even as they have struggled to remain economically viable. (Photo by Liam Niemeyer/Kentucky Lantern)

Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups.

Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. It was carried out on behalf of Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.

Under Trump, the agency has issued emergency orders to maintain operations at coal plants that were scheduled for retirement. While federal officials say the coal plants need to stay online to avoid blackouts, power plant owners and state regulators planned their closures because they were no longer economically viable or needed for reliability.

“DOE mandates override those well-informed decisions, inflating electric bills for homeowners and businesses and undermining the competitiveness of U.S. factories and data centers,” the Grid Strategies analysis found.

Across the country, coal plants have phased out as they’ve struggled to compete with cheaper renewables and natural gas. A 2023 analysis by Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, found that 99% of existing U.S. coal plants “are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.”

But Trump, who has pushed to unleash more fossil fuel development and to stymie wind and solar, has ordered a retiring coal plant in Michigan to stay online, along with an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania.

“Based on the trend to date and indications that DOE has approached the owners of many retiring fossil power plants about potentially mandating their retention, DOE may attempt to mandate the retention of nearly all large fossil power plants slated for retirement between now and the end of 2028,” reads the Grid Strategies report.

The cost of keeping those plants online would be immense. By 2028, if Trump were to mandate the retention of all fossil fuel plants slated for retirement, the annual cost to ratepayers would be more than $3.1 billion, the analysis found.

The report also considers a number of aging plants that are not yet scheduled for retirement. It finds Trump’s actions could create a “perverse incentive,” causing plant owners to claim they’re planning to shut down, inducing the feds to step in and keep them open, with the cost borne by ratepayers.

Accounting for that possibility, the report found that ratepayer costs could reach $5.9 billion per year to keep the entire aging fossil fuel fleet online. California, Texas and Colorado would see the highest increases in electricity bills.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump announces a "crime emergency" in Washington, D.C., during a White House press conference on Aug. 11, 2025. Standing behind Trump are, from left to right, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. (Image via White House livestream)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asserted control Monday of the District of Columbia police force and mobilized 800 National Guard troops in the nation’s capital under what he declared a “crime emergency.”

Trump took the step despite a three-decade low in violent crime in Washington, D.C., while warning he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime.

Trump at a press conference said that he hopes other Democratic-led cities are watching because Monday’s actions in the district are just the beginning.

“We’re starting very strongly with D.C.,” Trump said.

The president placed the Metropolitan Police Department of roughly 3,400 officers under federal control, citing the district’s Home Rule Act that allows for the federal takeover until an emergency is declared over, or 30 days after the declaration. Congress can also authorize the extension.

“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said.

The mayor of the district, Muriel Bowser, called Monday’s action “unsettling and unprecedented.” She added that she was not informed by the president that the district’s police force would be taken over.

DOGE staffer hurt

The escalation of federal control came after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the district neighborhood of Logan Circle. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.

The president said he is prepared to send in more National Guard “if needed,” and that he will handle the city the same way he has handled immigration at the southern border. The Trump administration has been carrying out a campaign of mass deportations.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during the press conference that members of the National Guard will be “flowing into” the district sometime this week.

Local officials in the district protested Trump’s move. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, an elected official, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Trump administration’s “actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.”

“There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year,” Schwalb said.

“We are considering all of our options and will do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of District residents,” he continued.

Trump at the press conference said that he’s also directed officials to clear out encampments of homeless people in the district, but did not detail where those people would be moved.

Hundreds of federal law enforcement officers, representing agencies from the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Interior Department, were deployed across the city Saturday and Sunday.

Los Angeles and beyond

The president’s crackdown in the district occurred after a federal appeals court this summer temporarily approved Trump’s move to take control of the California National Guard from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for the purpose of quelling protests over the administration’s aggressive immigration raids.

The president Monday slammed several major Democratic cities – Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – and inaccurately claimed they had the highest murder rates. 

Trump said that he hopes other cities are “watching us today.”

“Maybe they’ll self clean up and maybe they’ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,” the president said.

Trump pointed at Chicago, criticizing Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.

“I understand he wants to be president,” Trump said of Pritzker, before taking a shot at the governor’s personal appearance. “I noticed he lost a little weight so maybe he has a chance.”

Pritzker is hosting Texas Democrats who left the state to prevent the state legislature from having a quorum after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session in order to redistrict the state to give more seats to Republicans in Congress.

GOP applauds 

The top Republican on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the district, praised Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and take over the police department.

“President Trump is rightly using executive power to take bold and necessary action to crack down on crime and restore law and order in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement.

Comer added that the committee next month will hold a hearing with Schwalb, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Mayor Muriel Bowser.

While state governors have control over their National Guards, the president has control over the National Guard members in the district. The National Guard does not have arresting authority, under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

During Trump’s first term, he deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard on Black Lives Matter protesters in the district after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

And despite requests from congressional leaders, Trump notably delayed activating National Guard members during the 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, when the president’s supporters tried to subvert the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

In one of Trump’s first actions on his inauguration day in January, he pardoned hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters who were charged by the Department of Justice for their involvement in the insurrection.

Putin meeting

In a question-and-answer session after announcing the National Guard deployment, Trump told reporters he hoped his meeting this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin would help put that country on a path to peace with Ukraine, which he said would involve each country ceding some territory to the other.

Trump described the Friday summit in Alaska — Putin’s first visit to the U.S. in a decade — as a “feel-out meeting.”

Asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to the summit, Trump said he was “not part of it.” Any framework for peace discussed between Trump and Putin would be relayed to Zelenskyy, he said.

An end to the war would have to come from direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, which may or may not ultimately involve the U.S., he said.

“I’m going to put the two of them in a room, and I’ll be there or I won’t be there, and I think it’ll get solved,” he said of Putin and Zelenskyy.

Trump said he was “a little disappointed” that Zelenskyy did not immediately agree to cede territory to Russia, which invaded his country in February 2022. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said giving land to Russia was a nonstarter, including after Trump suggested it over the weekend.

“Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,” Zelenskyy said in a video address Saturday, according to The New York Times.

Multiple ambulances and police vehicles respond to a shooting at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Mich., in June. Homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s latest crime trends report. (Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

Amid recent political rhetoric about rising crime and violence in American cities, a new analysis shows that violent crime has continued to decline this year.

Homicides and several other serious offenses, including gun assaults and carjackings, dropped during the first half of 2025 across 42 U.S. cities, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022, according to a new crime trends report released Thursday by the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.

Homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, among the 30 cities that reported homicide data, according to the report.

During that same period, five cities saw increases in homicide — ranging from 6% in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to 39% in Little Rock, Arkansas.

While the report’s authors say the continued drop in violent crime — especially homicides — is encouraging, they note that much of the decline stems from a few major cities with historically high rates, such as Baltimore and St. Louis.

More than half of the cities studied have higher homicide rates than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, though, the analysis found that there were 14% fewer homicides during the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2019.

The authors say more research is needed before crediting any specific policy or practice for the continued drop in violent crime.

The group’s findings come as President Donald Trump continues to amplify concerns about crime, at times citing misleading statistics and narratives.

In a Truth Social post earlier this week, Trump claimed that cashless bail — a practice that allows people charged with a crime to be released pretrial without paying money, unless a judge deems them a threat to public safety — were fueling a national crime surge and endangering law enforcement.

He wrote: “Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”

Some research suggests that setting money bail isn’t effective in ensuring court appearances or improving public safety. Opponents of ending cash bail often raise concerns that released suspects might commit new, potentially more serious crimes. While that is possible in individual cases, studies show that eliminating cash bail does not lead to a widespread increase in crime.

The Truth Social post also marked a sharp shift from Trump’s remarks during a June roundtable with the Fraternal Order of Police, where he claimed the national murder rate had “plummeted by 28%” since he took office — a figure that overstates the decline and overlooks the fact that murder rates began falling well before he returned to office.

According to data consulting firm AH Datalytics, which manages the Real-Time Crime Index — a free tool that collects crime data from more than 400 law enforcement agencies nationwide — the number of homicides between January and May 2025 was 20.3% lower than the same period in 2024.

Similarly, data released in May by the Major Cities Chiefs Association showed that homicides fell roughly 20% in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the first three months of the prior year. The group’s data is based on a survey of 68 major metropolitan police departments nationwide.

Researchers at the Council on Criminal Justice note in their report that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the drop in homicides, but they note that fewer people appear to be exposed to high-risk situations, such as robberies.

Most major crimes fell in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period last year, according to the council’s report.

Motor vehicle thefts dropped by 25%, while reported gun assaults fell 21%. Robberies, residential and non-residential burglaries, shoplifting, and aggravated and sexual assaults also saw double-digit declines

Drug offenses held steady, while domestic violence reports rose slightly — by about 3%. Carjackings declined 24% and larcenies were down 5%.

Compared with the first half of 2019, before the pandemic and nationwide reckoning over racial justice and policing, overall homicides are down 14%, robberies by 30%, and sexual assaults by 28%.

Still, more than 60% of the cities in the council’s study sample report homicide rates that remain above 2019 levels.

Motor vehicle theft remains the only crime tracked in the report that is still elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels — up 25% since 2019 — although it has declined sharply since 2023.

The council also released another analysis on the lethality of violent crime, showing that while violent incidents have decreased, the share of violence that ends in death has increased significantly. In 1994, there were 2 homicides per 1,000 assaults and about 16 per 1,000 robberies. By 2020, those figures rose to 7.2 and 55.8, respectively.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

As power-hungry data centers proliferate, states are searching for ways to protect utility customers from the steep costs of upgrading the electrical grid, trying instead to shift the cost to AI-driven tech companies. (Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

Regular energy consumers, not corporations, will bear the brunt of the increased costs of a boom in artificial intelligence that has contributed to a growth in data centers and a surge in power usage, recent research suggests.

Between 2024 and 2025, data center power usage accounted for $9 billion, or 174%, of increased power costs, a June report by Monitoring Analytics, an external market monitor for PJM Interconnection, found. PJM manages the electrical power grid and wholesale electric market for 13 states and Washington, D.C., and this spring, customers were told to expect roughly a $25 increase on their monthly electric bill starting June 1.

“The growth in data center load and the expected future growth in data center load are unique and unprecedented and uncertain and require a different approach than simply asserting that it is just supply and demand,” Monitoring Analytics’ report said.

Data centers house the physical infrastructure to power most of the computing we do today, but many AI models and the large AI companies that power them, like Amazon, Meta and Microsoft use vastly more energy than other kinds of computing. Training a single chatbot like ChatGPT uses about the same amount of energy as 100 homes over the course of a year, an AI founder told States Newsroom earlier this year.

The growth of data centers — and how much power they use — came on fast. A 2024 report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in Virginia — known as a global hub for data centers — found that PJM forecasts it will use double the amount of average monthly energy in 2033 as it did in 2023. Without new data centers, energy use would only grow 15% by 2040, the report said.

As of July, the United States is home to more than 3,800 data centers, up from more than 3,600 in April. A majority of data centers are connected to the same electrical grids that power residential homes, commercial buildings and other structures.

“There are locational price differences, but data centers added anywhere in PJM have an effect on prices everywhere in PJM,” Joseph Bowring, president of Monitoring Analytics said.

Creeping costs

At least 36 states, both conservative and liberal, offer tax incentives to companies planning on building data centers in their states. But the increased costs that customers are experiencing have made some wonder if the projects are the economic wins they were touted as.

“I’m not convinced that boosting data centers, from a state policy perspective, is actually worth it,” said New Jersey State Sen. Andrew Zwicker, a Democrat and co-sponsor of a bill to separate data centers from regular power supply. “It doesn’t pay for a lot of permanent jobs.”

Energy cost has historically followed a socialized model, based on the idea that everyone benefits from reliable electricity, said Ari Peskoe, the director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program. Although some of the pricing model is based on your actual use, some costs like new power generation, transmission and infrastructure projects are spread across all customers.

Data centers’ rapid growth is “breaking” this tradition behind utility rates.

“These are cities, these data centers, in terms of how much electricity they use,” Peskoe said. “And it happens to be that these are the world’s wealthiest corporations behind these data centers, and it’s not clear how much local communities actually benefit from these data centers. Is there any justification for forcing everyone to pay for their energy use?”

This spring in Virginia, Dominion Energy filed a request with the State Corporation Commission to increase the rates it charges by an additional $10.50 on the monthly bill of an average resident and another $10.92 per month to pay for higher fuel costs, the Virginia Mercury reported.

Dominion, and another local supplier, recently filed a proposal to separate data centers into their own rate class to protect other customers, but the additional charges demonstrate the price increases that current contracts could pass on to customers.

In June, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission convened a technical conference to assess the adequacy of PJM’s resources and those of other major power suppliers, like Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., ISO New England Inc., New York Independent System Operator, Inc., California Independent System Operator Corporation (CAISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP).

The current supply of power by PJM is not adequate to meet the current and future demand from large data center loads, Monitoring Analytics asserts in a report following the conference.

“Customers are already bearing billions of dollars in higher costs as a direct result of existing and forecast data center load,” the report said.

Proposed changes

One of the often-proposed solutions to soften the increased cost of data centers is to require them to bring their own generation, meaning they’d contract with a developer to build a power plant that would be big enough to meet their own demand. Though there are other options, like co-location, which means putting some of the electrical demand on an outside source, total separation is the foremost solution Bowring presents in his reports.

“Data centers are unique in terms of their growth and impact on the grid, unique in the history of the grid, and therefore, we think that’s why we think data centers should be treated as a separate class,” Bowring said.

Some data centers are already voluntarily doing this. Constellation Energy, the owner of Three Mile Island nuclear plant in central Pennsylvania, struck a $16 billion deal with Microsoft to power the tech giant’s AI energy demand needs. 

But in some states, legislators are seeking to find a more binding solution.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat who chairs the Environment and Energy Committee, authored a bill this spring that would require new AI data centers in the state to supply their power from new, clean energy sources, if other states in the region enact similar measures.

“Seeing the large multinational trillion dollar companies, like Microsoft and Meta, be willing to do things like restart Three Mile Island is crazy, but shows you their desperation,” said co-sponsor Zwicker. “And so, okay, you want to come to New Jersey? Great, but you’re not going to put the basis (of the extra cost) on ratepayers.”

New Jersey House members launched a probe into PJM’s practices as the state buys its annual utilities from the supplier at auction this month. Its July 2024 auction saw electrical costs increase by more than 800%, which contributed to the skyrocketing bills that took effect June 1.

Residents are feeling it, Smith said, and he and his co-sponsors plan to use the summer to talk to the other states within PJM’s regional transmission organization (RTO).

“Everything we’re detecting so far is they’re just as angry — the other 13 entities in PJM — as us,” Smith told States Newsroom.

Smith said they’re discussing the possibility of joining or forming a different RTO.

“We’re in the shock and horror stage where these new prices are being included in these bills, and citizens are screaming in pain,” Smith said. “A solution that I filed in the bill, is the one that says, ‘AI data centers, you’re welcome in New Jersey, but bring your own clean electricity with them so they don’t impact the ratepayers.”

Utah enacted a law this year that allows “large load” customers like data centers to craft separate contracts with utilities, and a bill in Oregon, which would create a separate customer class for data centers, called the POWER Act, passed through both chambers last month.

If passed, New Jersey’s law would join others across the country in redefining the relationship between data centers powering AI and utilities providers.

“We have to take action, and I think we have to be pretty thoughtful about this, and look at the big picture as well,” Zwicker said. ”I’m not anti-data center, I’m pro-technology, but I’m just not willing to put it on the backs of ratepayers.”