A police officer stands watch as activists protest outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Sept. 5, 2025 in Broadview, Illinois. Immigrants without legal status who have been detained undergo processing at the facility. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Attorneys on behalf of a dozen U.S. House Democrats Thursday pushed for a federal judge to force the Trump administration to comply with an appropriations law that allows for unannounced oversight visits at Department of Homeland Security facilities that detain immigrants.
“We don’t know what detention will look like in the future,” said Christine Coogle, a senior staff attorney for the group Democracy Forward, which represents the lawmakers.
Coogle argued before federal Judge Jia Cobb that because of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, the number of immigrants detained has ballooned. Coogle said that Democrats’ ability to conduct oversight visits without preapproval is not only needed, but already signed into law.
The suit, filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia, charges that the Trump administration has overreached its authority in creating a policy to require members of Congress give DHS seven days’ notice, plus approval from an agency official, before visiting a facility where immigrants are detained.
The suit also argues that the DHS policy is unlawful due to the appropriations law.
DOJ argues against Dems
Appearing on behalf of the Trump administration, Department of Justice attorney Alexander Resar said that the entire case will be moot in three business days, citing the looming government shutdown by next week. He argued that because the appropriations law will expire, lawmakers will not have the authority to conduct oversight provided under that provision.
Coogle pushed back and said that even the House’s seven-week continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown, passed last week, contained the oversight provision.
“We expect it to be included,” in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations, Coogle said.
Resar also argued that because that provision is attached to appropriations law, the administration views it as not as enforceable as a separate law passed by Congress.
He added that Congress has multiple tools to conduct oversight of DHS facilities, such as withdrawing funding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or impeaching officials. Republicans control both chambers in Congress as well as the White House.
Cobb questioned why two administrations, that of Biden and the first Trump administration, signed the appropriations bills into law for the past five years if they had an issue with the provision.
Resar said because the provision is attached to an appropriations bill, the Trump administration argues that it doesn’t reach the level of statutory authority.
Blocked from entry
Democrats detailed in their suit that since June, DHS officials have blocked them from entering facilities that detain immigrants.
Coogle said members of Congress being able to show up unannounced is an important tool, as in the past lawmakers have detailed how DHS has quickly made changes in preparation for planned visits.
She said some of those changes include painting facilities and moving detainees.
Resar argued that “if the facilities are being changed for the better,” then planned visits seem beneficial overall.
The oversight policy that allows members of Congress to show up unannounced at DHS facilities that detain immigrants, including ICE field offices, stems from the first Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the southern border in 2018.
At that time, Democrats such as Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who represents the border town of El Paso, were unable to conduct interviews with separated immigrant families and often denied entry into the facilities.
That led to the inclusion of a provision in the fiscal year 2019 appropriations law that codified a member of Congress’ ability to conduct in-person oversight visits at DHS facilities where minors were detained.
The provision later was expanded to include all immigrants detained at DHS facilities, not just children, and allowed for unannounced visits by members and the inclusion of congressional staff to enter with their members during oversight visits.
Twelve Democratic House members are part of the suit including Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.
State Rep. Ryan Clancy asks questions of a witness testifying at a public hearing on April 10, 2025, about a bill placing to restrictions on the process of qualifying for Medicaid. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) has distributed co-sponsorship memos promoting a package of bills aimed at tamping down police violence and surveillance. Dubbed the “Freedom From Fear” package, the bills focus on facial recognition technology, police training and accountability.
Residents in local Wisconsin communities have called for oversight of police surveillance, including facial recognition technology, and some have raised concerns about the surge in federal operations and deployment of military forces to cities around the country. Clancy’s proposals would:
Require the decertification of law enforcement who violate “basic regulations on uses of force, among other standards set by the Law Enforcement Standards Board”.
Prohibit the use of facial recognition technology, which is known to incorporate artificial intelligence;
Ban the use of Automatic License Plate Readers, which a press release by Clancy’s office states are vulnerable to hacking, despite being used to track and monitor thousands of vehicles nationwide,
Prohibit law enforcement from requesting, obtaining, or receiving access to an individual’s personal data in exchange for payment or a thing of value and without a warrant,
Set clear policies around releasing body camera footage depicting officer-involved deaths, with a focus on delays which could give police “the motive and opportunity to edit or delete footage,”
Prohibit police trainings that include content on “excited delirium,” which the press release describes as “a nonscientific, nonmedical term often used to justify police violence and other abuses of authority,”
And prohibit “warrior-style training” methods among law enforcement which could lead to “unnecessary injury and death, in favor of aikido training focused on self-defense, de-escalation, and the disarming of threats”.
In Milwaukee, civil liberties advocates and community activists have drawn more attention to concerns around surveillance by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), with a particular focus on license plate readers and facial recognition technology.
Critics of the two kinds of tech have expressed concerns over the technology’s use without a warrant and their ability to gather information on numerous people who are not the target of any particular investigation. Recently, Wisconsin Examiner also found that several Wisconsin law enforcement agencies utilizing Flock license plate readers entered vague reasons for using the network of cameras.
The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. A surveillance van, or “critical response vehicle” is in the background. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Facial recognition technology presents its own unique challenges. Questions have been raised about the technology’s ability to accurately detect and identify faces, particularly people of color. Earlier this summer, MPD announced that it was considering acquiring facial recognition technology from the company Biometrica, in exchange for providing the company with 2.5 million images and records related to people who’d passed through Milwaukee’s criminal justice system, including those who had not been convicted of a crime. In June, as the sheriff’s office began to explore a similar deal, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors joined calls to regulate facial recognition technology.
“In this critical moment, as military forces take over cities across the United States one by one, at President Trump’s whim, we cannot continue investing more public resources and power in unaccountable law enforcement,” Clancy said in a statement. “As state legislators, we have the elected duty and authority to check government overreach in Wisconsin — that overreach is at its most dangerous when done in secret, while armed, and in cooperation with an increasingly openly fascist President.”
Clancy blasted MPD and other nearby law enforcement agencies in his statement for “giddily trading the data of hundreds of thousands of people for access to technology that will let them exploit, and inevitably misuse, the same data.” He called the technology “untested and unregulated” and questioned Biometrica’s ability to secure the data which it collects.
Protesters gather in Wauwatosa to bring attention to a “target list” created by the police department in 2020. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Meanwhile, President Trump has elevated Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the administration’s premiere federal law enforcement agency, with an enhanced budget that surpasses the military spending of most of the nations in the world. Trump advisor Stephen Miller also recently threatened to “identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy” left-wing movements and organizations, using language reminiscent of the COINTEL PRO intelligence programs run by the FBI for decades under J. Edgar Hoover. During the George Floyd protests of 2020, there were numerous reports of police surveillance and intelligence gathering operations.
“This bill package will prevent this ongoing abuse of sensitive data, without oversight, that MPD and other law enforcement agencies have simply given themselves permission to collect and misuse,” Clancy said in his statement. “We won’t heal the damage done, or move forward, without securing the kind of basic protections we’re proposing today. These bills are a start, but an important one.”
A year-old state law is helping to bring new voices before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, and advocates and officials hope its impact will grow as more organizations learn about its existence.
Since 2007, small nonprofits have been able to seek financial compensation to help pay for expert testimony they provide in utility rate cases. State lawmakers last year expanded the concept to cover a broader range of cases, including utility pilot programs, infrastructure projects, and performance measures.
“It’s really about getting voices to the table to present us with new arguments and new issues for us to consider,” said Commissioner Joe Sullivan.
Since the law took effect in May 2023, the commission has authorized $124,318 in payments to four organizations, including two groups — Community Power and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light — that had never before requested or received compensation for expert testimony. The other recipients were the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota and Energy CENTS Coalition, which advocates for low-income ratepayers.
Under the previous rules, some years, including 2019, 2021, and 2022, saw no payouts at all. In 2023, regulators approved $96,000 for testimony under the old program before state lawmakers expanded its scope.
“We’re glad to see broadening participation due to the change in this intervenor compensation law,” said state Sen. Nick Frentz, a Democrat from North Mankato who supported the legislation. “Our hope is that the more voices that contribute, the better the quality of the eventual PUC decisions.”
Where the money goes
Anyone can comment on utility commission matters, but having a significant impact requires investing in staff time and experts — precious commodities unavailable to many smaller nonprofits.
The compensation process involves nonprofits submitting documentation and a sum for testimony related to a specific case. Rules require the nonprofits to have a payroll of no more than $600,000 for participation in commission proceedings and 30 full-time or fewer employees for the previous three years. The commission judges the merits of reimbursement based on six criteria that focus on whether the organization’s testimony materially impacted its decision.
Once nonprofits receive approval for compensation from the commission, the utility involved in that case pays them. The Legislature set a maximum limit on how much any utility will pay annually to intervenors, ranging from $1.25 million for Xcel Energy to $100,000 for Otter Tail Power and other smaller utilities.
Although the new law broadened the types of cases in which nonprofits could seek compensation, three of the six 2024 awards went to organizations testifying in the Xcel Energy rate case. However, the Citizens Utility Board received the largest amount for its recommendations in an integrated gas resource planning docket, an issue that would not have been eligible for compensation in the past.
Nonprofits typically use the money to offset the high costs of expert testimony or staff time related to cases where utilities usually spend millions to influence the commission’s decisions. Other intervenors often include larger nonprofits, industrial organizations, chambers of commerce, labor unions, national associations and, on occasion, cities and counties.
Frentz, who chairs the Senate’s Energy, Utilities, Environment and Climate Committee, said he thinks more organizations are out there that could provide testimony at the commission. But they must have the resources available before intervening, and believe their input will influence the Public Utilities Commission, he said.
Commissioner Sullivan said regulators have “seen a little bit more utilization” of the compensation law. The 2023 law specifically encouraged tribal participation, though no tribes have done so yet. Barriers may include a lack of familiarity with the commission or the need for a local budget to hire experts or allocate staff time to complex cases, Sullivan said.
‘A difficult needle to thread’
Solar entrepreneur and tribal clean energy advocate Robert Blake said he was not surprised to hear tribal nations had not participated in the expanded intervenor law. He said many are administratively stretched thin and focused on taking advantage of federal and state opportunities to fund clean energy projects on reservations.
Also, many of the issues that come before the commission involve large utilities that do not serve reservations, which often also get electricity from locally owned cooperatives, Blake said.
Community Power and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light each received $17,984 after each requested nearly $26,000. Community Power employee Alice Madden said the money paid for expert witnesses who “cost hundreds of dollars per hour” but did not cover the staff time of either organization, which involved door-knocking and collecting more than 1,000 ratepayers’ comments.
“The intervenor compensation works for covering narrow costs but does not help people intervene and front the costs of that,” Madden said. “It accomplished allowing us to have extra witnesses, but it does not cover the full cost of intervening, nor of organizing to get community voices to the table.”
Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light Executive Director Julia Nerbonne was disappointed that the commission only partially reimbursed what it had requested, but she decided against appealing the decision. The organization has been involved in several dockets outside of rate cases and may someday ask for compensation for expert witnesses.
“I feel like the PUC has a difficult needle to thread, and I appreciate that they did that (provided compensation),” Nerbonne said. “I want to say thumbs up for expanding it.”
In its order, the commission granted compensation to the two organizations because they “made a unique contribution to the record, promoting public policies and representing interests of people of color and low-wealth households that would not otherwise have been adequately represented. The evidence and arguments they presented would not otherwise have been part of the record and were an important factor in producing a fair decision.”
Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Annie Levenson-Falk said the compensation received in 2024 was the amount it would have been for similar testimony in the past. The commission granted it compensation in two dockets, the largest of which was $41,385, for promoting a requirement that natural gas providers file periodic integrated resource plans that the commission has required from electric companies. The money paid for some of the expense of outside experts to research and testify on behalf of the organization.
In an order approving payment in the natural gas case, the commission said it had adopted the Citizens Utility Board’s recommendation that the state’s three natural gas utilities develop integrated resource plans. The commission determined how much each utility would pay the board, with Xcel providing nearly $30,000.
The prospect of compensation does not impact the Citizens Utility Board’s decisions on whether to intervene in commission matters. “It is something we keep in mind at the end if the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has adopted a position we advocated,” Levenson-Falk said.
Levenson-Falk said she was unsurprised that organizations new to regulatory proceedings have yet to often participate in hearings or ask for reimbursements. “I think it is more difficult for a group that does not have utility regulatory professionals,” she said. “We have a team of folks who do this kind of work, but if it’s your first time coming to the PUC, it’s a challenging statute to take advantage of. It’s not easy.”
Energy CENTS Coalition received $36,785, the second largest disbursement under the new law, for testimony in the Xcel rate case that led the commission to adopt a “low-income, low-usage” discount. The organization provided “an important factor in producing a fair decision and would not otherwise have been part of the record,” the commission said in its order.
Executive Director George Shardlow wants to expand the organization’s involvement beyond rate cases to other issues. “It’s very helpful for a small consumer advocacy organization to have this added support to play in dockets over and above rate cases where consumer advocates need to show up,” he said.
The commission is required to issue a report on the intervenor law to the Legislature by July 2025.
The presidential election may well decide the future of the United States’ ambitious new clean energy agenda, but a handful of smaller, less-discussed races will have a more immediate and direct impact on the energy transition in several different states.
Public utility commissions regulate the monopoly utilities that operate in each state, voting on such matters as what power plants utilities can build and how much money they can charge their captive customers. Each state’s PUC contains three to five commissioners, making the officials some of the most powerful people in the U.S. energy transition. In most states, governors appoint these leaders — but in 10 states, voters elect them.
This November, eight of those states have active races for at least one PUC commissioner: Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Georgia canceled its 2024 PUC elections because the state’s bizarre hybrid structure for PUC elections has resulted in a lawsuit claiming voter discrimination: PUC commissioners each represent one of five districts, but they are elected statewide, so the members of each district don’t get to decide who represents them.
Utilities recognize the importance of supporting candidates who share their interests, and spend money accordingly. But most regular people often feel little personal connection to the races or the arcane bureaucracy that unfolds at the commissions, and it can be hard to focus on these details against the raucous political backdrop of a general election.
“These PUC commissioners have the power to determine people’s utility bills, the quality of their utility service, and how their utilities are making investments in different forms of energy,” PUC advocate Charles Hua told Canary Media. “Yet, few people can name their state’s PUC commissioners or explain what they do.”
After stints at the Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Hua launched a nonprofit called PowerLines this fall to promote greater public awareness of the pivotal roles PUCs play in the clean energy transition. As a nonpartisan entity, PowerLines can’t endorse candidates, but Hua sees plenty of value in simply increasing participation in PUC elections.
That information gap around PUCs leads to “down-ballot dropoff,” in which voters select candidates in the better-known races but leave the PUC section blank, Hua said. That means voters miss out on “a democratic vehicle to engage with the public officials that are meant to serve the public interest through effective utility regulation.”
(Powerlines)
The implications for good utility regulation are especially high this year for anyone interested in the transition to cleaner energy, not to mention equity and affordability.
Commissioners control how much electric and gas utilities can charge customers, at a time of soaring energy bills. They’re also uniquely positioned to help get the U.S. grid on track to meet climate goals, at least on a state-by-state level, by approving more cheap, clean energy instead of letting utilities continue to expand fossil-fueled infrastructure. And PUCs can direct utilities to rebuild their grids in a more resilient way following destructive extreme weather like hurricanes Helene and Milton.
PUC commissioners wade through the technocratic morass of utility regulation and make choices that affect Americans’ pocketbooks. That’s why Hua says it’s so important for those who have the opportunity to vote in PUC races to do so, and to keep an eye on what their commission does the rest of the time.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Arizona and Louisiana, two states where the stakes for the clean energy transition are particularly high this year.
Arizona could return to ambitious clean energy policy
Three of five seats are up for the Grand Canyon State’s PUC, which is called the Arizona Corporation Commission. Anna Tovar, the lone Democrat on the commission, is not running for reelection, nor is Republican James O’Connor. Republican Lea Márquez Peterson is running for another four-year term.
Arizonans get to vote statewide for the slate of PUC commissioners, and the top three vote-getters each win a seat. There are three Democrats and three Republicans running, and Arizona’s closely contested recent election cycles mean anything could happen — the commission could swing in a more pro–clean energy direction, or toward more fossil-friendly regulation.
That’s significant, because the ACC’s recent past illustrates the power of elected PUCs more clearly than perhaps in any other state. In 2018, the all-Republican commission boldly rebuked the planning proposal from the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service. Then the commissioners went further, imposing a moratorium on new gas plant construction, based on conservative principles: With the energy sector changing so quickly, they wouldn’t let utilities charge their customers for a bunch of expensive gas plants when other quickly maturing options could prove more cost-effective.
Those commissioners later developed their own clean energy standard, and nearly approved it, which would have been a rare instance of a proactive clean energy target coming from a PUC instead of a legislature. But the commission’s debate dragged on as state politics became increasingly contentious, and the proposal was ultimately voted down 3-2 in January 2022. Early this year, the commission voted to end the meager renewable energy standard that had been on the books for 15 years.
In AZ Central’s survey of PUC candidate views, Democrats Ylenia Aguilar, Jonathon Hill, and Joshua Polacheck each affirmed that they want Arizona to tap into more of its renewable power potential. If elected, they could push to revive the clean electricity standard, although that would be a long shot. They could also push to strengthen policies for energy efficiency and distributed energy.
That’s not to say the Republicans oppose clean energy — they just equate binding clean energy targets with adding costs for customers, which they oppose.
For instance, Márquez Peterson says she “supports the voluntary commitments made by our utilities for 100 percent clean and affordable energy by 2050 for Arizona.” She also wants to “avoid costly mandates and corporate subsidies.” Republican Rachel Walden told AZ Central that “forced energy investments and climate goals put the ratepayer last and thwart free market principles.”
This line of argument leaves it to utilities to pursue their own corporate targets. As it happens, solar power in dry, sunny Arizona is ridiculously cheap, and the utilities have jumped on the trend. But the lack of a long-term roadmap for the state leaves room for more gas construction in the meantime, and complicates the kind of long-term planning needed to achieve a carbon-free grid in the coming decades.
Whoever wins, the commission is sure to face capacious gas-plant proposals from utilities to meet soaring demand for data centers and new chip factories (plus some lithium-ion battery manufacturing) in the Phoenix area.
Louisiana to replace swing vote on energy issues
Louisiana’s PUC just did something the state government never accomplished: pass a modern energy-efficiency program to save households money. Now one of the architects of that program is retiring, and voters can pick his replacement.
Advocates had pushed for such a program for years, but it finally passed thanks to two commissioners with seemingly dissimilar perspectives: progressive Democrat Davante Lewis, who campaigned on climate justice; and Republican Craig Greene, a former LSU football player and orthopedic surgeon who supports market-based reforms. They both found common ground in the desire to push the state’s monopoly utility to invest in measures to reduce wasteful energy consumption and thereby save customers money. The commissioners recently selected a third-party administrator to run this program.
“Commissioner Greene has been an important champion for things like energy efficiency, and has even taken steps to move renewable energy forward in the state,” said Logan Burke, executive director of the Louisiana consumer advocacy nonprofit Alliance for Affordable Energy. “The seat he is in has historically been considered a ‘swing’ vote between the two red and two blue districts.”
But Greene decided not to seek reelection as a commissioner, which in Louisiana is a part-time role. That means his seat in District 2 is up for grabs: If Greene’s successor doesn’t share his support for the efficiency measures, it could jeopardize the fledgling, long-awaited program. And this swing vote could prove decisive in decisions on new power-plant construction to meet an expected surge in electricity demand.
Democrat Nick Laborde is competing with Republicans Jean-Paul Coussan and Julie Quinn for the seat. Some 70 percent of voters in this district picked Donald Trump for president in 2020, according to the local outlet Louisiana Illuminator.
Laborde has business experience running a consulting firm and serving as product manager at NOLA Crawfish Bread, an unusually delicious experience for a prospective utility regulator. He has said he supports more renewables and wants to “make utilities pay more instead of raising your bill.”
Coussan’s campaign website doesn’t say much about his views on the energy system, but he does promise to regulate as “a true conservative watchdog, and someone who understands the importance of the role that affordable and reliable energy plays in bringing jobs to our state.” That assertion could mean Coussan would stand up to utility attempts to raise rates on customers; then again, utilities in Louisiana and elsewhere have used an emphasis on “reliability” to push for expensive gas-plant construction in circumstances of dubious value.
Quinn promises to “rein in unnecessary utility company spending that results in rising utility rates,” and to “oppose liberal-thinking Green New Deal initiatives that are unrealistic and costly.” But one target of Biden administration clean energy funding has piqued her interest: Quinn would like to “explore micro-nuclear facilities to lower utility rates.” No commercial microreactor has been built on the U.S. grid, much less lowered anyone’s rates, despite years of trying.
The Alliance for Affordable Energy does not endorse candidates, per the rules governing 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Instead, the group focuses on get-out-the-vote efforts and education about the commission, Burke told Canary Media. She’s also keeping an eye on what candidates say about transmission planning and expansion, which could open up vast new supplies of clean energy for the state.
“If we don’t get the transmission planning we need, we’ll just get 40 more years of new gas plants,” Burke said. “That won’t help anyone but Entergy,” the state’s largest monopoly utility.
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