The Madison Social Security Administration field office. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsinites are holding rallies  across the state Wednesday to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding for operations at the Social Security Administration.

Staff reductions and office closures in the last year have created bottlenecks in service for members of the public who need help from the agency, according to Jessica LaPointe, the Wisconsin-based president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220. The union represents field operations employees for the Social Security Administration across the country.

“We’re struggling to meet the needs of the public,” LaPointe said, with more than 10,000 people a day becoming eligible for the federal retirement program.

Along with AFGE, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans will be rallying outside Social Security offices in eight Wisconsin communities Wednesday.

“When they start closing offices, that hinders our senior citizens,” said Ross Winklbauer, president of WARA. “They call into Social Security if they have a question or to file a claim, and they’re sitting on the phone for hours because of short staffing and not getting their questions answered.”

WARA will take part in a rally starting at 12 noon outside the Social Security offices in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield along with AFGE. Rallies are also planned in Eau Claire, Madison, Racine, Rhinelander, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids. Winklbauer said WARA has about 100,000 members in the state, mostly union retirees, and about 1,000 active participants.

The rallies are part of a national day of action in anticipation of the possibility that the government will shut down at the end of January if Congress can’t agree on a budget for the rest of the year, LaPointe said.

Talks are underway between congressional Republicans and Democrats to enact the rest of the government’s spending plan for the current year by the upcoming deadline.

Nevertheless, LaPointe said the most recent shutdown that started Oct. 1 and ran for a record 43 days brought home to many field office workers in the Social Service Admin. the limits of their compensation, especially if they are furloughed.

In a report released Wednesday, the Strategic Organizing Center said its review of 36,000 Social Security workers’ pay rates showed that 54% — just over half — were paid less than what the MIT Living Wage Calculator has set as a living wage for the regions of the U.S. where they live. The developers of the calculator at the MIT Living Wage Institute define a living wage as “the rate that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live.”

“We don’t get paid enough to save for a rainy day,” LaPointe said. “We’re understaffed, we’re underpaid and we’re struggling to meet the needs of the public who are coming to us for their earned benefits.”

In January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office, the agency’s staff was at its lowest in 50 years, LaPointe said, and “the public was waiting too long for benefits and services.”

Since then, the agency instituted a buyout program, offering workers up to $25,000 to quit, and the staff dropped from 58,000 a year ago to about 50,000 now — “the largest single staffing cut in Social Security history,” LaPointe said. 

About 2,000 field staff were lost in the last year — 10% of the field operations, she said, with the number of employees at some offices falling to single digits. 

LaPointe said the agency has moved to “digital first” operations that favor online or telephone contacts instead of in-person visits. In addition, the agency has shifted to processing inquiries from the public nationally rather than at the local office she said — “where a customer out in California would be served by someone in Wisconsin, or a customer in Madison might be served by someone in New Jersey.”

In an email message, a Social Security Administration spokesperson depicted the digital shift as part of a modernization program so that “more Americans are choosing to resolve their needs online or over the phone.” The statement cited a recent audit by the Social Security Administration inspector general that found average hold times for callers had dropped to seven minutes by September 2025 from a high of 30 minutes in January.

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano “has pledged to have the right level of staffing to operate at peak efficiency and deliver best-in-class customer service to the American people,” the spokesperson said.

The Social Security Administration “is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization,” the spokesperson added.

LaPointe, however, said there’s been “a breakdown in community based service” with the new system, and Social Security staffers are no longer the face of government in the local community.

“You now have to have an appointment to do anything with Social Security,” LaPointe said. “It’s created a bottleneck of service to where people cannot get access to apply for benefits in a timely fashion.”

Frontline workers are concerned that a move toward using artificial intelligence technology to review benefit applications will increase errors — either benefit approvals that are mistaken or unwarranted denials, she said.

“It still takes a human being to adjudicate claims — every claim, whether on the phone, online or in person,” LaPointe said.

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Interior of a modern data center. (Stock photo by Imaginima/Getty Images)

Dozens of data centers have been built in communities across Wisconsin, with more planned or in process. In many of these communities, the proposed data centers have sparked significant local opposition. 

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature have proposed bills to regulate the growth of data centers as community leaders across the state have asked for more direction from the state government on the approval of what are often massive facilities. 

So far, the state has had little input on data center construction outside of a provision in the 2023-25 state budget which exempted data center construction projects from paying sales taxes. 

The Democratic bill, introduced last year by Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland), would require data centers to report the level of energy and water they’re using, fund the development of renewable energy projects and ensure the cost of increased energy demands aren’t passed on to regular consumers.

The Republican bill, introduced this month, also requires the Public Service Commission to prevent energy use and infrastructure costs from being passed on to consumers, requires the data center to use a closed-loop water cooling system to limit the amount of water needed and includes provisions that would require the data center company to cover the cost of restoring the land it’s built on if the data center is closed or unfinished. The bill also includes a provision that requires any renewable energy created to power the data center be sourced on site. 

Last year, the issue of data centers was a common theme on the campaign trail in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, as voters respond to the effects of hosting more of the centers than any other state. 

Here in Wisconsin, communities are grappling with how to make agreements with the big tech companies hoping to build the data centers, how to avoid the broken promises at the top of mind of many Wisconsinites after the Foxconn development in Mount Pleasant failed to live up to its lofty initial projections and how to manage the often huge demands the data centers make on local water supplies and energy. 

Despite those challenges, the construction of a data center can offer benefits to local governments — mostly by boosting property tax revenue from a development that won’t consume many local government services. 

Unlike many other issues, the question of data center development has not become politically polarized, with a range of positions among candidates of both parties. 

“Data centers are a new issue that has not taken on a partisan edge in the public mind,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison, said. “This is likely to change because among politicians Democrats are more skeptical about data centers and Republicans are more enthusiastic about them. If this partisan divide continues or even becomes sharper, the public is likely to begin mimicking the positions taken by party leaders. But at least for a while the issue is likely to cut across party lines.”

In Wisconsin’s crowded open race for governor, most of the candidates told the Wisconsin Examiner they were supportive of some level of statewide regulation on data centers. 

Democrat Missy Hughes’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Her public comments on the issue are included below. 

Mandela Barnes 

The former lieutenant governor said in a statement to the Examiner that it’s important that data center construction not increase utility rates, not damage the environment and use Wisconsin union labor. He also said the companies developing the centers need to meaningfully work with the communities they’re trying to build in. 

“A lot of communities feel left out of conversations about what is going on in their own backyard and that is not fair,” Barnes said. “Any development of this scale must meaningfully engage local communities and address their concerns and input throughout their proposal. We must also ensure that data center projects do not drive up utility rates for Wisconsinites or contribute to harmful pollution, and that they invest in training and hiring Wisconsin workers to staff these facilities.”

Joel Brennan 

The former secretary of the Department of Administration said in a statement from his campaign that the desire of tech companies to move fast is in opposition to the government’s need to engage the public transparently. 

“Wisconsinites shouldn’t have to foot the bill for AI or data center projects, period. At a time when affordability is a challenge in every community, taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for construction, operations, or higher utility costs. No one should have to worry about affording their heating bill because a data center has driven up energy prices,” he said. “It’s reasonable for people to have concerns about AI, and I share those concerns. The technology is moving fast, and companies often prioritize speed. Government’s responsibility is different: transparency, accountability, community engagement, and coordination with local communities who stand to be impacted by these projects. Data centers can create jobs and support local economies, but only if they’re done right — protecting taxpayers and our natural resources, and ensuring that the benefits truly serve Wisconsin communities.”

David Crowley 

At a gubernatorial candidate forum in November, Crowley was mostly supportive of data center development, saying the government shouldn’t be picking “winners and losers” and instead “make sure that this is fertile ground for entrepreneurs and businesses to either stay or move right here to the state of Wisconsin.”

In a statement to the Examiner, a campaign spokesperson said Crowley wants to encourage investment in Wisconsin’s economy while enforcing stringent environmental regulations, making sure companies pay the cost of increased energy use and giving local governments the power to say no to a data center project. 

“Growth that drives up rates or drains local resources is not innovation. It’s a bad deal,” the spokesperson said. “Communities will have clear authority to condition or deny projects based on energy and water use, demand transparency, and community benefit agreements, because the people who live with these projects deserve the final say. Crowley’s approach is simple: Wisconsin will lead in technology and economic growth without raising utility bills, without sacrificing our natural resources, and without letting Big Tech write the rules. Development will be transparent, accountable, and judged by whether or not it delivers real benefits to the people who live in Wisconsin.”

Francesca Hong

In a policy framework released last week, the Madison-area representative  to the state Assembly called for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers while the state works out how to responsibly manage their effects. Hong also wants to end sales tax and use tax exemptions for data centers, require the construction of more renewable energy sources and increase environmental protections on data centers. She is also a co-sponsor on the Democrats’ data center bill in the Legislature. 

In an interview with the Examiner, Hong said Wisconsin’s political leaders have a responsibility to listen to local opposition to data centers. 

“Our communities deserve long-term investments and contributions to their local communities,” she said. “The bipartisan opposition that is building coalitions against AI data centers means that elected officials have a responsibility to get more data on data centers, which is what informed our decision to support a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.” 

Hong said that on the campaign trail she has heard from voters who want Wisconsin to be “a hostile environment for AI data centers.” She added that it’s a bipartisan issue, which presents an opportunity to her as a Democratic socialist running for governor.

“I think there’s an opportunity here, not only for us to engage the left and bring them into electoral politics here in Wisconsin, but actually build that coalition amongst voters who are across the political spectrum and recognizing that as working class people, they’re getting screwed and they’re stressed, and they’re right to demand that their government do more to hold corporate power accountable,” she said. 

Missy Hughes 

At the November forum hosted by the Wisconsin Technology Council, Hughes, who as the former head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation was involved in efforts to build the Microsoft data center at the former Foxconn site, promoted their positive potential for the state. 

“To have some of these data centers land here in Wisconsin, provide incredible property tax and revenue for the communities that are really determining how to pay their bills, how to build new schools, how to build new fire departments, it’s an opportunity for those communities to access some of that investment and to benefit from it,” she said, adding that a data center isn’t right for every community and local pushback should be considered. 

Sara Rodriguez 

A spokesperson for the current lieutenant governor said that she would issue an executive order to freeze utility rates while state officials develop a long-term data center plan. 

That long-term plan would include ways to prevent energy costs from increasing while making sure local residents get a say. 

“Sara strongly believes data center projects should be developed collaboratively with local communities. That means early community input, clear communication, and transparent planning to reduce misinformation and ensure projects make sense locally,” the spokesperson said. “Data centers aren’t the right fit for every community, but when done right they can bring real benefits — including jobs, redevelopment of otherwise unusable land, and new revenue that can help local governments lower taxes for residents, as we’ve seen in places like Janesville.” 

The campaign added that agreements with local governments must include provisions to prevent developers from bailing out and abandoning communities. 

“Sara also believes all details must be negotiated up front in binding agreements. If utilities make grid investments or communities commit resources, developers must be on the hook if a project is delayed or canceled,” the spokesperson said. “Families and local governments shouldn’t be left holding the bag. Wisconsin can support growth and innovation, but only if it’s fair, transparent, and doesn’t raise costs for working families.” 

Kelda Roys 

The Madison-area state senator is a co-sponsor of the Democrats’ data center bill and in an interview with the Examiner, said that as governor she’d support regulation that follows a similar framework to the legislation. 

“I think there needs to be a statewide strategy with guardrails that protect our workers, our environment and our consumers from massive price increases,” she said. “I’m very skeptical of this idea that the biggest and richest and most powerful companies in the world should get to just come in and pick off local communities and local elected leaders one by one and make these sweetheart deals in the dark that screw over the public. And I think in the absence of statewide standards and transparency, that is what is happening.” 

She said the state should use its sway to insert itself as a negotiating party in agreements with data center developers in an effort to keep energy costs low, reduce environmental impact and protect Wisconsin workers. 

She also said that the state government doing something to ease the budget crunch facing local governments will put those local officials in a better position when deciding whether or not to allow a data center to be constructed. 

“Part of the reason that we’re having this problem is that we have put local governments in an impossible situation because of the fiscal mismanagement and the harm of Republican politicians,” she said. “Communities will have more bargaining power when they don’t feel like, ‘Gosh, we’re desperate for more revenue, and our hands are really tied by the state. This is the only option,’ right? They will be in a stronger negotiating position if this is a nice to have, but not a necessary to have. And that’s the position that we want communities to be in. I want Wisconsinites to be able to have a say in our communities’ future, to be able to have an open and transparent process where we can say, ‘actually, we don’t think that this site is an appropriate one for a data center.’”

Josh Schoemann

The Washington County executive said at the November candidate forum there is an “abundance of opportunity” with data centers but that the state needs to be “very, very strategic and smart about where” data centers are built. In a statement from his campaign, he said the state needs to prioritize developing nuclear power to provide enough energy for data centers and everyday Wisconsinites. 

“I have great optimism about the potential for data centers and AI for Wisconsin, but it must be people focused,” he said. “Our lack of sufficient energy supply and distribution is a real threat to strategic growth and personal property rights. Growing up in Kewaunee, we had clean and efficient nuclear power right in our community. We need to get back to nuclear energy as a large part of a diverse energy portfolio — not just for data centers, but for the multitude of new homes we need for people, as well as more innovation and industry.”

Tom Tiffany 

The Republican congressman and frontrunner in the party’s primary has often opposed the development of large solar farms in and around his northern Wisconsin district, arguing they’ve taken too much of the region’s farmland out of commission. 

In a statement from his campaign, Tiffany said the development of data centers should be handled “responsibly.” 

“As demand for internet infrastructure continues to grow, data centers present new opportunities for economic development, but like any innovation, they must be developed responsibly,” he said. “Wisconsin families and small businesses should not be left footing the bill for increased electricity demand, local residents deserve a seat at the table when decisions are made about these projects, and taxpayer subsidies should not be used to build data centers on productive farmland. Growth should be responsible and transparent, without shifting costs onto existing ratepayers.”

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Job centers help people who are looking for work, including people who must conduct work searches each week to receive unemployment benefits. A bill to change the unemployment insurance rules has divided lawmakers despite being offered by the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

This report has been updated

A bill that would boost Wisconsin’s top weekly jobless pay while penalizing people who receive federal disability pay is heading to the Assembly floor — so far with only GOP support. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Tony Evers’ communications director said the governor will veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

The legislation, AB 652, would also impose several previously vetoed changes to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) law. It passed the Assembly’s labor committee Tuesday on a 6-3 vote, with all committee Democrats voting no.

The bill came from the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. With equal participation of labor and management, the council negotiates changes to the state’s unemployment insurance law every two years.

The council historically has been credited with giving neither side a lopsided advantage in revisions to the unemployment insurance system. The bill that the body offered for the current legislative session, however, has become problematic for some of the council’s staunchest advocates.

“I simply cannot vote for this particular bill as written,” said Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) at Tuesday’s vote by the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor and Integrated Employment.

The measure would increase the maximum jobless pay for the first time in 12 years — to $395 a week from $370.

It would also formally repeal a 12-year-old ban on unemployment benefits for people who receive federal Social Security Disability Income. At the same time, however, it would cut an SSDI recipient’s jobless payments by the equivalent of half their weekly disability income.

A federal judge ruled in July 2024 that Wisconsin’s ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

In 2025 the judge ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop denying jobless pay for SSDI recipients. The department was also ordered to review the cases going back to 2015 of people denied unemployment insurance due to the ban and make payments to those who were otherwise eligible.

Sinicki has long championed the role of the UI advisory council in revising the state’s UI laws, criticizing changes Republicans have proposed that didn’t go through the joint labor-management body.

Despite that, she’s been an outspoken critic of the UI advisory council’s current bill since it was introduced in November, and reiterated her opposition Tuesday because of the SSDI penalty.

Sinicki described an autistic constituent who works “a few hours a day” at a library. “She counts on that money. If she loses that job, she’s out that money,” Sinicki said. “We’re talking about a very small amount of money. It’s not saving the state millions and millions of dollars” to claw it back.

She predicted the bill would run afoul of the court order blocking the SSDI ban.

Sinicki also criticized “the paltry $25 increase” in the maximum weekly benefit.

“When you look around at the states around us, most of them are paying out twice as much as we do here,” she said. “And I just think it’s a slap in the face.”

State Rep. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton), the committee chair, defended the legislation.

“This is increasing what people are getting when they claim [unemployment],” Melotik said. “And it also is legal based on what the agreed-upon deal has been.”

In addition to its SSDI penalty, AB 652 would write into the state’s UI law changes that were in previous bills Evers has vetoed — two of them in the current legislative session.

Those provisions would penalize unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” job interviews or failing to show up for an offered job; increase the scrutiny of recipients’ work searches; impose new requirements for applicants to prove their identities; and require DWD to follow specific steps, including checking databases that track death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records, to confirm the identity of a UI applicant.

In vetoing previous UI-related bills, Evers has cited in part the failure to put them through the advisory council process. Asked via email Tuesday whether Evers would veto the bill if it passes both houses, Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, replied Wednesday morning: “Yes.”

DWD “has a number of concerns with the UIAC agreed upon bill package,” according to written testimony the department filed with the committee at a November public hearing on the bill.

Rachel Harvey, DWD’s legislative director, wrote that the bill’s $25 increase in the top weekly benefit from the maximum set in 2013 amounts to less than 7%. The increase “remains far below the maximum weekly benefit rate in neighboring states,” she wrote.

Harvey wrote that the testimony was provided “for information only,” but showed no enthusiasm for the legislation.

“The bill package includes reductions of Ul benefits for recipients of SSDI, multiple provisions previously vetoed by Gov. Evers, costly work search audit requirements, redundant measures already in effect at DWD to ensure program integrity, and new barriers for individuals receiving benefits,” she wrote

It makes those changes, she added, “all while failing to provide adequate resources for the department to implement these provisions in their entirety.”

This report has been updated at 1/7/2026, 9:38 a.m.

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Enrique Casiano addresses a rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Sept. 4, 2025, during a strike by UAW-represented employees against Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville. (Photo courtesy of Enrique Casiano)

Among the Democrats running for the chance to challenge the Republican incumbent in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District are a nurse, a union leader, a working class activist and a Hispanic professional.

A fifth candidate, Enrique Casiano of Janesville, happens to check all four of those boxes. A 47-year-old registered nurse, Casiano said his decision to join the Democratic field of hopefuls for the 1st District seat arose during a four-month strike at the Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville, where he is a leader in United Auto Workers Local 95.

The walkout of UAW-represented nurses, physical therapists, medical assistants and maintenance employees at the clinic started July 2, centered on health care costs, wages and security for employees.

“When September came around we were still on strike,” Casiano recalled. “I was thinking to myself, What in the world is going on? Why would a company do this to their employees? Why would this even be allowed?”

He and fellow union members blamed federal labor laws. Casiano said they have “no teeth” and don’t hold employers accountable.

“That has to be changed at a national level,” Casiano said. “That’s what motivated me to get out there and run for Congress.”

The strike ended Nov. 3, when the clinic management and the union ratified a new contract. The agreement led to raises that were higher than nonunion employees received elsewhere in the Mercyhealth system, Casiano said, although still less than what the union had originally sought. Health care costs for employees will be “basically three times” what they were previously, he added.

“This was a big concession,” Casiano said. “Something I told the membership, this should be a wake-up call for everybody to vote for someone who’s going to do something about the health care crisis in our nation.”

Casiano argues that health care is a human right and government should do more to prevent health care costs from leaving people in debt or sending them into bankruptcy.

“If you have the money, you’ll get care,” he said. “If you don’t have the money, I’ve seen how many people end up being homeless or go into great debt because of their health.”

He supports Medicare for All, but also favors giving states greater freedom to regulate the health care systems. He opposes consolidation among health care groups and favors breaking up large hospital and health care systems, as well as keeping for-profit businesses, including private equity and venture capital firms, out of health care.

“The current system rewards profiting from people’s health care crisis,” Casiano said. “It is not a system of prevention and rewarding the best health care outcomes and practices.”

Casiano said that updating the 1930s-era National Labor Relations Act with laws that would strengthen the rights of workers to union representation is a top priority of his. If elected he would also seek to enact stronger federal laws against wage theft and against misclassifying workers as independent contractors with fewer protections. He said that he also wants “real tax relief to the working class” instead of the wealthy.

Casiano is one of five Democrats vying for the chance to challenge U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, the Republican incumbent in the 1st District now in his fourth term.

“I’m part of the working class. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a politician,” Casiano said — although he readily acknowledged that every other Democrat competing for the nomination could make the same claim.

“Pretty much everybody running this time around, we’re all just working class people who want to see a change in the 1st District,” he said.

The rest of the Democratic field includes ironworker Randy Bryce, emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman, Racine community activist Gage Stills and university administrator Miguel Aranda.

As he shapes his campaign, Casiano is leaning into his background as a health care professional, a union activist and also a member of the Hispanic community.

He said the Trump administration’s round-ups of immigrants — which has caught up U.S. citizens in addition to people without legal immigration status — has a personal dimension.

“It’s sad that I, when I go to Milwaukee, can be stopped [by police] just because of the way I look and the way I talk,” he said. “At the national level, we’re attacking specific [ethnic groups of] people, which we’ve never done before.”

The 1st Congressional District has been solidly Republican since the mid-1990s. Steil succeeded Paul Ryan in the office when Ryan stepped aside  in 2018 after a 20-year tenure. A corporate lawyer and former Ryan aide, Steil won with margins of 9 to 10 points in 2022 and 2024.

The Cook Political Report has rated the district as likely Republican in 2026, and gives the GOP a 2-point advantage based on past presidential elections.

Casiano contends political apathy accounts for Steil’s success. “In the last election, many of my coworkers, they just did not go out to vote,” he said. “It’s not winnable, somebody told me [because] it’s all about the money.”

He contends that 2026 can be different.

“What’s changed now is the Trump administration and how messed up everything is going,” Casiano said. “Only people that have blinders on will say everything is OK, because it’s not.”

Casiano said he knows he’s a long-shot candidate, but he believes Steil is vulnerable and that people can be motivated to vote if candidates reach out to them.

“I know he has let down a lot of his constituents,” Casiano said. “We know he’s not out there for the farmers, or some of the small businesses” in the district, he added. “That’s the big message we’ve got to bring forward.”

He believes enough people have stayed away from the polls in the past to make a difference in the outcome for 2026.

“We have to go and start talking to Black and brown people in our community and get them out to vote,” Casiano said. “This is what I’m going to be fighting for.”

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The former site of the We Energies Power Plant on Nov. 13, 2025, in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (Photo by Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch)

By some measures, the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant, once regarded locally as an “iconic industrial landmark,” had a good run.

Opened in 1980 near Lake Michigan in Kenosha County, it became Wisconsin’s largest generating plant, burning enough Wyoming coal, some 13,000 tons a day, to provide electricity for up to 1 million homes.

But over time, the plant became too expensive to operate. The owner, We Energies, shut it down after 38 years, in 2018.

We Energies customers, however, are still on the hook.

A portion of their monthly bills will continue to pay for Pleasant Prairie until 2039 — 21 years after the plant stopped producing electricity.

In fact, residential and business utility customers throughout Wisconsin owe nearly $1 billion on “stranded assets” — power plants like Pleasant Prairie that have been or will soon be shut down, a Wisconsin Watch investigation found.

That total will likely grow over the next five years with additional coal plants scheduled to cease operations.

Customers must pay not only for the debt taken on to build and upgrade the plants themselves, but also an essentially guaranteed rate of return for their utility company owners, long after the plants stop generating revenue themselves.

“We really have a hard time with utilities profiting off of dead power plants for decades,” said Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group.

The $1 billion tab looms as Wisconsin utility companies aim to generate unprecedented amounts of electricity for at least seven major high-tech data centers that are proposed, approved or under construction. By one estimate, just two of the data centers, which are being built to support the growth of artificial intelligence, would use more electricity than all Wisconsin homes combined.

All of which raises an important question in Wisconsin, where electricity rates have exceeded the Midwest average for 20 years.

What happens to residents and other ratepayers if AI and data centers don’t pan out as planned, creating a new generation of stranded assets?

How much do Wisconsin ratepayers owe on stranded assets?

Of the five major investor-owned utilities operating in Wisconsin, two — We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. — have stranded assets on the books. Both companies are subsidiaries of Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group.

As of December 2024, when the company released its most recent annual report, We Energies estimated a remaining value of more than $700 million across three power plants with recently retired units: Pleasant Prairie, Oak Creek and Presque Isle, a plant on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp.’s December 2024 report listed roughly $30 million in remaining value on recently retired units at two power plants.

In total, utilities owned by WEC Energy Group will likely have over $1 billion in recently retired assets by the end of 2026.

The company also noted a remaining value of just under $250 million for its share of units at Columbia Generating Station slated to retire in 2029, alongside a remaining value of roughly $650 million for units at Oak Creek scheduled to retire next year.

Its customers will pay off that total, plus a rate of return, for years to come.

The company estimates that closing the Pleasant Prairie plant alone saved $2.5 billion, largely by avoiding future operating and maintenance costs and additional capital investments.

Both Wisconsin Power and Light and Madison Gas and Electric also own portions of the Columbia Energy Center, and Wisconsin Power and Light also operates a unit at the Edgewater Generating Station scheduled for retirement before the end of the decade. Neither company provided estimates of the values of those facilities at time of retirement. Andrew Stoddard, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, Wisconsin Power and Light’s parent company, argued against treating plants scheduled for retirement with value on the books as future stranded assets.

How stranded assets occurred: overcommitting to coal

In 1907, Wisconsin became one of the first states to regulate public utilities. The idea was that having competing companies installing separate gas or electric lines was inefficient, but giving companies regional monopolies would require regulation.

Utility companies get permission to build or expand power plants and to raise rates from the three-member state Public Service Commission. The commissioners, appointed by the governor, are charged with protecting ratepayers as well as utility company investors.

Stranded assets have occurred across the nation, partly because of the cost of complying with pollution control regulations. But another factor is that, while other utilities around the country moved to alternative sources of energy, Wisconsin utilities and, in turn, the PSC overbet on how long coal-fired plants would operate efficiently:

• In the years before We Energies pulled the plug on Pleasant Prairie, the plant had mostly gone dark in spring and fall. Not only had coal become more expensive than natural gas and renewables, but energy consumption stayed flat. By 2016, two years before Pleasant Prairie’s closure, natural gas eclipsed coal for electricity generation nationally.

• In 2011, We Energies invested nearly $1 billion into its coal-fired Oak Creek plant south of Milwaukee to keep it running for 30 more years. The plant, which began operating in 1965 and later became one of the largest in the country, is now scheduled to completely retire in 2026 — with $650 million on the books still owed. That will cost individual ratepayers nearly $30 per year for the next 17 years, according to RMI, a think tank specializing in clean energy policy. The majority of the debt tied to those units stems from “environmental controls we were required to install to meet federal and state rules,” WEC Energy Group spokesperson Brendan Conway said.

• In 2013, to settle pollution violations, Alliant Energy announced an investment of more than $800 million in the Columbia Energy Center plant in Portage, north of Madison. But by 2021, Alliant announced plans to begin closing the plant, though now it is expected to operate until at least 2029.

Various factors encourage construction and upgrades of power plants.

Building a plant can create upwards of 1,000 construction jobs, popular with politicians. Moreover, the Public Service Commission, being a quasi-judicial body, is governed by precedent. For example, if the PSC determined it was prudent to allow construction of a utility plant, that finding would argue in favor of approving a later expansion of that plant.

The PSC allowed utility companies “to overbuild the system,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board, a nonprofit advocate for utility customers. “I think the mistake was that we allowed so much investment, and continuing to double down on coal when it was becoming less economic.”

Utilities “profit off of everything they build or acquire,” Stuart said, “and so there is a strong motivation to put steel in the ground and perhaps to even overbuild.”

Conway, the WEC Energy Group spokesperson, argued that the utilities’ plans to retire plants amount to a net positive for customers.

“We began our power generation reshaping plan about a decade ago,” he wrote in an email. “That includes closing older, less-efficient power plants and building new renewable energy facilities and clean, efficient natural gas plants. This plan reduces emissions and is expected to provide customers significant savings — hundreds of millions of dollars — over the life of the plan.”

Guaranteed profits add to ratepayer burden

The built-in profits that utility companies enjoy, typically 9.8%, add to the stranded assets tab.

When the Public Service Commission approves construction of a new power plant, it allows the utility company to levy electricity rates high enough to recover its investment plus the specified rate of return — even after a plant becomes a stranded asset.

“We give them this license to have a monopoly, but the challenge is there’s no incentive for them to do the least-cost option,” Content said. “So, in terms of building new plants, there’s an incentive to build more … and there’s incentive to build too much.”

When the Pleasant Prairie plant was shut down in 2018, the PSC ruled that ratepayers would continue to pay We Energies to cover the cost of the plant itself, plus the nearly 10% profit. The plant’s remaining value, initially pegged at nearly $1 billion, remained at roughly $500 million as of December 2024.

Eliminating profits on closed plants would save ratepayers $300 million on debt payments due to be made into the early 2040s, according to Content’s group.

New ‘stranded assets’ threat: data centers

As artificial intelligence pervades society, it’s hard to fathom how much more electricity will have to be generated to power all of the data centers under construction or being proposed in Wisconsin.

We Energies alone wants to add enough energy to power more than 2 million homes. That effort is largely to serve one Microsoft data center under construction in Mount Pleasant, between Milwaukee and Racine, and a data center approved north of Milwaukee in Port Washington to serve OpenAI and Oracle AI programs. Microsoft calls the Mount Pleasant facility “the world’s most powerful data center.”

Data centers are also proposed for Beaver Dam, Dane County, Janesville, Kenosha and Menomonie.

The energy demand raises the risk of more stranded assets, should the data centers turn out to be a bubble rather than boom.

“The great fear is, you build all these power plants and transmission lines and then one of these data centers only is there for a couple years, or isn’t as big as promised, and then everybody’s left holding the bag,” Stuart said.

In an October Marquette Law School poll, 55% of those surveyed said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Environmental groups have called for a pause on all data center approvals. Democratic and Republican leaders are calling for data centers to pay their own way and not rely on utility ratepayers or taxpayers to pay for their electricity needs.

Opposition in one community led nearly 10,000 people to become members of the Stop the Menomonie Data Center group on Facebook. In Janesville, voters are trying to require referendums for data centers. In Port Washington, opposition to the data center there led to three arrests during a city council meeting.

Utilities are scheduled in early 2026 to request permission from the Public Service Commission to build new power plants or expand existing plants to accommodate data centers.

Some states, such as Minnesota, have adopted laws prohibiting the costs of stranded assets from data centers being passed onto ratepayers.

Wisconsin has no such laws.

Shifting cost burden to utility companies

Currently, ratepayers are on the hook for paying off the full debt of stranded assets — unless a financial tool called securitization reduces the burden on ratepayers.

Securitization is similar to refinancing a mortgage. With the state’s permission, utilities can convert a stranded asset — which isn’t typically a tradeable financial product — into a specialized bond.

Utility customers must still pay back the bond. But the interest rate on the bond is lower than the utility’s standard profit margin, meaning customers save money.

A 2024 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners report noted that utilities’ shareholders may prefer a “status quo” scenario in which customers pay stranded asset debts and the standard rate of return. Persuading utilities to agree to securitization can require incentives from regulators or lawmakers, the report added.

In some states, utilities can securitize the remaining value of an entire power plant. Michigan utility Consumers Energy, for instance, securitized two coal generating units retired in 2023, saving its customers more than $120 million.

In Wisconsin, however, utilities can securitize only the cost of pollution control equipment on power plants — added to older coal plants during the Obama administration, when utilities opted to retrofit existing plants rather than switching to new power sources.

In 2023, two Republican state senators, Robert Cowles of Green Bay and Duey Stroebel of Saukville, introduced legislation to allow the Public Service Commission to order securitization and allow securitization to be used to refinance all debt on stranded assets. The bill attracted some Democratic cosponsors, but was opposed by the Wisconsin Utilities Association and did not get a hearing.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed additional securitization in his 2025-27 budget, but the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee later scrapped the provision.

Even Wisconsin’s narrow approach to securitization is optional, however, and most utilities have chosen not to use it.

We Energies was the first Wisconsin utility to do so, opting in 2020 to securitize the costs of pollution control equipment at the Pleasant Prairie plant. Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission approved the request, saving an estimated $40 million. “We will continue to explore that option in the future,” Conway said.

But the PSC expressed “disappointment” in 2024 when We Energies “was not willing to pursue securitization” to save customers $117.5 million on its soon-to-retire Oak Creek coal plant. The utility noted state law doesn’t require securitization.

Stuart said that if utilities won’t agree to more securitization, they should accept a lower profit rate once an asset becomes stranded.

“It would be nice to ease that burden,” he said. “Just to say, hey, consumers got to suck it up and deal with it, that doesn’t sound right. The issue of stranded assets, like cost overruns, is certainly ripe for investigation.”

Comprehensive planning required elsewhere — but not Wisconsin

Avoiding future stranded assets could require a level of planning impossible under Wisconsin’s current regulatory structure.

When the state’s utilities propose new power plants, PSC rules require the commission to consider each new plant alone, rather than in the context of other proposed new plants and the state’s future energy needs. Operating without what is known as an integrated resource plan, or IRP, opened the PSC to overbuilding and creating more stranded assets. IRPs are touted as an orderly way to plan for future energy needs.

“There’s no real comprehensive look in Wisconsin,” Stuart said. “We’re one of the few regulated states that really doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for our utilities.

”We’ve been doing some of these projects kind of piecemeal, without looking at the bigger picture.”

Structured planning tools like IRPs date back to the 1980s, when concerns about cost overruns, fuel price volatility and overbuilding prompted regulators to step in. Minnesota and Michigan require utilities to file IRPs, as do a majority of states nationwide.

Evers proposed IRPs in his 2025-27 state budget, but Republican lawmakers removed that provision because it was a nonfiscal policy issue.

Northern States Power Company, which operates in Wisconsin and four other Midwestern states, is required by both Michigan and Minnesota to develop IRPs. “Because of these rules, we create a multi-state IRP every few years,” said Chris Ouellette, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy, the utility’s parent company.

Madison Gas and Electric, which only operates in Wisconsin, argued that its current planning process is superior to the IRP requirements in neighboring states. “A formal IRP mandate would add process without improving outcomes,” spokesperson Steve Schultz said. “Wisconsin’s current framework allows us to move quickly, maintain industry-leading reliability and protect customer costs during a period of rapid change.”

How to influence decisions relating to stranded assets

The devil will be in the details on whether the Public Service Commission adopts strong policies to prevent the expected wave of new power plant capacity from becoming stranded assets, consumer advocates say.

The current members, all appointed by Evers, are: chairperson Summer Strand, Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins.

The public can comment on pending cases before the PSC via its website, by mail or at a public hearing. The commission posts notices of its public hearings, which can be streamed via YouTube.

Among the upcoming hearings on requests by utilities to generate more electricity for data centers:

Feb. 12: We Energies’ request to service data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. We Energies says the fees it proposes, known as tariffs, will prevent costs from being shifted from the data centers to other customers. The “party” hearing is not for public comment, but for interaction between PSC staff and parties in the case, such as We Energies and public interest groups.

Feb. 26: Another party hearing for a case in which Alliant Energy also said its proposed tariffs won’t benefit the data center in Beaver Dam at the expense of other customers.

To keep abreast of case developments, the PSC offers email notifications for document filings and meetings of the commission.

The PSC would not provide an official to be interviewed for this article. It issued a statement noting that utilities can opt to do securitization to ease the financial burden on ratepayers, adding:

“Beyond that, the commission has a limited set of tools provided under state law to protect customers from costs that arise from early power plant retirements. It would be up to the state Legislature to make changes to state law that would provide the commission with additional tools.”

On Nov. 6, state Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, and Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, announced wide-ranging data center legislation. One provision of their proposal aims to ensure that data centers don’t push electricity costs onto other ratepayers.

But there is no provision on stranded assets.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To republish, go to the original and consult the Wisconsin Watch republishing guidelines.

President Donald Trump addresses the nation in an address from the Diplomatic Room of the White House on Dec. 17, 2025. (Photo by Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to face rising prices ahead of year-end holidays, President Donald Trump blamed inflation and health care costs on his predecessor during a prime-time speech Wednesday in which he also claimed to have fixed the issues.

Trump “inherited a mess” and has turned the United States into the “envy of the entire globe” by imposing an immigration crackdown, tariffs and tax breaks, he said. 

“Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There’s never been anything like it, and I think most would agree I was elected in a landslide,” Trump said.

Standing before a backdrop of Christmas decorations, Trump also promised $1,776 checks would arrive for members of the United States military by Christmas.

And he continued to blame Democrats for health care costs that are projected to skyrocket next month when tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans expire.

Nearly a year into his second term, Trump remains fixated on blaming former President Joe Biden even as his own approval ratings sink, according to numerous recent polls.

A plaque below Biden’s photo in Trump’s newly installed “Presidential Walk of Fame” display reads “Sleepy Joe Biden,” according to reports from journalists present at the White House Wednesday.

“When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word ‘affordability,’” Trump said.

Consumer price index data released Thursday for September through November show the overall cost of goods rose 2.7% over the past 12 months, after rising 3% for the 12 months recorded at the end of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Trump took office in January 2025, it was 3% over the previous 12 months. The bureau did not analyze data for October 2025 because of the government shutdown.

In recent weeks, Trump has said “affordability” is a “hoax.”

Yet the bulk of Trump’s somewhat hastily scheduled address — the White House announced it Tuesday — focused on lowering costs for housing, electricity and health care.

Trump announced he will send a $1,776 “warrior dividend” to every U.S. servicemember. The amount is in honor of the year of the country’s  founding, Trump said. Checks are “already on the way,” he said.

That could add up to as much as $2.6 billion, according to a White House estimate Wednesday night that 1.45 million service members would receive the payment.

Health care costs

He also touted trumprx.gov, where he said Americans can find “unprecedented price reductions” on prescription drugs starting in January.

“These big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care,” Trump said.

He boosted a Republican plan on Capitol Hill to fund individual health savings accounts, or HSAs, in annual amounts of $1,000 to $1,500 depending on age and poverty level. An HSA is not health insurance.

“I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care. You’ll get much better health care at a much lower price,” Trump said.

Four House Republicans defected Wednesday to sign a Democrat-led petition to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and force a floor vote in January on extending health insurance premium subsidies for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

‘My favorite word’

Trump spent several minutes addressing the economy, stating that prices on groceries and fuel are coming down. Both claims are false, according to government data.

“I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down fast,” Trump said.

The latest consumer price index for September showed gasoline prices rose 4.1% over the past 12 months, and “was the largest factor in the all items monthly increase,” increasing 1.5% over the previous month.

Food prices rose faster than overall inflation in recent months, according to the government’s latest data. Food prices in August were 3.2% higher than a year ago, according to the data.

Still, Trump claimed an economic turnaround that he credited to his international trade policy.

“Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs — my favorite word ‘tariffs’ — which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore,” he said.

The U.S. ended fiscal year 2025 with a deficit reaching nearly $1.8 trillion, or roughly 6% of the domestic economy’s gross domestic product.

Trump unilaterally imposed a global 10% tariff on all foreign goods in April, plus higher tariffs on many major trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal.

The U.S. collected nearly $195 billion in customs duties in fiscal year 2025, up from $77 billion in fiscal 2024, according to the U.S. Treasury’s monthly statement.”

Americans have lost faith in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll published Wednesday.

Trump received a 36% approval rating on his economic strategy, the lowest rating over the past six years that the survey has asked voters the question.

A Fox News poll released Nov. 19 found 76% of respondents saw the economy negatively. Of all voters polled, 41% approved and 58% disapproved of Trump’s performance. That’s down from the conservative news network’s poll of Biden’s approval ratings during the same point in his presidency, which the network says was 44%.

Mum on Venezuela

The president did not spend much time addressing his military campaign off the coast of Venezuela, despite declaring just 24 hours beforehand that the U.S. had formed a “blockade” in the Caribbean Sea.

Trump posted on his own social media platform Truth Social Tuesday night that Venezuela is “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”

The campaign, which has become top of mind for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, is about preventing drug smuggling to the U.S., Trump and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said.

Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to release unedited footage of a Sept. 2 strike that killed two shipwrecked individuals who were clinging to what was left of a boat after an initial strike.

Recruiters discuss jobs with students at a July 2024 jobs fair at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. A new jobs report shows jobs nationwide rebounded after October losses, with a 64,000 gain in November. (Photo Courtesy of St. Edward’s University)

A shutdown-delayed jobs report released Dec. 16 showed an increase of 64,000 jobs in November, rebounding from a large loss of 105,000 jobs in October. Unemployment ticked higher to 4.6%, the highest since September 2021.

The October loss was the largest since December 2020, during a COVID-19 surge when jobs dropped by 183,000, according to a Stateline analysis of federal records.

The most recent report shows health care and construction added jobs in November — 46,000 and 28,000 jobs, respectively — while transportation and entertainment lost the most.

Transportation lost almost 18,000 jobs, mostly couriers and messengers, while entertainment and recreation lost 12,000 jobs, mostly in the amusement, gambling and recreation industries. The federal government dropped 6,000 jobs, while state governments gained 3,000 jobs.

State-by-state unemployment for November will be released Jan. 7 in the shutdown-affected schedule. October unemployment reports were canceled; the numbers for September showed rates rising in 25 states and falling in 21 compared with last year.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined Monday to throw out Wisconsin’s religious exemption from the state’s unemployment insurance system and affirmed that Catholic Charities organizations in Wisconsin are exempt.

The state’s highest court acted in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June reversing the Wisconsin Court’s decision in 2024, which found the organizations didn’t qualify for the state law’s UI religious exemption.

Monday’s unsigned order made no statements for or against any of the numerous briefs that were filed with the Wisconsin Court after the Supreme Court ruling.

In a 4-3 ruling in March 2024, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Catholic Charities’ work was secular rather than religious, and that the organization therefore was not entitled to an exemption in Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance law.

The religious exemption is reserved for employees of churches, their parent organizations, employees of organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” and controlled by churches or church associations, church ministers or members of a religious order.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously June 5, 2025, that the Wisconsin Court’s ruling “grants a denominational preference by explicitly differentiating between religions based on theological practices” and therefore violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s religious freedom provision.

After that ruling, both Catholic Charities and the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed proposed remedies with the Wisconsin Court. The Wisconsin DOJ called on the court to throw out the state law’s religious exemption to restore “equal treatment.”

Catholic Charities rejected that proposal, declaring it showed “animus” toward the charity, and urged the court instead to affirm the exemption.

In the decision Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sent the case back to Douglas County Circuit Court. The order directs the lower court to vacate earlier Labor and Industry Review Commission decisions denying the religious exemption and to direct LIRC to declare Catholic Charities “eligible for the religious purposes exemption to unemployment taxation.”

Victor Forberger, a Wisconsin unemployment lawyer who has written about the case on his blog, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the state high court’s action Monday was not a surprise in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The federal ruling, however, did not address calls by outside groups seeking a more sweeping religious exemption, Forberger said. “How this is going to play out with other entities and their claim for religious exemptions are all to be determined,” he added.

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A billboard advertises an artificial intelligence company in San Francisco in September. California is among the states leading the way on AI regulations, but an executive order signed by President Donald Trump seeks to override state laws on the technology. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

State lawmakers of both parties said they plan to keep passing laws regulating artificial intelligence despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop them.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday evening that aims to override state artificial intelligence laws. He said his administration must work with Congress to develop a national AI policy, but that in the meantime, it will crack down on state laws.

The order comes after several other Trump administration efforts to rein in state AI laws and loosen restrictions for developers and technology companies.

But despite those moves, state lawmakers are continuing to prefile legislation related to artificial intelligence in preparation for their 2026 legislative sessions. Opponents are also skeptical about — and likely to sue over — Trump’s proposed national framework and his ability to restrict states from passing legislation.

“I agree on not overregulating, but I don’t believe the federal government has the right to take away my right to protect my constituents if there’s an issue with AI,” said South Carolina Republican state Rep. Brandon Guffey, who penned a letter to Congress opposing legislation that would curtail state AI laws.

The letter, signed by 280 state lawmakers from across the country, shows that state legislators from both parties want to retain their ability to craft their own AI legislation, said South Dakota Democratic state Sen. Liz Larson, who co-wrote the letter.

Earlier this year, South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed the state’s first artificial intelligence law, authored by Larson, prohibiting the use of a deepfake — a digitally altered photo or video that can make someone appear to be doing just about anything — to influence an election.

South Dakota and other states with more comprehensive AI laws, such as California and Colorado, would see their efforts overruled by Trump’s order, Larson said.

“To take away all of this work in a heartbeat and then prevent states from learning those lessons, without providing any alternative framework at the federal level, is just irresponsible,” she said. “It takes power away from the states.”

Trump’s efforts

Thursday’s executive order will establish an AI Litigation Task Force to bring court challenges against states with AI-related laws, with exceptions for a few issues such as child safety protections and data center infrastructure.

The order also directs the secretary of commerce to notify states that they could lose certain funds under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program if their laws conflict with national AI policy priorities.

Trump said the order would help the United States beat China in dominating the burgeoning AI industry, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not have similar restraints.

“This will not be successful unless they have one source of approval or disapproval,” he said. “It’s got to be one source. They can’t go to 50 different sources.”

In July, the Trump administration released the AI Action Plan, an initiative aimed at reducing regulatory barriers and accelerating the growth of AI infrastructure, including data centers. Trump also has revoked Biden-era AI safety and anti-discrimination policies.

The tech industry had lobbied for Trump’s order.

“This executive order is an important step towards ensuring that smart, unified federal policy — not bureaucratic red tape — secures America’s AI dominance for generations to come,” said Amy Bos, vice president of government affairs for NetChoice, a technology trade association, in a statement to Stateline.

As the administration looks to address increasing threats to national defense and cybersecurity, a centralized, national approach to AI policy is best, said Paul Lekas, the executive vice president for global public policy and government affairs at the Software & Information Industry Association.

“The White House is very motivated to ensure that there aren’t barriers to innovation and that we can continue to move forward,” he said. “And the White House is concerned that there is state legislation that may be purporting to regulate interstate commerce. We would be creating a patchwork that would be very hard for innovation.”

Congressional Republicans tried twice this year to pass moratoriums on state AI laws, but both efforts failed.

In the absence of a comprehensive federal artificial intelligence policy, state lawmakers have worked to regulate the rapid development of AI systems and protect consumers from potential harms.

Trump’s executive order could cause concern among lawmakers who fear possible blowback from the administration for their efforts, said Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression.

“I can’t imagine that state legislators aren’t going to continue to try to engage with these technologies in order to help protect and respond to the concerns of their constituents,” Hall said. “However, there’s no doubt that the intent of this executive order is to chill any actual oversight, accountability or regulation.”

State rules

This year, 38 states adopted or enacted measures related to artificial intelligence, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures database. Numerous state lawmakers have also prefiled legislation for 2026.

But tensions have grown over the past few months as Trump has pushed for deregulation and states have continued to create guardrails.

In 2024, Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the nation’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence framework into law. Under the law, developers of AI systems will be required to protect consumers from potential algorithmic discrimination.

But implementation of the law was postponed a few months until June 2026 after negotiations stalled during a special legislative session this summer aiming to ensure the law did not hinder technological innovation. And a spokesperson for Polis told Bloomberg in May that the governor supported a U.S. House GOP proposal that would impose a moratorium on state AI laws.

Trump’s executive order, which mentions the Colorado law as an example of legislation the administration may challenge, has caused uncertainty among some state lawmakers focused on regulating AI. But Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone and state Sen. Robert Rodriguez, Democratic sponsors of the law, said they will continue their work.

Unless Congress passes legislation to restrict states from passing AI laws, Trump’s executive order can easily be challenged and overturned in court, she said.

“This is just a bunch of hot air,” Titone said. “It doesn’t hold any water and it doesn’t have any teeth because the president doesn’t have the authority to supersede state law. We will continue to do what we need to do for the people in our state, just like we always have, unless there is an actual preemption in federal law.”

California and Illinois also have been at the forefront of artificial intelligence legislation over the past few years. In September, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the nation’s first law establishing a comprehensive legal framework for developers of the most advanced, large-scale artificial intelligence models, known as frontier artificial intelligence models. Those efforts are aimed at preventing AI models from causing catastrophic harm involving dozens of casualties or billion-dollar damages.

California officials have said they are considering a legal challenge over Trump’s order, and other states and groups are likely to sue as well.

Republican officials and GOP-led states, including some Trump allies, also are pushing forward with AI regulations. Efforts to protect consumers from AI harms are being proposed in Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Earlier this month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also unveiled a proposal for an AI Bill of Rights. The proposal aims to strengthen consumer protections related to AI and to address the growing impact data centers are having on local communities.

In South Carolina, Guffey said he plans to introduce a bill in January that would place rules on AI chatbots. Chatbots that use artificial intelligence are able to simulate conversations with users, but raise privacy and safety concerns.

Artificial intelligence is developing fast, Guffey noted. State lawmakers have been working on making sure the technology is safe to use — and they’ll keep doing that to protect their constituents, he said.

“The problem is that it’s not treated like a product — it’s treated like a service,” Guffey said. “If it was treated like a product, we have consumer protection laws where things could be recalled and adjusted and then put back out there once they’re safe. But that is not the case with any of this technology.”

Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@stateline.org.