The broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program is on life support after Wisconsin Senate Republicans canceled a vote on a GOP-authored bill to extend the program during the body’s floor session Wednesday. 

For nearly four decades, the program has allowed the state Department of Natural Resources to support the acquisition of land for conservation purposes. The program is set to expire June 30 when its funding runs out. 

Lawmakers have been working for nearly a year to reach an agreement on an extension. A Knowles-Nelson extension in Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed budget last year was stripped out by Republicans and a Democratic-authored bill supported by all 60 legislative Democrats has languished in a Republican-controlled committee. 

In recent years, a handful of legislative Republicans have become increasingly hostile to the stewardship program, complaining that it has taken too much land off local property tax rolls in the northern part of the state and that a state Supreme Court decision last year removed the Legislature’s oversight authority over the program’s spending. 

In January, Assembly Republicans passed a bill that would extend the program without any funding for land acquisition. With the Assembly holding its final scheduled floor session of the year on Thursday, the Senate’s failure to hold a vote on its version of the bill Wednesday means it’s unlikely a bill will make it to Evers’ desk. 

Democrats have said they won’t support a version of the bill that ends land acquisition under the program. 

In recent weeks, Republicans have begun to lay the groundwork for claiming that any failure to extend the program would be the Democrats’ fault. 

But Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), the author of the Republican proposal, said Wednesday after the bill was dropped from the schedule that the Senate needs to pass a version of the bill with 17 Republican votes.  With supporters and opponents of the program divided within the Republican caucus, advocates for the program have said for months it’s been clear that any version of stewardship extension would require bipartisan support. 

“This has been one of these bills that’s been very difficult to thread the needle on,” Testin said after the Wednesday floor session. “So it’s been sort of a tug of war, you do X, Y, and Z on one provision of the bill. You have members that raise concerns, and if you do X, Y and Z a different way, they’ve got concerns as well.”

Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay), who wrote the Democratic proposal and has been involved in legislative negotiations over the program, said it’s disingenuous for Republicans to point fingers at Democrats, when Democrats are united in their support for the program and have tried to compromise. 

The initial bill proposed by Habush Sinykin included a provision to provide independent oversight of the program as a response to Republican concerns and in recent days offered a compromise of extending the program with $5-6 million in land acquisition funding — about $10 million less than budgeted currently. On the floor on Wednesday, Democrats attempted to force a vote on a motion that would have extended the program for one year at current funding levels. 

“Their efforts to try to cast blame or aspersions on the Democrats when it is apparent that they have too many members of their caucus who are strongly opposed to this program … they have not been shy or reticent about voicing publicly strong opposition to the continuity of this program,” Habush Sinykin said. “So it takes not just a lot of nerve, but a questionable honesty, to try to pin this on Democrats.” 

Habush Sinykin said the Assembly version of the bill was “not even tempting” because it doesn’t include any land acquisition funds. 

“What they are looking for and needing are more Democratic votes, which is a big responsibility, because we care about the integrity of the program,” she said. “So you don’t want to give votes for something that doesn’t have value and isn’t true to the purpose.”

“Everyone in the building knows, and many outside the building know, that Republicans don’t like Knowles-Nelson,” she continued, “that they can’t get it done in their caucus.”

Baylor Spears contributed reporting to this story.

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Cows graze at Nice Farms Creamery in Federalsburg, Maryland.  (Photo by Preston Keres/USDA)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $700 million to support regenerative agriculture as part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday. 

The USDA pilot program for regenerative agriculture — a conservation management approach centered on improving the health of soil and increasing biodiversity — enacts part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s September “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” which offered more than 120 recommendations for addressing childhood chronic diseases.  

The pilot program will take funding from existing USDA conservation programs, which provide financial and technical assistance to farmers, with the aim of improving soil health.

“Protecting and improving the health of our soil is critical, not only for the future viability of farmland, but to the future success of American farmers,” Rollins said at a press conference alongside Kennedy and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

“In order to continue to be the most productive and most efficient growers in the world, we must protect our topsoil from unnecessary erosion and boost the microbiome of the soil,” Rollins said.

Kennedy said a September report from the administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, which the health secretary chairs, included “the promise to make it easier for farmers in this country, to give them an off-ramp — farmers who are dependent on … chemical and fertilizer inputs — to give them an off-ramp where they can transition to a model that emphasizes soil health.” 

Kennedy has long advocated against use of chemicals in farming.

Repurposing funding

The department will dedicate $400 million to the initiative through the department’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program and $300 million from its Conservation Stewardship Program, according to a USDA press release.

“It’s baseline funding that we received through our budget, so we have the ability to tag that funding specifically for this pilot, and that’s what we’re doing,” Aubrey J.D. Bettencourt, chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, said.

Rollins also said she would seek corporate partners for the program using a 2022 law that authorizes USDA to channel private contributions to conservation programs. 

The move “will bring corporate label and supply chain partners directly into partnership” with NRCS, Rollins said.

The pilot program “connects the producer and the work that they’re doing on the farm, granting them the credit for that voluntary action of change in practice on their farm that then can transition into the supply chain, into the marketplace and directly back to the consumer,” Bettencourt said. 

SNAP waivers 

Meanwhile, Rollins and Kennedy also announced Wednesday six more states whose waivers were approved to prohibit Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits from being used to purchase certain non-nutritious items beginning in 2026. 

The effort, also part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, adds Hawaii, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee to the list of states that will have such bans. 

The bans restrict which items recipients of the federal food assistance program that helps 42 million Americans afford groceries can buy with their SNAP benefits.

Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia already have similar incoming bans.

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• The $111 billion state budget adopted last month doesn’t extend the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, but it does include two conservation earmarks totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district.

• The projects include repairs to Echo Lake Dam, which Vos said will save Burlington taxpayers $3,000.

• Environmental advocates are hopeful the Legislature will still extend the Knowles-Nelson fund before the end of the current session. A Republican bill would reauthorize it for four years at $28.25 million per year with additional legislative controls.

Wisconsin’s recently passed budget doesn’t include the extension of a popular land conservation program, but it does include two earmarks for environmental projects in the home district of the state’s most powerful Assembly Republican.

After Republican legislators declined to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund in the state budget, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five natural resources projects, criticizing the Legislature for choosing “to benefit the politically connected few” instead of supporting stewardship through the statewide fund. 

“I am vetoing this section because I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

However, Evers didn’t veto other natural resources projects, including two totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district in southeastern Wisconsin west of Racine. Asked why Evers spared those projects, his spokesperson Britt Cudaback referred Wisconsin Watch, without specifics, to the agreement between Evers and legislative leadership that cemented the $111 billion two-year budget. 

Local environmental earmarks in the state budget are nothing new, but the latest examples highlight how such projects can take on greater political dimension when not overseen by civil servants at the DNR and the Legislature’s budget committee, as has been the process for more than 30 years since the creation of the Knowles-Nelson fund. Legislators have allowed the program to inch closer to expiration while attempting to secure stewardship programs in their own districts.

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund supports land conservation and outdoor recreation through grants to local governments and nonprofits and also allows the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase and maintain state land. The program is currently funded at $33 million a year until the end of June 2026.

Local governments and nonprofit organizations can apply for Knowles-Nelson grants during three deadlines every year, and DNR staff evaluate and rank projects based on objective criteria including local public support, potential conservation benefits and proximity to population centers. 

Despite not authorizing the fund through the state budget, Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, committed to reauthorizing the fund and introduced stand-alone legislation in June to reauthorize the stewardship fund at $28.25 million per year for the next four years.

Burlington receives $15 million for two natural resources projects

The two projects in Vos’ district received a total of $15 million in state taxpayer dollars from the general fund and were the only natural resources earmarks mentioned in the state budget agreement between Republicans and Evers.

The only larger natural resources earmark — a $42 million grant for a dam in Rothschild — was added by the Joint Finance Committee and included in the final state budget, though it wasn’t mentioned in the agreement. That grant isn’t funded with general fund revenue, but rather a separate forestry account, which includes revenues from the sale of timber on public lands.

In a statement on the inclusion of funding for the projects, Vos, R-Rochester, touted how $10 million for the Echo Lake Dam will save Burlington residents an average of $3,000 in taxes that would otherwise fund the project. Upgrades to Echo Lake will cost as much as $12 million including $3.5 million for dam modifications and up to $5 million for lake dredging. 

For years, city officials in Burlington have grappled with how to address the Echo Lake Dam. In 2022, the Burlington City Council considered removing the 200-year-old dam but ultimately voted to keep it after residents expressed support though an advisory referendum. The dam needs upgrades because it doesn’t meet DNR requirements to contain a 500-year flood.

The Browns Lake Sanitary District also received $5 million for the removal of sediment in Browns Lake. Local residents have raised concerns over sedimentation in the lake, affecting the lake’s usability for recreation and ecological balance. 

In a website devoted to the Browns Lake dredging, Claude Lois, president of the Browns Lake Sanitary District, thanked Vos for including $5 million for the project and advised residents: “If you see Robin Vos, please thank him.”

DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek directed Wisconsin Watch to Evers’ spokesperson, declining to answer questions on whether the two projects in Vos’ district could have been covered by Knowles-Nelson funds. The Echo Lake Dam project tentatively received a grant for over $700,000 from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund last fall for development of gathering spaces adjacent to the lake. 

Vos did not respond to a request for comment. 

Other conservation projects were vetoed by Evers, including a $70,000 dredging project on a section of the Manitowoc River in the town of Brillion. Ultimately, the DNR and the Evers administration provided funding for the project after Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, and local farmers criticized the veto, claiming that they were at risk of flooding without funds for the dredging project. 

Rep. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, said he was surprised and disappointed with Evers’ veto of the Deerskin River dredging project in his district. He called Evers’ reasoning a “lame excuse, using the Knowles-Nelson program as political cover” in an email statement to Wisconsin Watch. Swearingen said he and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, were considering alternative funding sources, including introducing stand-alone legislation to finance the dredging project.

Swearingen declined to say what he thought about the projects in Vos’ district getting funded. Other Republican lawmakers with vetoed projects in their districts didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, a member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, told Wisconsin Watch she supports Evers’ vetoes because the earmarked projects did not go through the process the DNR uses to evaluate the benefits of particular projects.

Andraca said while several earmarked projects were likely strong contenders for Knowles-Nelson, without the DNR’s process of evaluating project merit, the most beneficial projects may not receive funding.

“We need to make sure that we’re taking into account that the best, most important projects are being funded, not just the projects that are in someone’s (district) who might have a little bit more sway in the Legislature,” Andraca said.

Paul Heinen, policy director for environmental advocacy organization Green Fire, lobbied for the first stewardship fund in 1989. Heinen said legislators have pushed for stewardship projects in their districts through the state budget process for as long as the stewardship fund has existed.

“The DNR has a process by which they go through to analyze projects, and that’s all set up in the code and everything,” Heinen said. “But of course, just like Robin Vos and any other legislator, if they can get something in the budget, it’s faster and you don’t have to go through the steps in order to get something done.”

In the 2023-25 budget cycle, the largest natural resources earmark was $2 million for dredging Lake Mallalieu near River Falls. 

Heinen said legislators are faced with a conundrum — they claim to oppose statewide government spending on stewardship, but want projects in their own districts. 

“Publicly, they say they’re opposed to government spending in this boondoggle stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “But then when it gets down to something in their district, they are at the ribbon cutting.” 

State Supreme Court decision complicates reauthorization

For years the JFC halted Knowles-Nelson conservation projects by not taking a vote on them, something critics referred to as a “pocket veto.” The Evers administration sued over the practice, and in July 2024 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 6-1 the Legislature’s pocket veto was unconstitutional.

“What the court said was that the finance committee by going back after the fact and blocking an appropriation that had already been approved by the entire Legislature, and that was an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority,” said Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, an alliance of land trusts in the state.

Republicans have said trust issues with both the DNR and the Evers administration prevented them from releasing Knowles-Nelson funds without more control.

Kurtz and Testin’s proposed bill also includes new requirements for legislative approval for larger projects over $1 million in an effort to allow legislative oversight without the pocket vetoes.

The bill’s funding level is below the $100 million per year for 10 years that Evers proposed in his budget, but close to current funding levels of $33 million per year. 

In 2021, the fund was reauthorized with $33.2 million per year for four years. In 2019, the fund was reauthorized for only two years, breaking a cycle of reauthorization in 10-year increments.

A poll of 516 Wisconsin voters commissioned by environmental advocacy organization The Nature Conservancy found 83% supported Evers’ proposal, with 93% of voters supporting continued public funding for conservation. However, most respondents were unaware of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund.

Funding for Knowles-Nelson peaked in 2011 and was reauthorized under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was the first governor to approve funding for the stewardship fund in 1989.

“There was a lot of talk initially from mostly Republican legislators who were skeptical of the governor’s proposal,” Carlin said. “But it’s really only a huge amount of money in comparison to how the program had kind of been whittled down through the years.”

In a January interview with the Cap Times, Vos said the chances of Republicans reauthorizing the fund were less than half. 

Andraca said she hears more from constituents about the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund than almost any other program.

“I seriously hope that my Republican colleagues are serious about passing something because it would be a real tragedy to lose something like this that has bipartisan support and has been so instrumental in preserving Wisconsin’s natural areas,” Andraca said.

‘Totally uncharted territory’ for stewardship funding

Carlin said the failure to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson puts land stewardship organizations and local municipalities — the typical recipients of Knowles-Nelson grants — in “totally uncharted territory.” 

Although Knowles-Nelson funding is set to expire at the end of next June, Carlin said local governments and land trusts face uncertainty in planning because they aren’t sure the Legislature will get the new reauthorization bill done.

“Similar to what you’re probably hearing from folks about federal budget cuts … this just totally scrambles the planning horizon,” Carlin said.

Heinen, however, is more optimistic the Legislature will vote to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson. 

“90-plus percent of the people in the state of Wisconsin want the stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “Legislators know that. They’re not going to go running for reelection in November of next year and have their opponents say, ‘Why are you against the stewardship fund?’ So I’m really not worried about it at all.”

Budget deal’s $15 million in earmarks for Robin Vos’ district highlight politicization of Wisconsin’s conservation funding is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.