Reading Time: 3 minutes

Small businesses that paid President Donald Trump’s tariffs have been largely left to fend for themselves as they navigate the administration’s refund system.

In Washington, the lawmakers calling for small businesses to be first in line to receive their share of the $166 billion paid in tariffs say that, for the most part, their hands are tied.

“I’m fighting for that to happen, but most of it’s going to end up playing out in court, but it really matters to our small businesses in particular,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

Baldwin said she met with the owners of a local textile company that laid off staff to afford tariffs on imported fabric — and now they wonder if they’ll get their money back.

In Wisconsin, importers paid $3.5 billion in tariffs from March to December 2025, according to the small business coalition We Pay The Tariffs. More than a dozen Wisconsin companies, including Milwaukee Tool and Kohl’s, have sued the Trump administration for tariff refunds.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is currently updating its duty payment processing system to issue refunds at scale. Officials must review more than 53 million entries filed by importers that include emergency tariff payments.

The development of the CBP system’s new functions to receive, process and refund these duties was mostly complete as of last week, according to court filings.

Once the process is set, it becomes a question of who has the resources and know-how to navigate CBP’s refund system. The Trump administration is requiring business owners to file their own claims.

CBP’s updated system will require importers to file a declaration detailing their payments of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to an affidavit filed in trade court earlier this month.

“It’s incumbent on smaller importers to do what they need to do to get their money,” said Chris Duncan, a former CBP attorney who currently works as a tariffs and customs lawyer.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Small Business Committee, said that puts small businesses at a disadvantage.

“Small businesses do not have teams of legal and financial experts to submit their forms. Small businesses do not have the time to navigate this convoluted system,” Markey said in a call with business owners last week. “Small businesses need their refunds, and they need them now.”

Markey and 19 other Democratic senators sent a letter to CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott on Friday demanding the agency automatically refund IEEPA tariffs through its existing system rather than the updated one.

“There is no principled reason for the Trump administration to conduct the refund process this way,” reads the letter, reviewed by NOTUS. “CBP already has the payment records it needs to issue refunds.”

Markey — along with Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeanne Shaheen — also introduced a bill that would require CBP to issue full tariff refunds with interest and prioritize returning money to small businesses.

Without buy-in from Republicans, however, Democratic senators say it will be up to the local communities to pressure the federal government.

“What is going to be most helpful is to create enough pressure in communities, particularly small communities,” Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat who represents the Madison area, expressed concern about the “dysfunction” that could arise from companies trying to navigate the intricacies of the CBP’s refund system and answer to consumers who shouldered price increases.

“Bottom line is, we never should have done illegal tariffs to begin with. Congress should have stood up, as Democrats had asked for, for our constitutional authority around tariffs, and now we’re going to wind up creating all kinds of dysfunction for businesses and individuals,” Pocan said.

Following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling striking down his emergency tariffs in February, Trump said he would continue his tariff agenda using alternative legal authorities and imposed a 15% global tariff, which Congress must vote to extend later this year.

Trump allies in Congress say the president’s tariffs, which are unpopular among voters, are short-term pain for the long-term gain of balancing the U.S.’s trade relationships and attracting foreign investment.

Nevertheless, when asked if tariff refunds should be passed on to consumers, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican who represents suburban and rural areas west of Milwaukee, expressed openness to the idea.

“If it’s something that they could actually draw, like a clear line or a bright line. You know, we had a lot of companies where the tariffs had a direct effect on aluminum out of Canada or textiles out of Vietnam, or — you know, it was all part of the manufacturing process,” Fitzgerald said.

“So I’m not sure how that would shake out either, if it was one element of a larger manufacturing versus, like, a straight retailer who was selling some type of consumer goods.”

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Lawmakers are worried small businesses will get left behind in Trump’s tariff refund system 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.

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators from the Midwest on Thursday asked the Commerce Department to investigate major agricultural machinery manufacturers, saying they paid shareholders handsomely while offshoring jobs.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to open an investigation under a law that allows tariffs to be used for national security purposes.

John Deere, Caterpillar and the Wisconsin-based Case New Holland had all laid off U.S. workers in recent years while moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The moves hollowed out Midwest industrial towns but made the companies enormous profits, Baldwin and Moreno wrote. 

“These companies should not be allowed to eliminate American jobs, pay Mexican workers poverty wages, and then ship products back to the U.S. for additional profit on the backs of our communities,” they wrote. “They argue that offshoring is necessary to remain competitive, but when it comes time to pay executives or shareholders, they are never short of money.”

The companies have all delivered generous payments to shareholders in recent years, the senators said. John Deere has paid $8.4 billion, CNH has paid $1.7 billion and Caterpillar has paid $18.2 billion through dividends and stock buybacks, they wrote.

But payouts for investors came at the expense of their blue-collar workforce, Baldwin and Moreno wrote.

CNH laid off 220 workers from its Racine, Wisconsin, facility in 2024 and moved production to Mexico. All of the roughly 200 CNH workers in a Burlington, Iowa, facility are set to lose their jobs after the company announced in January it would close the plant. And John Deere laid off more than 3,600 union employees after moving production from Iowa to Mexico, the senators said.

Representatives for the companies did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday. 

Section 232

The lawmakers asked Lutnick to open an investigation that could result in so-called Section 232 tariffs to deter the companies from moving production to Mexico. 

“These companies and their executives should not be rewarded for destroying American jobs or permitted to import their products without facing a penalty,” they wrote.

The tariffs, named for the section of the 1962 law that created them, permits the administration to levy tariffs for national security purposes. Though created in 1962, no administration used them until President Donald Trump’s first term, when he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum.

The administration now “has a unique opportunity,” the senators said, to prevent heavy equipment manufacturers from moving more jobs out of the country.

However, they added that any Section 232 investigation would be limited by a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump approved in his first term. They called for the administration to “address … issues” created by the agreement, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

The agreement “has incentivized major heavy equipment manufacturers to locate production in Mexico,” they wrote. “Any efforts that the Administration takes solely on Section 232 will be weakened by the shortcomings that currently exist in USMCA.”

Spokespeople for the Commerce Department and White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

MAGA appeal

The senators’ letter appeals to key parts of Trump’s political coalition. 

Throughout his decade in politics, he has focused messaging on protecting farming and reviving domestic manufacturing industries. 

In both his victorious presidential elections, the Republican won unusually large slices of union workers in swing states with legacy manufacturing industries while running up a major advantage with rural voters.

Trump has aggressively — and controversially — employed tariffs to encourage domestic production.

He is scheduled to host nearly 1,000 farmers at the White House on Friday. 

In a press call Thursday, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin called the U.S. war with Iran “yet another broken promise from this president who pledged to end foreign conflicts, not start them.”

“President Trump may have forgotten the lessons we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Wisconsinites have not,” Baldwin told reporters. “They remember the cost of war started without good reasons and without a plan to get us out.”

Objecting to the fact that Congress, which has the power to declare war, was not consulted before the Trump administration began bombing, Baldwin added, “This is a war of choice. But it shouldn’t be the president’s choice.”

The Trump administration, she said, has offered multiple, conflicting reasons for starting the war, which as of Thursday had so far claimed the lives of seven U.S. service members and injured 140 others, as well as leading to the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians, including 175 students and teachers at a girls’ school.

“All signs point to this president getting us into this war haphazardly, and it’s deeply concerning because it’s Wisconsinites who are going to pay the price,” Baldwin said. “Wisconsinites need some answers. They should know why this administration is spending billions of dollars on a war with Iran instead of investing in our schools or lowering the cost of groceries, health care or rent.”

She pledged to use her leverage as a U.S. Senator to demand public hearings at which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of the administration would answer questions about the rationale for the war and plans to bring it to an end, and said she had not yet heard back from Senate Majority Leader John Thune about holding such a hearing.

Baldwin has also signed onto a war powers resolution with five Senate colleagues aimed at blocking further U.S. military action without congressional approval.

“If Leader Thune refuses to hold public hearings and the Trump administration continues to hide in darkness, I’m prepared to force every single senator to go on record and tell the American people whether or not they support another endless foreign war,” she said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense must quickly release the results of its investigation into whether the U.S. military bombed a girls’ elementary school in Iran that left at least 168 people dead, according to a letter sent Wednesday that was signed by nearly every Senate Democrat. 

“To be clear, the war against Iran is a war of choice without Congressional authorization,” they wrote. “Nonetheless, as these military actions continue, the United States and Israel must abide by U.S. and international law, including the law of armed conflict.”

The letter from 46 senators to Secretary Pete Hegseth calls on Pentagon officials to conduct “a swift investigation into the strikes on this school and any other potential U.S. military actions causing civilian harm, and the findings must be released to the public as soon as possible, along with any measures to pursue accountability.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense said in a statement the “incident is under investigation.”

US responsibility probed

President Donald Trump said while leaving the White House Wednesday that he didn’t know anything about preliminary reports that the U.S. is responsible for the bombing. The New York Times reported earlier in the day that an “ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school.”

The lawmakers’ letter requests the Pentagon answer a series of questions, including 

• Whether the U.S. military conducted the strike on Feb. 28 on the girls’ elementary school.
• If it was a U.S. strike, what the military meant to bomb and what led to the school being hit instead.
• Whether the department is “complying with rules to prevent the commission of war crimes.”
• If the DOD created a “no-strike list” before bombing began in Iran and what other steps military officials have taken to reduce or prevent harm to civilians. 
• Whether the military is using artificial intelligence tools in its operations in Iran. 
• What steps the department took to comply with the laws of war. 

Senators signing letter

The letter was signed by Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Delaware Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons, Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Hawaii Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, Illinois Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, Maryland Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen, Massachusetts Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Michigan Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, New Hampshire Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, New Mexico Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Rhode Island Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Washington Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin. All are Democrats. 

Maine Sen. Angus King and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, both independents who caucus with the Democrats, signed the letter as well. 

Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman was the sole Democrat not to sign the letter. 

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin is calling for a nominating commission to try again to agree on a nominee to be the U.S. attorney for Wisconsin’s Eastern District after interim appointee Brad Schimel’s term in the position expires March 17. 

The judges in the district declined to retain Schimel for the job. Schimel previously served as the Republican attorney general under Gov. Scott Walker and in 2024 he ran unsuccessfully as a conservative for the state Supreme Court. 

Schimel was appointed U.S. attorney by Attorney General Pam Bondi in November after the nominating commission failed to reach consensus on who should fill the job in both the Madison and Milwaukee district offices. 

Last week, Baldwin said Schimel was a “clearly partisan actor” in the federal prosecutor role. 

Historically, Wisconsin’s two senators — including Baldwin and Sen. Ron Johnson — have worked together to name members of the nominating commission which agrees on candidates who are then recommended to the president and attorney general. Restarting the commission would require Baldwin and Johnson to agree on a charter. 

Across the country, the president has generally deferred to the home state senators when choosing U.S. attorneys. 

“I’m glad that the judges of the Eastern District of Wisconsin are respecting the process that Senator Johnson and I have to get high-quality, impartial prosecutors to serve Wisconsin,” Baldwin said in a statement. “It has not always been easy, but the hard work is worthwhile for the people we serve.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

After White House officials announced Thursday they will be ending the federal immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said she would not vote for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying she hopes to prevent some other community from being victimized next.

On Thursday afternoon, Senate Democrats blocked the DHS funding measure. A procedural vote to advance the funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47. Baldwin joined with all Senate Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman in voting against the measure. 

Baldwin said at a virtual news conference Thursday that her office has received more than 40,000 phone calls demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be reined in. 

“The Trump administration claimed that they are winding down their invasion of Minneapolis, but I’ll believe it when I see it, and the truth is that is not even close to enough,” she said. “What is stopping them from just going to another American city and causing the same chaos? We need to put in law some serious guardrails and rein in ICE, and that’s exactly what I’m fighting for.”

Baldwin said she wants ICE to be held to the same standards as local police officers, which includes not wearing masks, carrying identification and wearing body cameras. She also said she wants to stop “chaotic, roving bands of federal agents” storming across communities as they have  done in the Twin Cities and to make sure the investigations into the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, are conducted independently and transparently. 

But Baldwin said congressional Republicans and President Trump have been unwilling to work with Democrats to put up “common sense” guardrails for ICE operations.

“I am still hopeful that we can find compromise, but negotiations are a two-way street,” she said. “Democrats have put forward some common sense measures that Americans overwhelmingly support, and so it’s up to my Republican colleagues if they want to get serious about negotiating with us. I’ve been clear for weeks that unless serious measures are added to this legislation that serve to rein in ICE, I am not going to be a signatory to a blank check for this administration to wreak havoc on communities and endanger our neighbors.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A cheesehead placed at the Minneapolis memorial of Green Bay native Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents Jan. 24. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

BALDWIN — Hours after White House border czar Tom Homan announced Wednesday morning that the Trump administration would be pulling 700 immigration agents out of Minnesota, agents crossed the St. Croix River to conduct a number of raids in the Twin Cities exurban communities of Hudson and Baldwin, Wisconsin. 

Those operations included the arrest of immigrants at the St. Croix County Courthouse in Hudson and a Mexican restaurant in Baldwin. In prior weeks federal immigration agents have regularly crossed the river, arresting people working at small manufacturing operations and gas stations, ranging as far east as Eau Claire. 

While Wisconsin has seen an increase in immigration enforcement since President Donald Trump took office last year — as well some high profile cases such as the arrest of a migrant at the Milwaukee County Courthouse that sparked the federal felony charges against former Judge Hannah Dugan — the level of ICE action in the state has been lower than in the neighboring states of Illinois and Minnesota, where the Department of Homeland Security launched massive operations targeting migrants in Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul. 

Ben Nelson, a St. Paul resident who serves as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Woodville and works as a coach on the track team at Baldwin-Woodville High School, said that when students returned to classes after winter break, as many as 50 households in the school district had seen at least one parent taken by federal agents. 

On Wednesday, several ICE agents arrived at the St. Croix County Courthouse and went inside to arrest immigrants who were in  the building for court hearings.

Agents also raided Rancho Loco Mexican restaurant in Baldwin, where four members of the staff were arrested. 

“Within the last 48 hours, we probably had another 10 people taken from Baldwin,” Kimberly Solberg, a Baldwin resident who has been involved in local support networks, said Wednesday evening. “We are a small town, but they’re still doing the raids here, taking two, three, five, eight people at a time.” 

In the shadow of the Minnesota crackdown

Since ICE increased its Minnesota presence in December, these Wisconsin communities have been living in the shadow of the chaos caused by the immigration enforcement surge across the border. Residents work, shop and get their health care in Minnesota — including at the Veterans Affairs hospital where Green Bay native Alex Pretti worked before he was killed by federal agents Jan. 24. 

While the presence of ICE in the Twin Cities has galvanized resistance in the largely blue urban area, the operations in western Wisconsin are deeply dividing residents in a solidly Republican county. 

“The vitriol is so so thick, and the divide is so deep that people on one side, in the local minority, who are trying to do what they can to protect their neighbors, to support their neighbors, or just call for calmness and peace — which even calling for empathy, calmness and peace is radical leftist nonsense at this point,” Solberg said. “They’re terrified. People speak in code, there’s like signals, winks and nods. Everybody tiptoes around to suss out whether or not the person they’re talking to is safe because they’re so scared of how people react.”

Nelson, the Woodville track coach and pastor, said the lack of trust in the community is affecting how people are responding.

“There’s some really just strong opinions … it’s sort of difficult to know who you can trust, because there is a significant amount of people who believe that ICE is operating lawfully and doing the right thing, and will support them in those efforts,” Nelson said. “So honestly, I think we’re just still figuring it out as we go, figuring out how to speak and what we can do.”

Some networks that are helping western Wisconsin’s current immigrant communities were established when Hmong and Vietnamese refugees first arrived in the region after the Vietnam War, according to River Falls resident Ellie Richards. 

“There is a caring community here who is trying to provide the support we feel like these wonderful souls need,” Richards said. “We view them as an asset to our community. None of us feel the least bit threatened by their presence, despite what the federal government may try to tell us.” 

But the best way to respond has been unclear because of the political divide in the rural communities and the fact that there are fewer people nearby to rush to the scene when immigration agents are conducting an arrest.

On the evening of Jan. 28, about 50 residents of Baldwin met in sub-zero temperatures at a park to hold a candlelight vigil for Pretti and Renee Good. Residents of the small rural community lamented that ICE’s presence in St. Croix County has caused immigrant-owned businesses to close — including the local Mexican grocery store, Thai and Indian restaurants. 

Other area residents have been driving across the border to join Minnesota’s protests against the federal immigration enforcement crackdown. 

‘We don’t have the numbers and support’

In the Twin Cities, the presence of ICE agents often sparks an immediate response from neighbors who come outside to observe and make noise in an effort to deter an arrest. In rural Wisconsin communities, there are often fewer people in the immediate area who can respond in the same way. 

Even when responders arrive on the scene, they often don’t have enough people to feel comfortable standing up to the federal agents. 

“We don’t have the numbers and support, at least not in any way organized like they do in the Cities,” Solberg said. “None of the whistles, none of the honking or shouting. It’s intimidating, because if you don’t have a big group, we’ve all seen the videos of the attitude of some of these ICE agents, specifically that video where the agent tells the protester, ‘You raise your voice, I’ll erase your voice.’ It’s very clear that there’s an attitude that if you resist us in any way, we will come after you, whether we legally can or not.” 

St. Croix residents have joined group chats on encryption apps such as Signal and taken observer training offered by Twin Cities-based immigrant advocacy groups in Hudson and River Falls. But often, immigrants are arrested and swept away by federal agents before help can arrive, meaning that the support networks are largely left to help families handle the effects afterwards. 

Neighbors are bringing groceries to families staying home out of fear of arrest and providing rides to undocumented immigrants, who are legally barred from obtaining Wisconsin driver’s licenses. Residents say they are providing this type of help to immigrants whether they have legal status to be in this country or not, because of ICE’s history of arresting people based on their appearance. 

Strained relationship with local police

The presence of ICE in the community is straining the relationship between residents and local law enforcement. Several residents have complained that the Baldwin Police Department is at the scene when ICE conducts operations in the community. The St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department is not a participant in ICE’s 287(g) program granting deputies some civil immigration authority and the department policy states that victims and witnesses of crimes will not be turned in to federal authorities. But the policy states that the department can notify ICE about undocumented immigrants who are held in the county jail for other crimes. 

Solberg, who said she comes from a law enforcement family, said the perceived assistance local cops are giving ICE is harming their relationship with the community. 

“I have personally seen, with my own eyes, I have seen Baldwin P.D. conferencing, standing with ICE immediately prior to ICE raiding an apartment complex,” she said. “I want to give police every benefit of the doubt, because I’ve lived in places that have bad police, and Baldwin police is very community oriented, but also I’m not going to be willfully blind when so many people are saying that they have personally seen Baldwin P.D. working with ICE, assisting in detention, assisting in action, actively assisting in actions.” 

“The worst is it’s the perception, the perception in the community, for sure, across the board, among the ICE supporters and the ICE detractors, the perception in the community is that all the P.D. is working with ICE,” she continued. “Which, for people who are scared, who are legal migrants or possibly illegal immigrants, the police are supposed to be there to protect the community, and those entire groups of people do not feel safe with the law enforcement.”

But Baldwin Police Chief Kevin Moore denied that his officers were cooperating with federal agents.

“I am concerned that members of the immigrant community may feel hesitant to report crimes or contact law enforcement due to perceptions about immigration enforcement,” he said in an email. “That concern is taken seriously. The Baldwin Police Department is committed to serving everyone in our community, and we want residents to know that contacting our department for help does not place them at risk of immigration enforcement. As a small, community-focused department, our officers live and work in and around Baldwin and care deeply about the trust of the people we serve. While we occasionally encounter federal agents in the course of routine patrol or unrelated law enforcement activity, as we do with many agencies, these encounters are unplanned and do not reflect coordinated operations or cooperation related to immigration enforcement. Our intent is to maintain open communication with community members, address concerns directly, and ensure that Baldwin remains a safe place for everyone who lives, works, or visits here.”

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A Wisconsin plant that President Donald Trump and Republicans championed during his first administration as the “8th Wonder of the World” is set to venture into building data centers with a new $569 million investment.

But members of Congress said the state should first address serious concerns from constituents about manufacturers’ energy and water use, which could strain existing infrastructure and leave consumers footing the bill.

“The average Wisconsinite should not have to subsidize the power or water for a commercial entity,” Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden said.

Foxconn, a Taiwanese company and one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, says it will create nearly 1,400 jobs in Racine County over the next four years, in exchange for up to $96 million in total performance-based tax credits. It’s the second amendment to the company’s contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. after Foxconn dramatically rolled back its initial plan, proposed in 2017, to invest $10 billion and create as many as 13,000 jobs.

Foxconn had invested nearly $717 million by the end of last year, according to WEDC.

The company’s original multibillion-dollar deal with Wisconsin was heralded as an “America first” achievement, complete with a White House rollout attended by former Speaker Paul Ryan and former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

“The construction of this facility represents the return of LCD electronics and electronics manufacturing to the United States,” Trump said at the announcement in 2017.

However, Foxconn’s new investment will take Wisconsin — where Meta and Microsoft in the last several months have announced deals to build data centers — further into the AI economy.

Five days before Foxconn pledged new investments in Wisconsin in November, OpenAI announced it would “share insight into emerging hardware needs across the AI industry to help inform Foxconn’s design and development efforts for hardware to be manufactured at Foxconn’s U.S. facilities.”

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, whose district includes 11 Madison-based data centers, said the state’s growing data sector should be a wake-up call to the Republican-led Congress.

“All the more reason Congress should get its act together because we need to do the proper regulation that’s good on all fronts related to AI, and I feel like we’re not even crawling at this point,” Pocan said.

The House reconciliation bill included a provision to halt AI regulation by states for 10 years, but the Senate cut the language.

The question of who will pay for the new data centers’ anticipated energy and water consumption is becoming a major concern for lawmakers and constituents alike.

“I think if you’re going to have this data center, you are either going to — business is not going to like this — you’re either going to help pay for those utility rates (that) are rising, or you’re going to self-power,” Van Orden said.

Some Wisconsin residents have spoken out against data centers’ environmental impacts, including at small protests in seven cities across the state in the first week of December.

Just two major data centers slated for development alone, including the Microsoft project, would require the energy of 4.3 million homes, according to Clean Wisconsin, an advocacy organization that has criticized rising resource demands from the state’s data centers.

“The issue is we only have 2.8 million homes in Wisconsin,” said Amy Barrilleaux, a spokesperson for the organization.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said that although the energy and water demands of data centers are ultimately a local permitting issue, constituents’ concerns are very real.

“I’d be concerned about that, as well,” Johnson said.

A petition to pause approvals of AI data centers until these issues are resolved got nearly 3,000 signatures since last week, Barrilleaux said, calling it a sign of the growing “frustration” from Wisconsinites over the state’s lack of transparency about how the centers will affect the energy system.

“If you’re in Wisconsin right now and probably a lot of states, you hear about a new AI data center development every couple of weeks. So it feels overwhelming,” Barrilleaux said. “It’s not just what’s happening on that Foxconn site.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., pointed to public input processes taking place in local government.

“I want my constituents to get their questions answered before these projects move ahead,” Baldwin told NOTUS.

Reps. Glenn Grothman and Tony Wied declined to comment on the Foxconn plant. A spokesperson for Rep. Bryan Steil, whose district includes Racine County, did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Foxconn, Trump’s ‘America first’ factory, is moving to AI. It’s giving lawmakers some pause. 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.