(The Center Square) – For the first time in the past 10 years of polling, more Wisconsin voters said they would vote against a school referendum than for it.
(The Center Square) – The office of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers spent $16,500 on airfare and hotel nights for Evers’ economic development trip to Europe in April but records provided by his office were unclear on whether any of those…
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ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, mostly those without a past criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge.
The arrests of one Venezuelan couple reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers. Officers are now detaining even immigrants who don’t have removal cases in immigration court.
A Venezuelan couple arrested Oct. 23 during a routine check-in at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s downtown Milwaukee office are attempting to continue their asylum cases while detained — one in ICE’s Dodge County detention facility and the other in a Kentucky facility.
The arrests reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers, posing new risks for those waiting for immigration officials to hear their cases.
Diego Ugarte-Arenas and Dailin Pacheco-Acosta fled Venezuela in 2021, crossing the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, by November of that year and encountering border patrol officers, according to an ICE spokesperson. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have made the same journey in the last decade, of whom at least 5,000 have settled in Wisconsin.
Milwaukee immigration attorney Ben Crouse, who took on the couple’s case after they were detained, told Wisconsin Watch that border patrol officers initially provided Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta with notices to appear in immigration court. Critically, those notices didn’t provide a date or time for their future hearing, preventing the immigration court system from opening removal cases against them.
“There was a lag time between the Supreme Court saying they had to have times and dates on the notice to appear and DHS actually communicating with (the Department of) Justice to put things on calendars,” Crouse noted.
The couple then made their way to Wisconsin and filed for asylum, a legal protection from deportation for immigrants fleeing persecution. Their joint application cited their involvement in the political opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as grounds for asylum, Crouse said.
Immigrants can take two paths to claim asylum in the U.S.
Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta filed for “affirmative” asylum, managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and generally open only to those without removal cases before an immigration court. Without complete notices to appear, Crouse noted, the couple’s cases had not yet reached the court, opening the door to this pathway.
Immigrants with open removal cases apply for “defensive” asylum with an immigration court judge.
At least 100 immigrants with Wisconsin addresses have entered the defensive asylum process between January 2020 and August of this year, court records show. Most came from Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Between 2019 and 2024, immigration court judges in Chicago — the court with jurisdiction over most Wisconsin cases — denied roughly 40% of asylum petitions, according to data collected by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Under the Biden administration, immigration authorities began correcting incomplete notices to appear, enabling them to move asylum applications from the affirmative process to the defensive process. That swap rarely landed asylum seekers in detention, Crouse said.
Ugarte-Arenas’ and Pacheco-Acosta’s arrests are part of a broader shift in ICE’s attitude toward asylum. Multiple Milwaukee-area immigration attorneys say the agency is now detaining immigrants after terminating their affirmative asylum case.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions about its new approach.
“ICE does not ‘randomly’ arrest illegal aliens,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Being in the United States illegal (sic) is a violation of federal law. All aliens who remain in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal.”
Navigating the asylum process from ICE detention is logistically difficult, Crouse noted. Scheduling a brief phone call can take days, he said, and attorneys must rely on faraway sheriffs’ offices to ferry paperwork to and from their clients.
“Tiny little things take days to fix,” he added.
ICE’s shifting approach to asylum is not limited to affirmative cases.
In recent months, the agency has also begun filing motions to dismiss the immigration court cases of defensive asylum seekers, said Milwaukee immigration attorney Marc Christopher. Once the immigrants’ cases are dismissed, ICE can place them in “expedited removal” proceedings — a fast-moving process that does not require a hearing.
In some cases, Christopher said, “they dismiss a case in court and ICE is waiting right outside. Or they wait until they come to a check-in and arrest them there.”
ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, more than at any other Wisconsin site listed in agency arrest records during the period. Most of those arrested at the office, including Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta, had neither a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.
The Milwaukee office also includes a “holding room” in which an average of six people were detained at a time as of June, according to Vera Institute of Justice data.
Reading Time: 4minutesListen: An online database that tracks billion-dollar weather disasters throughout the United States is back. The Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk’s Héctor Alejandro Arzate reports.
After months of uncertainty over its future, an online resource for tracking the financial cost of weather and climate disasters throughout the United States has been revived.
The U.S. Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database was previously managed by a team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Since 1980, the program has been responsible for analyzing wildfires, tornadoes, winter storms, and other disasters that cause at least $1 billion in damage. But it was retired in May, one among several NOAA products and services to get shuttered by President Donald Trump’s administration this year.
Now, a nonprofit called Climate Central, which communicates climate change science and solutions, has hired the scientist who led the project at NOAA, Adam Smith, and has taken on the responsibility of compiling and releasing the latest data.
In the first six months of 2025, there were 14 disasters with damages costing just over $101 billion in total. Many of them occurred throughout the Mississippi River Basin — states like Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee were among the hardest hit by severe storms and tornadoes, which caused just over $40 billion in damage.
Wisconsin saw $1.1 billion in severe storm damage in early 2025 — part of the more than $5 billion in such damage since 2021.
The January wildfires in Los Angeles resulted in approximately $60 billion in damages, making it the most expensive wildfire on record.
California’s January wildfires — the most expensive on record — are estimated to have done about $60 billion in damage. But many other states also saw damages from natural disasters in the billions of dollars. (Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk)
Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central, said the Climate Central staff brought back the database because they “were hearing from every single sector how important this data is for decision-making and understanding areas that are increasingly at risk for billion-dollar disasters.”
Among those who have typically relied on the database are policymakers, researchers and local communities. It’s especially important for planning disaster relief and emergency management efforts “because they can focus resources on areas that are seeing big trends in the number of billion-dollars disasters,” Labe said.
Bryan Koon, the president and chief executive officer of the consulting firm Innovative Emergency Management, said the analysis is helpful. His company works with government agencies and other organizations to help with disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
“These kinds of data sets are very important in the broad scope, at least from my perspective, for trend analysis,” Koon said.
In states like Missouri, for example, he said his company and other interest groups can analyze previous billion-dollar disaster data on tornadoes and their frequency over the past decade or two. That information can be used to inform how insurance companies write their policy, how buildings are designed and how notification systems are structured.
“I want to make sure that we, as a nation, wrap our arms around as much information about these things as we can so that we communicate the threat of future disasters for Americans,” Koon said.
The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative — a cooperative of more than 100 communities between Minnesota and Louisiana — pushed the Trump administration to keep the database open, according to the cooperative’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp.
“It was a critical database that showed us where costs associated with disasters were most impactful. What sectors of the economy were hit the hardest by a disaster? Whether it be intense heat, flooding, drought, forest fire, named storm event, or otherwise,” Wellenkamp said.
From a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, said Wellenkamp, the database can tell cities, counties and states how to spend resources on mitigation to avoid incurring similar costs from future disasters. But industries like manufacturing, construction and agriculture also want to see the data, he said. That’s because the database’s financial impact analysis includes physical damage to commercial and residential property, losses associated with business interruption and crop destruction, damage to electrical infrastructure, and more.
Other stakeholders that see the value of the database are both the insurance and re-insurance industries.
Franklin Nutter is the president of the Reinsurance Association of America, one of the largest trade groups in the country. The goal of reinsurance is to provide insurance for the insurance companies, stabilizing the industry and playing a role in “the financial management of natural disaster losses,” according to the RAA’s website.
“It’s like an iceberg: the public is made aware of the impact of extreme weather by seeing the graphics (the tip of the iceberg) but most commercial users value the underlying data (the body of the iceberg),” said Nutter by email.
While the billion-dollar disaster data is valuable to various financial stakeholders, Nutter said he believes its greatest value comes from providing “public awareness of the increasing extreme weather risk.”
There are many factors that come together to make a billion-dollar disaster — such as weather, infrastructure, population, and location. Labe said that the number of events has been increasing since 1980.
“It’s very likely that 2025 will not be the costliest year on record when we look at the statistics, but it definitely falls into this long-term increasing trend,” he said.
Climate Central is not the only organization trying to pick up the pieces of a resource that was shut down by the federal government or is at risk.
But Wellenkamp said that there aren’t many states that can afford the response and recovery efforts from a billion-dollar disaster.
“These (initiatives) are not meant to be permanent solutions,” Wellenkamp said. “These are not meant to replace federal capacity. They are meant to put our cities in a relatively secure position until the federal questions are answered. And the sooner that those answers come, the better.”
For many, the answers will require data.
“Just because the federal government decided they’re not going to do it anymore doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” Koon said.
A new survey of Wisconsin residents shows even basic questions about things like the cost of food have become heavily influenced by political partisanship.
Three companies behind planned and ongoing data center developments on Thursday separately announced efforts aimed at supporting Wisconsin researchers and communities.
A Blue Mounds facility that breeds beagle dogs for research will shutter part of its operation, after an investigation into allegations of animal cruelty.
You don’t have to travel far into remote wilderness to feel the restorative effects of being outside or to help improve biodiversity. All you need to do is plant a seed, said author Priyanka Kumar.
After winning his third weigh off for the year, Wisconsin giant pumpkin grower Jim Ford told WPR that he hopes to beat the world record for the largest pumpkin grown in the world.
Environmental groups argue a federal permit issued for Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute is unlawful due to an ongoing legal challenge. Labor unions and business groups hailed the approval.
Milwaukee’s chamber of commerce is hoping to sway Gov. Tony Evers, or the state’s next governor, into joining the nation's first federal school voucher-style program.
Razor wire follows the banks of the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024. The Trump administration now expects about 600,000 total deportations in 2025, fewer than the 685,000 under the Biden administration in fiscal 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
The Trump administration now expects about 600,000 total deportations in 2025, fewer than under the Biden administration’s final fiscal year, as a drop in border crossings outweighs the effect of increased deportations elsewhere, according to a report released Oct. 30 by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
State and local officials are kept in the dark by limited information on deportations, the report noted, whether or not they support the administration’s mass removal agenda.
There were 685,000 total deportations in fiscal year 2024 under Biden compared with the 600,000 projected by the Trump administration for this calendar year, the report states.
During the 2025 fiscal year that ended in September, there were about 340,000 deportations, the report estimates, including both orders of removal and people choosing to end detention with voluntary departure. The Trump administration has projected 600,000 deportations for this calendar year, well short of an earlier goal of 1 million.
Unauthorized migration at the border “plunged dramatically” from 2.1 million to 444,000 border encounters in the past fiscal year. Migrants also returned to a former pattern: People crossing the border were mostly single men from Mexico and children from Central America, after a previous surge of border crossers from around the world, the report states.
At the same time, news reports indicate that thousands of migrants who were headed for the U.S. border have reversed course and headed back through the Panamanian jungle to reach South America again.
The lower level of border activity has made it possible for U.S. officials to send border patrol agents to cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, the Migration Policy Institute report says.
“The steep decrease in unauthorized arrivals at the border and return to nationalities that are easier to turn back because of existing repatriation agreements has permitted the administration to direct its focus to immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior,” the report states.
For the first time since at least 2014, deportations from inside the United States outnumbered apprehensions at the border.
The report noted that the administration has not updated many statistics that would help show trends.
“It has become increasingly complicated to track results because only selective statistics have been made public,” the report stated.
“Returning to regular reporting of detailed data on immigration enforcement across the various Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies could not only improve the public’s understanding of current immigration enforcement activities but also inform state and local stakeholders who want to collaborate or who are affected by enforcement,” it said.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Engineer and TV host Emily Calandrelli came to Capitol Hill Wednesday, Oct. 29, as part of an effort to require the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to enforce a policy that allows parents to bring breast milk, formula and supplies on planes. She is among many moms who say they have faced scrutiny traveling with breast milk and ice packs. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
Brinda Sen Gupta was traveling by plane for work last month without her infant but with gel packs she would need to keep her breast milk cool on the return flight. Knowing how hard it can be to get through airport security with breastmilk and infant-feeding supplies, Sen Gupta arrived extra early and prepared.
Sure enough, a U.S. Transportation Security Administration agent objected to Sen Gupta’s gel packs, she said. She took out her phone and showed a screenshot of TSA’s current policy. It stems from a 2016 law and states that breast milk, formula and toddler drinks are considered “medically necessary liquids” and are allowed in carry-on baggage in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces. The policy expressly allows breast milk and formula cooling accessories like ice and gel packs, and states a child does not have to be present for a parent to carry these supplies.
Despite the law, women continue to report issues with TSA security in airports across the country, saying many workers are not trained on their own policy.
Brinda Sen Gupta came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 29, to back the BABES Enhancement Act. The D.C. area mom said she recently had to prove to a TSA supervisor that she was allowed to carry gel packs to keep her breast milk cool on a flight. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
“The TSA agent had to ask their supervisor to come,” Sen Gupta said. The supervisor reviewed the policy and allowed the gel packs through, she said, “but it was annoying to me, because I had to add extra time before I went to make sure that I could have this conversation with them.”
Sen Gupta was among several D.C. chapter leaders of the national nonprofit Chamber of Mothers who gathered in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, to advocate for the passage of the Bottles and Breastfeeding Equipment Screening (BABES) Enhancement Act. Introduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, the bill would require an audit by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security within one year of enactment to ensure the policy is being enforced and workers are being trained on how to inspect infant-feeding supplies in a way that is sanitary.
The bill has been introduced in Congress three years in a row but failed to pass despite bipartisan support. In May for the first time the bill cleared the Senate, where it was cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Republican Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Ted Cruz of Texas. It has advanced in the House, where it has 26 cosponsors, including five Republicans.
“We don’t actually need to change the policies. We need to enforce them, to have some oversight for when the policy isn’t adhered to and how they’re held accountable for those missteps,” said Emily Calandrelli, an engineer and science TV host, who brought attention to the issue after her story of being escorted out of an airport security line because of her ice packs went viral.
Calandrelli said she is unaware of major pushback to the bill in the U.S. House, but she is not certain there will be enough support to move the legislation anytime soon, especially as the federal government shutdown is about to enter its second month.
She said she is hopeful that Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, one of the first Republicans to sign on, will recruit more members of her party.
“At this point, we need Republicans to really lead the charge to help get to the finish line,” Calandrelli said.
In the meantime, moms who relayed their recent TSA experiences at the Chamber of Mothers event said parents traveling with infant-feeding supplies should prepare themselves for traveling — have TSA’s policy ready on their phones and arrive well ahead of time.
Bri Adams, another Chamber of Mothers D.C. chapter leader, said she has been dealing with the headache of nursing while frequently traveling for work for the past few years. A breast milk overproducer who had to pump frequently to maintain her supply, she said agents would handle her milk or supplies in ways that were not sanitary. Over time, she learned to advocate for herself.
“I literally had it up on my phone, the regulations on the TSA website, ready to go, and I pretty much just acted a lot more confident,” Adams said. “This is what I’m doing, and I’m taking breast milk that’s thawed and frozen at the same time, and you’re going to let me on because you can.”
TSA has not yet responded to requests for comment.
‘What would make motherhood easier for you?’
A driver parked the Chamber of Mothers’ black and red bus across the street from the U.S. Department of Labor, which ordinarily would have meant lots of foot traffic. But on the 29th day of the shutdown, the sidewalks and streets were largely empty of the typical tourists and federal workers, many who were either furloughed without pay or working without pay.
The bus has stopped in nine cities over the last couple of months. Lexie Wooten said she has been to every stop, where the group’s been asking moms, “What would make motherhood easier for you?” Overwhelmingly, responses have been about economic support and paid family leave, she said.
Wooten said she could feel the economic anxiety as Americans brace for cuts to health and food assistance programs for people with low incomes, exacerbated by the shutdown. As States Newsroom has reported, temporarily losing food assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could lead to more pregnancy complications.
“People are broke, and it makes everything harder,” Wooten said.
National nonprofit Chamber of Mothers went on a countrywide tour asking mothers what policies could improve their lives, finishing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday Oct. 29. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
Chamber of Mothers CEO Erin Erenberg said the organization now has 43 local chapters in 30 states and about 100,000 members nationwide, and focuses on policies meant to improve access to maternal health care, paid parental leave and affordable child care. Erenberg, who is also an intellectual property attorney, cofounded the nonprofit in 2021 with a group of fellow working moms after paid family leave was cut from former President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan. One of the state bills they’ve worked on since is Arizona’s HB 2332, a maternal mental health bill, which Gov. Katie Hobbs signed in May.
Erenberg said the Trump administration, through the office of the vice president and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has reached out to her organization to collaborate. But before the group would work with the White House, she said there are some nonnegotiable terms, which include preserving and expanding access to affordable health care, Medicaid and SNAP — all impacted by recent federal spending policies.
“So far, this administration hasn’t shown that they’re fully behind what we advocate for,” Erenberg said. “With pronatalism, we have repeatedly said, great, you want people to have more babies? … We need paid leave, we need affordable child care, and we need you to invest in what actually would make us healthy … and survive childbirth.”
This story was originally produced by News From The States, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Fruit is displayed at an Anchorage grocery store. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
WASHINGTON — The near-certain freeze on key federal nutrition programs will put particular pressure on tribal communities, according to advocates and U.S. senators of both parties.
American Indian and Alaska Native communities are scrambling to fill anticipated gaps in food security and assistance created by the lack of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, during the ongoing government shutdown.
Sarah Harris, the secretary of United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc. and United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, a nonprofit and an associated advocacy group for 33 federally recognized tribal nations from Texas to Maine, told the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee during a Wednesday hearing that uncertainty over the availability of SNAP and WIC benefits is forcing tribal nations to cover the shortfall.
“Given the emergent nature of all of this crisis, tribes are scrambling, and so they’re spending their own time and resources to provide the most basic of human needs — food — for their citizens,” Harris said.
Harris gave an example of her nonprofit’s president, Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis, who was working with his tribal council to reallocate $200,000 to bridge the nutrition funding gap for November alone.
“This includes asking tribal hunters to donate loose meat so that elders can be fed,” she said.
Congress failed to fund SNAP and WIC, two major U.S. Department of Agriculture initiatives — and nearly every other discretionary federal program — for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
USDA has said it will not tap into its multi-year contingency fund to keep the program that serves 42 million people afloat in November — an about-face from its Sept. 30 shutdown plan that said it would use such funds during the shutdown.
WIC serves nearly 7 million people and offers “free healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and referrals to other services,” according to USDA. The program got a $300 million infusion from USDA to keep it running through October. But as November approaches, advocates are calling on President Donald Trump’s administration to provide additional emergency funds.
“We must further subsidize to provide for the failure of our federal partners to meet their trust and treaty obligations,” she said.
“It’s also important to recognize, too, that tribal nations, we already face long-standing and continuing challenges with providing access to healthy and nutritious food for our citizens, and the challenges contribute to health and educational and overall wellness disparities across all of our tribal communities,” Harris added.
Deciding between ‘fuel and food’
Ben Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, said that without SNAP and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, “our communities and tribal citizens will have to decide between fuel and food.”
LIHEAP helps assist low-income families with energy costs and is managed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The program has faced funding uncertainties and disruptions due to the shutdown.
Mallott, who leads the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska, noted that “in some of our communities, elders are there alone and might not have family to help them with food security.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Senate committee, said concerns about “food versus fuel” are “very real when we talk about food insecurity.”
The Alaska Republican also pointed to a major typhoon that hit her state earlier in October and its impacts on food supply.
“We have heard and seen the pictures of the loss from the Typhoon Halong, and you see devastation within the village,” Murkowski said. “But the part of it that is really heartrending is when you see freezers that have been stocked with subsistence foods … all that had been gathered that would take these families through the winter that now is lost because there’s no power in these villages, and so their food source for the winter is gone.”
Coupled with the reliance on SNAP, Murkowski said “this is a point that for many in Alaska is tangibly real and tangibly frightening, and so, everything that we can do to make sure that SNAP and WIC funding is able to proceed, I think, has got to be a priority for us.”
Impacts on tribal nations in Minnesota, Nevada
Other senators on the panel highlighted the consequences of funding for nutrition programs running out for Native communities in their states.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said that 200 families living in the Duck Valley Indian Reservation would “lose access to essential food support.”
In response, the “tribe is preparing to rely on traditional practices such as hunting elk to feed their members,” adding that “it’s important to highlight how serious of an issue this will become,” she said.
Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said she’s hearing from tribal nations in her state about people switching from SNAP to another USDA program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR.
“I’m hearing from Minnesota tribes that there’s kind of switching happening right now, as people are trying to figure out where is the best place to be able to get stable sources of nutrition assistance for folks on tribal lands,” she said.
FDPIR provides food “to income-eligible households living on Indian reservations and to Native American households residing in designated areas near reservations or in Oklahoma,” according to USDA.
Households are not allowed to participate in both SNAP and FDPIR in the same month. The agency said average monthly participation for FDPIR in fiscal 2023 included 49,339 people.
“People are in the midst of sort of trying to figure out how to change their benefits,” Smith said.
Activism against Line 5 includes members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and residents across Wisconsin, including at this home in Madison. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Environmental groups are blasting what some are calling a “premature and unlawful decision” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve federal permits for the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline project in northern Wisconsin. The permits have been issued despite an ongoing court challenge to state-level permits and before Wisconsin’s water quality certification for the project has been finalized.
“This is a clear violation of the Clean Water Act,” said Rob Lee, staff attorney with Midwest Environmental Advocates. “It appears the Army Corps is fast-tracking a fossil fuel project at the expense of environmental protection and legal due process.”
In June, Midwest Environmental Advocates submitted formal comments during a public hearing warning the Army Corps to not approve the permits until a final water quality certification had been issued by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). A water quality permit had been issued in November but that permit is still the subject of litigation and therefore has not been finalized.
“Federal law is clear,” Lee said in a statement. “The Army Corps can’t approve this project without final water quality certification from the relevant state authority. The DNR’s certification is still being challenged in court, which means it’s not legally final — and that makes this permit premature and unlawful.”
Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin said in a statement that the group was “horrified that the Army Corps is willing to condone an extremely dangerous project that will irreparably destroy the integrity of the watershed.” Conmiller added that “the damage, not to mention the long term risks associated with the pipeline itself, must be considered before any such project would be granted permits to proceed.”
Owned by the Canadian oil giant Enbridge, Line 5 is an over 70-year old pipeline carrying thousands of gallons of crude oil from Canada into the U.S. A federal court ruled pipeline route has been trespassing on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation. Enbridge’s planned reroute is also being challenged before an administrative law judge. Advocates for the pipeline say it will generate 700 jobs and boost Wisconsin’s energy sector, while critics argue that the pipeline’s new route would continue to threaten the Bad River watershed and other ecosystems in the event of a catastrophic oil spill. .
Clean Wisconsin has intervened in the administrative challenge to the planned pipeline reroute. “The health of these ecosystems is critical to Tribal Nations, fisheries, and local economies across the region,” said Clean Wisconsin President Mark Redsten in a statement. The group highlighted that tourism alone generates $378 million in economic activity and supports over 2,800 jobs in Bayfield, Ashland, Douglas and Iron counties.
In the past, Enbridge pipeline spills have devastated waterways and habitats. Another Enbridge pipeline leaked over 69,000 gallons of oil before the breach was noticed in late 2024, the same week environmental and trial groups filed new legal challenges of the Line 5 reroute.
Emily Park, co-executive director of 350 Wisconsin, said the group was “deeply disturbed” by the decision. “Wisconsinites and millions of other residents of the region depend on clean and healthy water for our lives, food, jobs, and recreation,” said Park. “We are appalled that the Army Corps is willing to appease a foreign corporation by risking the health of water, the stability of our climate, and the wellbeing of current and future generations.”
By “fast-tracking the Line 5 reroute,” said Sierra Club Wisconsin Chapter Director Elizabeth Ward, “the Army Corps has backed Canadian oil giant Enbridge at the expense of the Bad River Band, Wisconsinites, and the 40 million people who rely on the Great Lakes for safe drinking water. There’s no safe way to reroute this pipeline. Every day that Line 5 continues to operate, our water, ecosystems, and way of life is in danger.”
Permanent rules to guide the conduct of wolf hunting in Wisconsin are set to take effect Saturday, capping off a yearslong process in which the state Department of Natural Resources worked to write policy about one of the most politically polarized issues facing the state.
A state law enacted in 2012 requires that when the animal isn’t protected on the federal endangered species list, a hunt must be held. DNR staff say the permanent rules will prevent a potential future hunt from being stopped by a lawsuit while tightening some of the provisions that resulted in the highly controversial 2021 wolf hunt in which hunters exceeded their 200-wolf quota in just three days.
The wolf has been back on the federal endangered species list since a ruling by a federal judge in California in 2022.
The rules largely govern how a hunt must be held if and when the animal is no longer considered endangered. During previous hunts, the DNR was operating under emergency rules. DNR officials have warned that a future hunt without permanent rules in place could be halted by the court system.
The new rules include shortening the window by which hunters must register wolf kills, update wolf harvest zone boundaries, issue zone-specific tags and provide protections for wolf dens.
They were passed unanimously by the state Natural Resources Board in October 2023 at the same time it enacted the first full rewrite of Wisconsin’s wolf management plan since 1999. The management plan stirred debate because it doesn’t specifically declare a numerical population goal. Instead, the plan divides the state into sub-regions in which DNR staff will regularly determine if the local wolf population needs to be reduced, maintained or allowed to grow.
Farm and hunting groups, who are often fiercely opposed to the growth of Wisconsin’s wolf population because of concerns about wolf attacks on livestock, hunting dogs and pets, as well as longstanding societal and cultural fears of the animals, were largely against the new wolf management plan. Those groups pushed for the plan to include a statewide population goal of 350 wolves — which is the number stated in the 1999 plan, written when the animal was beginning its slow comeback to the state’s landscape after being extirpated in the 20th century.
Estimates put the current Wisconsin wolf population at about 1,200 wolves, with signs that number is stabilizing.
Environmental groups and the state’s Native American tribes were in favor of the new management method, stating it matches the best available science for how to responsibly manage animal populations and fearing that the anti-wolf crowd would see a 350-wolf population goal as a ceiling. The wolf is especially important to the Ojibwe people, who have a deep spiritual connection with the animals.
Some Republicans in the Legislature were also opposed to the new wolf management plan and for years the implementation of the new rules had been held up by a Republican-controlled committee. A recent state Supreme Court ruling found that the committee couldn’t indefinitely prevent the passage of administrative rules, allowing the DNR to move forward.
Also this year, Senate sporting heritage committee chair Sen. Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) wrote a letter to the DNR asking if it would make changes to the rule. Stafsholt’s requested changes included setting a statewide population goal or range, increasing the harvest registration window to 12 hours, allowing harvest tags to be used anywhere statewide and eliminating all subzones, including areas set aside as a measure to protect wolf packs on tribal reservations.
Despite those objections, the DNR has continued to move forward without any changes.
Amy Mueller, a member of the Sierra Club of Wisconsin’s executive committee, says she feels like the rules and the management plan are the best possible compromise on an issue as polarizing as wolves, in which one side is opposed to wolf hunting in general and the other would like to see the population reduced.
“I think this is probably the best kind of compromise we can hope for coming out of an emergency rule that had been on the books for, you know, decades — a plan from 1999 that still had a population goal hoping that we could reach 350 wolves,” she says. “I feel like these are important steps, and probably good wins where we need them. And of course, I’d like to see more, but I think being realistic, this is still worth supporting.”
Mueller adds that she believes the DNR gets an “unproportionate amount of flak that’s misdirected” about wolf hunting because it has to follow the law and the law requires wolf hunts.
“Unfortunately, if we want to stop wolf hunting we need to look at the makeup of the Legislature, and we need to figure out how to amend Act 169. So I think the DNR is doing what it can with a very controversial issue and having their hands tied by this law,” she says.
Tyler Wenzlaff, director of national affairs at the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, echoes Mueller, saying public opinion is at “two different extremes” but that the new rules and plan do seem to represent a good compromise that will help guide the state whenever a hunt happens again.
“We have two forces here that are — we’re trying to get the number as low as we can, and the tribes are at a zero quota. And so the DNR is in the middle, trying to navigate these two forces and bring us to some kind of compromise,” he says.
“And looking at the rule,” he adds, “we support the rule and some of the changes that were made. We believe that it’s a strong compromise for both the agriculture and hunting community, but also those that want to see wolves remain on the landscape in strong numbers. And so moving forward, we believe this rule is in a good place. And really a permanent rule is necessary for Wisconsin to delist the wolves in the future and have a hunting season.”
As the DNR works to implement the new rules, Mueller, who has a seat on the DNR’s Wolf Advisory Committee, says she’s looking forward to working on the plan’s provisions for education about wolves and their role in the ecosystem and efforts for non-lethal abatement of wolf conflicts with humans and livestock.
Wenzlaff says the Farm Bureau is going to continue pushing for a numerical population goal to be set, even if it’s set to a level higher than the 350 wolves advocates have sought.
“If the population were to be gradually reduced to a more socially acceptable range, it would restore balance between maintaining a healthy wolf population and protecting farmers’ livelihood, pets and livestock,” he says. Wenzlaff says farmers are willing to hash out the right number with the wolf management committee, “but unfortunately, the DNR didn’t want to have that conversation. So we’re left with broad guidelines that can be reinterpreted by the next administration, which we don’t really support.”
For both sides of the wolf debate, the outcome of next year’s midterm elections are going to play an important role in their efforts.
For tribes and environmental groups, the prospect of Democrats gaining control of the Legislature and holding the governor’s office presents an opportunity to repeal or change the wolf hunting law to block whatever actions the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress take.
“There’s a lot at stake, because right or wrong, wolves are highly political,” Mueller says. “So I think [I’m] optimistic about the potential changeover in our state but cautiously optimistic. Understanding there’s a lot at stake, and it could really change things for wolves in Wisconsin, for the better or for the worse.”
For the farm and hunting groups, the prospect of a Republican governor would mean the state government is pushing in the same direction as the Trump administration. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor and seen as the frontrunner in the Republican primary, has authored legislation that would take the wolf off the federal endangered species list.
Wenzlaff says the Farm Bureau is ready to work with either party and wants to focus on how to get wolves delisted by Congress.
“It really comes down to the federal government and what their plans are,” he says. “What Wisconsin does really doesn’t matter until we have that delisting … There’s a lot of different ideas on what that could look like, but we’re willing to work with anybody, any stakeholders that are willing to talk about a reasonable wolf management goal.”
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