As Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers gave his final State of the State address at the Capitol on Tuesday, I was struck by how many of the people I’ve met or covered over the past nearly six months were all in the same room.
Evers, who is not seeking reelection this year, entered the Assembly chambers shortly after 7 p.m. and spoke of his accomplishments over the past seven years with longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, seated right behind him. All seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who have frequently been deciding factors in conflicts between Evers and Republican lawmakers, were in the audience. Statewide elected officials, including Attorney General Josh Kaul and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, were there. Both Democratic and Republican representatives and senators sat underneath the glass skylight to listen to Evers.
In his hour-long speech, Evers called on the Republican Legislature to take bipartisan action on issues such as tax cuts, special education school funding and corrections reform before lawmakers leave Madison and turn to the campaign trail for elections later this year. He also announced plans to call a special session for lawmakers to address a constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering. Republicans criticized Evers’ remarks as a partisan speech.
The governor’s address Tuesday night came as Wisconsin stands on the precipice of significant change. A new governor will be elected later this year. New legislative maps and Democratic gains in 2024 set up real competition for control of the Legislature.
It’s been almost six months since I began my role as the state government and politics reporter at Wisconsin Watch. I returned to Wisconsin, where I was born and raised, in September after starting my journalism career reporting in Florida and Indiana.
These initial months at Wisconsin Watch have been an exciting whirlwind as I’ve immersed myself into the debates and issues facing our state. Eight years away left me with much to catch up on.
I’ve had a lot of coffee — maybe too much — as I’ve met people inside and outside of the Capitol who can help me understand the deeper issues beyond press releases and social media posts. I’ve attended many committee meetings, hearings and press conferences. I’ve made phone calls and sent text messages when I needed explanations about the recent state budget or legislative procedures. I’ve stopped by a host of Assembly and Senate offices to introduce myself, ask questions and learn what lawmakers are working on.
And if you read all the way through Forward, Wisconsin Watch’s free weekly politics newsletter, you will know I love diving into our state’s history and seeing what it can teach us about what is happening in Wisconsin today.
My curiosity and my past reporting experiences in other states have driven my work so far. In November, I looked into why Republican lawmakers sent bills to the governor’s desk that Evers would never sign. When WisconsinEye, the public affairs network, went dark for weeks between December and January, I looked beyond our borders to understand how neighboring states film legislative proceedings. As voters face another Wisconsin Supreme Court election, I asked the candidates about their past rulings and how they reflect how each candidate would serve on the court.
I’ve largely found people willing to share their perspectives and point me in the direction of others who can provide the information to explain complicated topics. I’ve particularly enjoyed the times I’ve heard “Welcome home,” as I’ve shared what brought me back to Wisconsin.
Evers’ address and the last year in the governor’s office signal an end to one chapter of Wisconsin’s history. I feel like I am just getting started. If you have tips, ideas, questions or feedback, email me at bcarloni@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
As the Tony Evers chapter of Wisconsin history draws to a close, a new chapter is just beginning 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.
The backlog of unresolved felony-related matters in Milwaukee County has surpassed the pandemic-era peak, topping more than 10,000 as of Oct. 13, according to data obtained from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office through an NNS open records request.
As cases linger, people throughout the criminal justice system feel the effects, including victims and their families, people accused of crimes and the broader community, said Kent Lovern, Milwaukee County district attorney.
“‘Justice delayed, justice denied’ applies to everybody,” Lovern said.
One recent high-profile incident reaffirms how case backlogs could have tragic and life-altering consequences.
On Feb. 5, a Milwaukee man, Mile Dukic, allegedly stabbed and killed 44-year-old Amanda Varisco on West National Avenue and S. 36th Street. At the time of the killing, Dukic had separate open felony cases in Milwaukee County Circuit Court – for bail jumping and stalking. He was charged with another felony, first-degree intentional homicide, on Feb. 9.
Dukic is currently in custody with bail set at $500,000.
The district attorney’s office plays a pivotal role at both ends of the felony pipeline, said a spokesperson for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office: referrals from police awaiting a charging decision, plus charged felony cases working their way through the courts.
The Milwaukee Police Department made 5,650 summary felony arrests in 2025, according to an MPD spokesperson. The department continues to work with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to best address the felony backlog, the MPD spokesperson said.
District attorney records show 2,924 pending uncharged felony cases as of October 2025.
The spokesperson for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office said the district attorney’s office can and should do more to address the growing backlog by adjusting its approach.
“We believe prosecutors should be exercising more discretion in which referrals they are charging,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson said the office regularly sees clients charged with relatively minor offenses lose jobs or housing as a result – consequences that can outweigh the underlying charge.
When the prosecutor’s office officially presses felony charges, these cases can get bogged down and stay in the courts. Resolution to the cases depends not only on prosecutors but also on defense attorneys, judges, court staff and other resources that are strained as well, Lovern said.
Based on the district attorney’s internal case-tracking system, more than 7,000 felony cases were charged but not yet resolved as of Oct. 13.
“The influx of felony charges coming out of the DA’s office isn’t benefiting the court system or public safety,” said State Public Defender Jennifer Bias. “It’s a waste of our scarce attorney resources.”
Lovern pushes back on the idea that prosecutors are charging too many cases.
“I want to make it very clear: I don’t have goals for what we ought to be charging,” he said. “I don’t have a directive of what the percentage of our charging rate should be.”
Prosecutors decline to move forward on many referrals, said Jeffrey Altenburg, Milwaukee’s chief deputy district attorney.
On a basic public safety level, there are simply more serious felonies being committed, Lovern and Altenburg said.
“I think that that’s exactly what we’re seeing,” Altenburg said. “We’re seeing more referrals coming to this office that involve firearms, violence, sexual violence.”
Milwaukee Police Department data show reports of the majority of the most serious offenses declined from 2024 to 2025, with the exception of homicides and human trafficking, which increased slightly.
Violent crime in Milwaukee has generally declined in the past few years – but from historic highs seen during the pandemic, according to data from the Council on Criminal Justice.
Charging decisions begin with a decision about whether a case is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, Altenburg said.
“We adhere to that standard very scrupulously in this office,” he said.
Once that is determined, the district attorney’s office moves to the question of whether prosecution is necessary or a different kind of intervention is more appropriate, Altenburg said.
In Milwaukee, there are two alternative interventions: diversion and deferred prosecution.
Diversion allows a person to complete requirements, such as treatment, restitution or community service, without a criminal charge.
Deferred prosecution involves issuing charges with an agreement in which a conviction is withheld if the person meets various conditions.
Lovern said local prosecutors created an early-intervention approach designed to steer nonviolent cases driven by substance use or mental health challenges out of the criminal justice system when appropriate.
In 2020, Milwaukee County intervened in roughly 600 cases, Altenburg said. Last year, the county intervened in roughly 1,600 cases.
Lovern said the nature of modern policing – and modern evidence – has fundamentally changed prosecutors’ workload.
The sheer volume of evidence that must be reviewed contributes to growing wait times before charging decisions can be made, Lovern said.
More evidence is generated because of modern technologies and other tools used by police. A single incident can, for example, generate hours of body camera footage that prosecutors review before making charging decisions, Lovern said.
In 2020, there were 84,000 pieces of evidence in Milwaukee’s database. In 2024, there were 1.7 million items.
“I’m sure last year, it was even higher. That’s just where we’re headed,” Lovern said.
Something that adds to both backlogs – uncharged cases awaiting a decision and charged cases in the system – is insufficient staffing levels throughout the court system, a trend that has continued since the pandemic.
The district attorney’s office has about 125 full-time prosecutors, Lovern said.
“Now that is a lot. It’s the same number that we had when (Altenburg) and I started in this office 28 years ago, though.”
The State Public Defender’s Office also faces staffing challenges, according to its spokesperson.
“Broadly speaking, our agency needs more staff statewide,” the spokesperson said. “This wouldn’t address delays caused by prosecutors, but it would help to decrease the time it takes to appoint attorneys to indigent defendants and reduce the turnover in staff that office experiences due to burnout.”
There is also a need for support staff who help with administrative tasks, freeing up attorneys.
Lovern said unstable funding adds to staffing pressures.
About a third of legal staff in the county had been funded with federal grant money, which has been a little less predictable in the last couple of years, Lovern said.
“We can use more positions,” Lovern said. “There’s no question about that.”
Justice delayed: More than 10,000 felony matters unresolved in Milwaukee County 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.
“Every small town needs small businesses so communities can thrive,” Guerrero said. “You need a space where people can get out of their homes, spend time together and feel part of something.”
The post From chemistry to community: A rural Wisconsin coffee roaster finds its footing appeared first on WPR.
The Grand Tour was a lengthy trip that wealthier young men would take to broaden their horizons, often focusing on art and music.
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More first responders in Wisconsin are now using pet microchip scanners to help reunite lost pets with their owners.
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The state Public Service Commission is partnering with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to identify potential sites for nuclear power plants in Wisconsin.
The post Wisconsin PSC, UW-Madison partnering to identify possible nuclear plant sites appeared first on WPR.
Someone who got to see the ice caves ahead of the crowds is Linda Nervick, who recently became the publisher of Lake Superior Magazine. She told WPR’s Robin Washington about her trek to the caves on “Morning Edition.”
The post Ice caves’ brief return shows beauty and risk on Lake Superior appeared first on WPR.
Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly say they'll pass two bills related to women's health Thursday, a surprise move that comes after years of blocking the legislation.
The post Wisconsin Republicans announce plan to pass postpartum Medicaid, breast cancer bills appeared first on WPR.
In a bipartisan about face, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill Wednesday that includes nearly $600,000 in funding for WisconsinEye, the state's version of C-SPAN.
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The Sauk Prairie School District in partnership with the Village of Prairie du Sac and the Sauk Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce began construction of a new early learning childcare center
The post Wisconsin’s rural superintendents plea for compromise on school funding, property tax relief appeared first on WPR.
On Monday, visitors walked across the frozen surface of Lake Superior to see the ice caves at the Apostle Island National Lakeshore. By Wednesday morning, any chance of getting another glimpse at that fairytale seemed to be over. At least for this winter.
The post Here today, gone tomorrow: Open water where visitors thronged Apostle Islands ice caves days ago appeared first on WPR.
A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging the rescinding of a scientific finding that has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The post Public health, green groups sue EPA over repeal of rule supporting climate protections appeared first on WPR.
Members of the WEBB gather at Walnut Way with Lindsay Heights residents on Feb. 10 to publicly demand that the state's utility regulators not allow We Energies to charge residential customers for the explosive, unprecedented growth in electricity demand to power hyperscale data centers. (Photo courtesy Walnut Way Conservation Corps.)
Data centers, artificial intelligence and fossil fuels are dominating headlines. Across the United States, more than $350 billion was invested in AI and data-center infrastructure, with tens of billions of dollars proposed in Wisconsin. Investment and economic development are often framed as unequivocal wins, but energy infrastructure is different. If built without foresight, the consequences will reshape the future.
Growth is certain; however the balance between positive and negative growth is yet to be determined.
I have worked in Wisconsin’s energy sector since 2019, beginning in residential and commercial solar. Over the years, I’ve seen energy debates around renewable energy become increasingly politicized, even as their original purpose remains unchanged: to produce reliable electricity, reduce dependence on fragile infrastructure, and give communities more control over their energy supply. Yet, the existing industry stakeholders have blocked deployment and ownership for everyone but themselves. While homeowners, farmers, tribal nations and small businesses face mounting restrictions on deploying their own power systems, the state has moved quickly to approve massive new energy loads for data centers. These agreements are also accompanied by preferential rate structures, infrastructure guarantees and the ability to negotiate.
That contradiction should concern all of us.
Wisconsin residents have grown accustomed to electric rate increases justified by grid maintenance, system upgrades and long-term reliability. According to federal energy data, Wisconsin already ranks among the top 15 states for electricity costs, and utilities have signaled additional increases in the years ahead. At the same time, power reliability has deteriorated in both rural and urban areas.
In parts of Milwaukee, aging poles lean precariously, and low-hanging lines form tangled webs that look untouched for decades. In rural Wisconsin, the impacts are similar. Tribal nations such as the Sokaogon Chippewa and the Menominee Nation have experienced long-duration outages lasting days or even weeks, disrupting health care, food systems and economic activity. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of an overstretched and unevenly maintained grid.
Against this backdrop, Wisconsin is welcoming some of the most energy-intensive facilities on the planet. A single large data center can consume as much electricity as a small city, operating around the clock, every day of the year. The rise of AI only accelerates this demand. Unlike the rest of the state, these facilities do not proceed without firm assurances of power availability, reliability, transmission access,and cost certainty.
Data centers operate under a different set of rules.
Utilities and regulators are willing to negotiate specialized rate structures, accelerate infrastructure investments, and prioritize reliability. Meanwhile, everyday ratepayers, who collectively use far less power and have far less leverage, are asked to shoulder rising costs and accept declining service quality.
This is not a free market. Wisconsin’s energy industry has become an unregulated monopoly. Large utilities control generation, transmission and distribution, and they largely determine who is allowed to produce power and under what terms. While utilities have invested heavily in renewable energy they own, they continue to restrict external ownership and community-scale generation knowing that distributed energy can reduce peak demand, improve resilience, and lower long-term system costs.
If utilities can justify new power plants, substations and transmission lines for data centers, they must also explain why a similar urgency does not apply to grid reliability, ownership opportunities for distributed energy systems and lower rates for Wisconsin residents. Why is Wisconsin able to deliver gigawatts of electricity to data centers, yet unable to address persistent grid failures in communities that have been struggling for decades?
This moment calls for accountability, not ideology. Wisconsin deserves transparency in how data center energy deals are structured, who bears the costs of new infrastructure and how reliability risks are distributed. Ratepayers deserve to know why the largest electricity users receive the greatest assurances, while households, businesses and communities are told to accept less while paying more. Economic growth should not come at the expense of affordability, resilience or fairness. If Wisconsin is going to power the future of AI and digital infrastructure, it must also protect the people and communities that power Wisconsin itself.
This energy crisis is not inevitable. It is the result of choices. And those choices will determine whether Wisconsin’s energy future delivers reliable power for all, or a system defined by higher costs, more frequent outages and growing divides between communities.
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Colorado Republican state Sen. Rod Pelton, left, and Senate President James Coleman, a Democrat, speak during the sixth day of the special legislative session in August 2025. Colorado is among the states using state funds to help residents buy health coverage on Obamacare exchanges. (Photo by Delilah Brumer/Colorado Newsline)
Ten Democratic-leaning states are using their own money to help people buy Obamacare health plans, at least partially replacing the federal tax credits that expired at the end of last year.
The state assistance, some of it offered through programs that existed before the federal subsidies expired, is helping hundreds of thousands of people lower their monthly premium payments, which otherwise would have surged to double or even triple what they were before the expiration of the federal aid. The savings can total hundreds of dollars per month.
But only New Mexico is completely filling the gap left by the expiration of the federal help by offering it to people of all incomes; for most Americans buying Obamacare plans, the end of the federal aid means much higher prices. And New Mexico and the other states that are trying to cushion the blow for their residents will face increasing budget pressures as health care costs continue their inexorable rise.
In addition to the expiration of the federal subsidies, the cost of Obamacare coverage has increased because of other factors, including labor shortages and the rising cost of prescription drugs, driven in part by the growing demand for GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
The enhanced federal subsidies were made available by the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and later extended through the end of 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. Designed as a temporary pandemic-era measure, they helped boost the number of people buying health coverage from the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare’s formal name — from 11.4 million people in 2020 to 24.3 million last year.
The enhanced subsidies were available to everyone, regardless of income. Additional federal aid provided to some of the lowest-income households entirely eliminated premium payments for some people.
Congressional leaders let the subsidies expire on Dec. 31. As of the end of last month, the number of people enrolled in marketplace coverage was down by about 1.2 million compared with last year, according to federal data.
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the expiration of the federal subsidies would increase the number of people without insurance by 4.2 million by 2034.
Under the Affordable Care Act, each state can either use the federal government’s online insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov, or operate its own state-run exchange. Only the 21 states plus the District of Columbia with state-run marketplaces can offer state-funded tax credits or subsidies, and at least 10 of them (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont and Washington) are doing so.
Matt McGough, a policy analyst at health care research group KFF, said many of the people who buy Obamacare plans “have fallen between the cracks of the health care system.”
“They might not work a job or work enough hours at a job to be eligible for health benefits. They are too young for Medicare. They make too much to be eligible for Medicaid, and they really have no other option but to go to the marketplace,” McGough said.
He warned that relatively healthy people are the ones most likely to forgo marketplace coverage rather than pay more for it. That will leave the exchanges with the people who have the greatest health needs, raising costs and premiums for everyone. To avoid that scenario, he said, states “want to be able to keep as many people in the marketplace as possible.”
In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and state lawmakers earlier this year tapped the state’s 5-year-old Health Care Affordability Fund for an additional $17.3 million so they could entirely replace the expired federal subsidies through June 30 for all enrollees, regardless of income.
The vast majority of the 82,400 New Mexicans who buy coverage from the state marketplace are eligible for state help. Perhaps as a result, New Mexico is one of only a handful of states where the number of people buying Obamacare plans has increased this year: Enrollment is up 18% in New Mexico, while there have been single-digit increases in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Texas.
“We feel really great about having come together to really focus on these affordability challenges for New Mexicans, and really proud of the gains that we’ve made in coverage while we’re seeing losses elsewhere,” said Kari Armijo, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Health Care Authority. She noted that a handful of Republican state lawmakers have joined Democrats in supporting the aid.
The money in New Mexico’s Health Care Affordability Fund comes from a 3.75% surtax levied on insurance companies. When the fund was created, the surtax was expected to generate about $165 million in new revenue annually.
Currently, the state uses nearly half of the revenue from the surtax to fund other parts of its budget. But the New Mexico House earlier this month approved a bill that would gradually increase the portion of the surtax allocated to the Health Care Affordability Fund, from the current 55% to 100% in 2028.
It is a pretty substantial amount of money, and it is going to strain the programs that we can provide with that funding.
– Kari Armijo, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Health Care Authority
Legislative financial analysts recently questioned the long-term sustainability of that approach. Armijo acknowledged that continuing to replace the expired federal subsidies “will deplete the fund over time.”
“It is a pretty substantial amount of money, and it is going to strain the programs that we can provide with that funding,” Armijo said.
Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank in New Mexico, said the state is “flush with oil and gas money” now, enabling it to “spend money in ways that don’t make a great deal of sense for the population as a whole and instead benefits a small sliver of relatively well-off New Mexicans.”
Gessing said the state should focus on reducing health care spending by recruiting and retaining more doctors and nurses to lessen its shortage of providers and by overhauling medical malpractice laws.
“I don’t think the state should make it a practice to use state funds to fill in the gap when federal funding is shifted or eliminated,” Gessing said.
In California, where 1.9 million people were enrolled on the state’s exchange in 2025, enrollment is already down by 32% from last year, according to state figures.
The state has opted this year to spend $190 million to fully replace the lost federal subsidies for people earning up to 150% of the federal poverty level ($23,940 for an individual), and partially replace them for people making between 150% and 165% of the federal poverty level — just above eligibility for Medicaid in the state. About 390,000 enrollees are receiving the state-based subsidies this year.
Like New Mexico, California in 2021 created a Health Care Affordability Reserve Fund, funded through general revenue and penalties some people have to pay when they file their taxes.
The state budget Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed last month envisions a “modest projected deficit” of $2.9 billion for fiscal year 2026-2027, but that could grow to $22 billion the next year. California has a total annual budget of about $350 billion.
“Any amount of money that you can put into affordability is meaningful,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of California’s marketplace. “Thinking about those trade-offs is a challenging conversation, but an important one at the state level.”
In Colorado, the state is offering financial help through a new program called the Colorado Premium Assistance program. It came together during an August 2025 special session, when Colorado lawmakers approved up to $110 million this year to partially replace the federal subsidies. Help will be available to anyone making between 133% and 400% of the federal poverty level, or between $43,890 and $132,000 for a family of four.
“It is clear that this is a value for Coloradans. And having a state based marketplace like we do in Colorado, it really allows us to develop state-specific solutions and have our policies and changes driven by the needs of the people who live here,” said Nina Schwartz, chief policy and external affairs officer for Colorado’s marketplace.
Schwartz emphasized, however, that the state help won’t entirely replace the expired federal aid, and that as a result, the number of people buying coverage on the exchange is declining. Cancellations are up 83% compared with last year.
“We’re seeing an increase in the number of cancellations, with the number of people nearly doubling who canceled their plans during open enrollment compared to last year,” she said.
Other states also are opting for limited assistance. Connecticut, for example, is offering aid to households with incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level, and the state announced it would spend $115 million in 2026 to partially offset the expiration of the federal subsidies.
Massachusetts has set aside $250 million to enhance its existing state subsidy program, helping to keep around 270,000 enrollees with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level enrolled with stable premiums. As of early January, around 25,000 people in Massachusetts had already canceled their marketplace plans.
Maryland has a new premium assistance program that fully replaces the federal aid for enrollees earning below 200% of the federal poverty level and partly replaces it for those earning between 200% and 400% of the federal poverty level. Since last year, New York has offered help to marketplace enrollees with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level. And since 2023, Washington has offered state subsidies to anyone earning below 250% of the federal poverty level.
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.
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.
An oak savannah in southern Dane County that the Badgerland Foundation is working to conserve using Knowles-Nelson Stewardship funds (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
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 “stop gap” compromise of extending the program for one year 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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Marathon Petroleum Company’s Salt Lake City Refinery in Salt Lake City on Jan. 3, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A coalition of public health and environmental groups filed a suit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s recent finding that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate climate-warming greenhouse gases.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump announced last week the administration was finalizing a repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding, which declared the agency could regulate greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from vehicle emissions, because climate change posed a danger to human health.
The 17 groups who jointly filed the suit Wednesday include the American Public Health Association, Clean Wisconsin, Union of Concerned Scientists, Earthjustice and Natural Resources Defense Council.
Their two-page filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit does not detail any of the groups’ legal arguments against the repeal, but lawyers and officials for the groups said the EPA was legally bound, under the Clean Air Act, to protect people from greenhouse gas emissions.
“They are required by law to protect us from air pollution that endangers public health and welfare,” Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the CEO of the American Public Health Association, said on a video call with reporters. “And that includes greenhouse gases that are driving climate change.”
The law requires challenges to new nationwide agency actions on emissions to be filed in the D.C. Circuit.
In an email, EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the agency had reviewed the endangerment finding, the Clean Air Act and related court decisions, including “robust analysis” of recent Supreme Court decisions. The agency concluded it did not have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
“Unlike our predecessors, the Trump EPA is committed to following the law exactly as it is written and as Congress intended—not as others might wish it to be,” Hirsch said.
“In the absence of such authority, the Endangerment Finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it,” she continued. “EPA is bound by the laws established by Congress, including under the CAA. Congress never intended to give EPA authority to impose GHG regulations for cars and trucks.”
But the groups said the EPA’s reasoning ignored that the agency has long regulated emissions as part of its mandate to protect clear air. The omission of the term “greenhouse gases” in the Clean Air Act is “a manufactured problem” by opponents of regulation, Hana Vizcarra, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said.
“The Clean Air Act was intended to cover air pollutants, full stop. Air pollutants include greenhouse gases,” she said. “This argument that Congress needs to do something different to be able to regulate greenhouse gases… it’s just a way to avoid the issue and avoid regulation.”
The matter is “settled law,” the groups said, as federal courts have affirmed and reaffirmed the EPA’s power to regulate emissions.
A 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case established that the Clean Air Act “was unambiguous” in authorizing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants, Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney at NRDC, said.
That decision led to the EPA’s so-called endangerment finding two years later, during President Barack Obama’s first year in office.
Wednesday’s challenge will likely be consolidated with other challenges, including those from “blue-state attorneys general,” Hankins said.
In the announcement last week, Trump said the endangerment finding, and the tailpipe emissions standards that relied on it, had dragged down the automotive sector and the broader economy nationwide.
The administration has said the move will save Americans more than $1 trillion by reducing regulations.
The repeal’s opponents, though, said Wednesday that projection ignored more than $100 billion in additional costs American drivers would see if fuel efficiency standards are relaxed or the enormous public health costs from worsened air quality and increased climate risks.
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