Climate, weather and water-related research in Wisconsin and the Great Lakes would take a hit under the Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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About 250,000 people are expected to descend on Green Bay next week for the NFL draft. Republican lawmakers from the region say they'll seek more than $1 million in the next state budget to reimburse local law enforcement agencies tasked with keeping it safe.
The post Green Bay area Republicans seek $1.25M from state to reimburse safety costs of NFL draft appeared first on WPR.
The NFL draft is expected to draw close to 250,000 people to Green Bay. But a little more than a week out from the event, multiple Airbnb properties near Lambeau Field still had availability.
The post Airbnbs still available near Lambeau a little over a week out from the NFL draft appeared first on WPR.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is backing a bill that would exempt gun safes and other "firearm safety devices" from Wisconsin's sales tax.
The post Wisconsin proposal to exempt gun safes from sales tax advances with bipartisan support appeared first on WPR.
Actors David Duchovny and Richard Kind trace their roots from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe to the U.S.
The post Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:Chosen appeared first on WPR.
Journalists Jim Acosta and Van Jones learn about their ancestors.
The post Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:Anchormen appeared first on WPR.
There are currently 16 assistant district attorneys with the Waukesha County District Attorney's Office. However, a 2024 Wisconsin Department of Administration analysis said the county should have around 10 more prosecutors.
The post Waukesha County DA calls out need for more prosecutors appeared first on WPR.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced in a press release Monday that her agency was immediately canceling the $3.1 billion program.
The post Farm, environmental groups lose millions in federal ‘climate-smart’ funding appeared first on WPR.
“Thermometers don’t care who’s in office,” said Dan Vimont, a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “By undercutting our ability to monitor and assess the current state of our world, we are disadvantaging ourselves economically, and we’re disadvantaging ourselves in our national security as well.”
The post How cuts impacting a federal climate report could affect Wisconsin’s disaster preparedness appeared first on WPR.
Former President Biden speaks about Social Security at a disability conference in Chicago on April 15, 2025. The remarks were his first in public since leaving office in January. (Image via C-SPAN livestream)
Former President Joe Biden on Tuesday used his first public address since leaving office to criticize the current administration for cutting thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration and to rebut those who have questioned the program’s relevance.
“In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction. It’s kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon,” Biden said. “They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration, pushing 7,000 employees — 7,000 — out the door in that time, including the most seasoned career officials.”
The Social Security Administration announced earlier this year it would cut staffing from 57,000 to 50,000 employees and reduce the number of regional offices from 10 to four.
Biden urged Republicans to preserve Social Security for future generations, arguing during his 30-minute speech to the national conference of Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago that people have been able to rely on it throughout wars, recessions and the pandemic.
“Social Security is about more than retirement accounts. It’s about honoring a fundamental trust between government and people,” Biden said. “It’s about peace of mind for those who work their whole lives, so they can rest assured they’ll have a chance to get back some of what they earned and what they deserve.”
Biden, who accepted the organization’s Beacon of Hope award, said protecting Social Security and the federal workers who administer the program is about defending core principles.
“Who are we? What makes us distinct from the rest of the world?” Biden asked. “It comes down to basic, in my view, fundamental American values — nobody’s king, nobody’s the boss. Everybody has a shot.”
Biden criticized members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet for making harsh comments about the program. He noted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she missed a Social Security payment and that “the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen because whoever screams is the one stealing.”
Biden also called out billionaire and head of U.S. DOGE Service Elon Musk for calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”
“What the hell are they talking about?” Biden said. “People earn these benefits. They paid into that benefit. They rely on that benefit.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing several hours before Biden’s speech the Trump administration doesn’t plan to cut off Americans’ Social Security benefits.
“Let me make it very clear ahead of former President Biden’s remarks: The president, this president, President Trump is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, tax-paying American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program,” she said. “He will always protect that program. He campaigned on it. He protected it in his first term.”
Leavitt also took a swipe at Biden’s age, saying she didn’t expect him to give a speech during the evening.
“My first reaction when seeing former President Biden was speaking tonight was, I’m shocked that he was speaking at nighttime. I had thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight,” she said.
Biden, 82, last year dropped his reelection bid in a rematch against Trump, 78, amid concerns about his age and mental acuity.
Democrats have raised concerns for months that staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration will impact Americans’ ability to get their questions about the program answered or their issues resolved quickly.
Social Security Commissioner nominee Frank Bisignano testified during his hearing in March that, if confirmed, he would try to “ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.”
Bisignano said he hoped to ensure Social Security recipients could visit an office, use the website, or speak to a real person after calling the 1-800 number.
“On the phone, I’m committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience; waiting 20 minutes-plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear,” Bisignano said. “I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process.”
Bisignano promised lawmakers he would reduce the 1% error rate in payments, which he said was “five decimal places too high.” And he said repeatedly that personally identifiable information will be “protected.”
The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines in early April to send Bisignano’s nomination to the floor, but he hasn’t yet been confirmed.
A crowd gathered outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Tuesday, April 10, 2025, to protest the government's erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, to a mega-prison in the Central American country. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday ordered a defiant Trump administration to provide evidence about how it has tried to secure the release of an immigrant mistakenly deported to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, saying that to date, the record shows “nothing has been done.”
District Judge Paula Xinis laid out a two-week timeline for the government to produce sworn statements on whether and how immigration officials are complying with her previous court order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
“Discovery will bear out whether you have,” Xinis said, referring to the process through which information is disclosed in court. “And if you haven’t, whether it’s a choice or on justified ground.”
“Cancel vacation, cancel other appointments. I’m usually very good about things like that in my courtroom, but not this time,” she said during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, had ordered the administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. by April 7.
A federal appeals court swiftly upheld Xinis’ order. The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 9-0 Thursday that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return — though they stopped short of requiring it — and provide the El Salvadoran due process through the U.S. immigration courts.
The Supreme Court “could not have been clearer,” Xinis said to Drew Ensign, the deputy assistant attorney general who represented the government Tuesday.
Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, who lived with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, and their 5-year-old child, was apprehended by immigration officials in mid-March.
He was among roughly 260 Venezuelan men the U.S. flew on commercial jets, without due process, to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
Garcia has no criminal history in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country, according to court filings in the lawsuit Vasquez Sura brought against the government last month.
An immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 shielding his return to El Salvador because of near certainty he would face violence and persecution.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in court documents that Abrego Garcia’s removal on March 15 was an “administrative error.”
The White House maintains it has no power to ask El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia from CECOT, and that Xinis overstepped her authority in ordering the administration to conduct foreign affairs.
The White House also asserts Abrego Garcia is a “foreign terrorist” and a member of the El Salvadoran gang MS-13, which the administration designated a foreign terrorist organization in February.
“Deporting him was always going to be the end result,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at the daily press briefing.
“There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland,” she said.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told journalists Monday during a visit to the Oval Office, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” labeling Abrego Garcia as a “terrorist.”
The government echoed Bukele’s comments in its daily status report.
“DHS does not have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation,” Joseph Mazarra, acting general counsel for DHS, wrote in Monday’s report.
Following a tense hearing Friday, where the government refused to provide the whereabouts of Abrego Garcia, Xinis ordered the administration to provide the daily updates.
On Tuesday, Xinis told Ensign that the government has provided “very little information of any value” in the reports.
“As a factual matter, I do need evidence in this record because to date what the record shows is nothing has been done,” Xinis said.
Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Vasquez Sura asked the court to order immigration officials to arrange for her husband’s return by the end of April 14.
She also asked the court to mandate government officials provide documents and depositions related to Abrego Garcia’s release, and to show cause as to why Xinis should not hold the government in contempt of court for not complying with orders to bring Abrego Garcia back.
Xinis said she will not make a decision on contempt until she reviews a record of evidence.
The government maintains the Supreme Court’s decision does not mean they must work with El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia because the president, not federal courts, has jurisdiction over foreign affairs.
The administration also contends that the Supreme Court’s use of the term “facilitate” only means that they need to remove “domestic” barriers to bringing Abrego back to the U.S. — not that they would have to work with El Salvador to secure his release.
“Indeed, no other reading of ‘facilitate’ is tenable — or constitutional — here,” they wrote in a response to Vasquez Sura’s request.
In the Oval Office Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. would provide a plane, but cannot force Bukele to release Abrego Garcia.
Ensign provided a transcript of the Oval Office meeting to the court 15 minutes prior to Tuesday’s hearing, according to Xinis.
“I don’t consider what happened yesterday as evidence before this court yet,” Xinis said.
Ensign pushed back on Xinis’ order for expedited discovery, saying that the issue is a “narrow interpretative dispute” of what the word facilitate means that “does not require discovery.”
After pushing back again, Xinis responded, “I just don’t think it’s that difficult. I think you want to make it that difficult because getting to the facts may not be that favorable.”
Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records.
Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.
While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.
The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.
While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.
Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
Immigrant rights groups are cautioning migrants without legal status about the dangers of obeying the Department of Homeland Security’s directive to register with authorities, group leaders told reporters during a virtual press conference Tuesday.
Representatives from immigrant groups across the country said the requirement, which a federal judge upheld last week, is an enforcement tool for President Donald Trump’s administration and that following the directive to register could lead to unlawful detention and deportation.
Participants on the call did not explicitly say they were counseling migrants without legal status against complying with the directive, but said people affected should seek legal counsel first.
“This tool is to identify individuals for detention, deportation and to threaten with imprisonment if they do not comply,” Angelica Salas, the executive director of the advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said.
“These actions are abhorrent to the values of this country, and we will not stand silent to see cruelty as the official immigration policy of this administration. To our community, our message is that you’re not alone, you have rights, seek legal guidance, and you’re not obligated to provide information that can hurt you or your family.”
Under Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the administration has sent “innocent people” to detention facilities at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, Salas said.
The administration has detained immigrants of all legal statuses without due process, and ignored court orders to reverse those actions. Advocates on the press call Tuesday said that defies the law.
Immigrants, even without legal status in the country, are “entitled to their day in immigration court,” Nicole Melaku, the executive director of National Partnership for New Americans, said.
The directive, which requires immigrants who have registered with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to always carry with them proof of their registration, would also lead to racial profiling of U.S. citizens, advocates have said.
Salas said her organization, which is based in Southern California, does not know of anyone who has completed the registration.
The people who are required to register are unclear about whether it is in their interest to comply, and distrust of Trump – who campaigned on an anti-immigration platform and has routinely flouted due process for immigrants – is a major obstacle.
“We don’t have anybody who has – that we know – yet registered,” she said. “There’s a lot of confusion in our community as to whether to do this or not. What does it mean? What are the risks? And I also want to say that … everything that has come from this administration has actually been harmful, so people are taking that into account.”
U.S. Judge Trevor Neil McFadden, whom Trump appointed to the federal bench in 2017, rejected advocacy groups’ attempt to block the directive, saying in an order last week that the groups hadn’t shown they’d been harmed by it.
But the legal fight against the directive will continue, George Escobar, the chief of programs and services at the immigrant services organization CASA, said.
In addition to a possible appeal of McFadden’s ruling, Escobar said his organizations would watch “very, very closely” how the administration conducts the operation, with special attention to racial profiling, and would not hesitate to bring court challenges.
“We will do everything possible to fight this,” he said. “This may be a show-me-your-papers type of situation where people may be racially profiled, stopped on the street just because they’re speaking in other languages, because they look like an immigrant, and has to be asked to show this registration compliance.”
Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.
Children outside with a child care teacher at The Playing Field, a Madison child care center that participates in the federal Head Start program. (Courtesy of The Playing Field)
A news report that the Trump administration is considering ending the federal government’s Head Start program has alarmed providers and parents who rely on the child care and early education program.
“It would be absolutely devastating,” said Jen Bailey, executive director of Reach Dane, which operates 14 Head Start centers in Dane and Green counties. “The children and families we work with are some of the most vulnerable folks in our communities. The parents in those communities rely on the care we provide to stay employed.”
USA Today reported Friday that the Trump administration “is considering a budget proposal that would zero out funding for Head Start.” The news report quoted an anonymous administration official who said the White House funding blueprint for the 2026 fiscal year doesn’t allocate money for Head Start.
The president’s budget is a wish list, and Congress decides how to appropriate federal funds. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson told USA Today that “no final funding decisions have been made.”
Project 2025, the agenda drafted by Russell Vought prior to his confirmation as OMB director, calls for eliminating Head Start.
Responding to the report Monday, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) tied the proposal to President Donald Trump’s goal of extending the 2017 tax cuts enacted in his first term.
“Shutting down Head Start — taking care away from kids, firing teachers, and making child care even more expensive for parents — all so President Trump can hand out new tax breaks for the wealthy and well-connected is flat out wrong and you can be sure I will fight this proposal at every turn,” Baldwin said.
Head Start was founded in 1966, part of the War on Poverty undertaken by President Lyndon Johnson. It provides child care and preschool for families with incomes up to the federal poverty guideline. Children living in foster homes are also eligible for Head Start.
In Wisconsin more than 15,000 children are enrolled in more than 300 Head Start child care centers across the state, according to the Wisconsin Head Start Association. With more than 4,300 employees, Head Start ranks in the top 100 employers in Wisconsin, said Jennie Mauer, the association’s executive director.
“At least 70% of our families have a parent who is either working or in school full time,” Mauer said Monday. The remaining families include grandparents who are retired but full-time caregivers for their grandchildren as well as families unable to work due to disabilities or who “are working through some very, very significant challenges.”
She predicted that the impact from ending the program wouldn’t stop with the families who rely on Head Start.
“If Head Start isn’t there, if this program were to shut down, surely there’ll be tremendous cascading economic impacts in our communities,” Mauer said. “I think for most of the families, it would create a huge labor disruption. With no safe place to have your kids while you’re at work, it’ll create a disaster.
Fears for the survival of Head Start are escalating as the state’s overall child care sector is increasingly under strain. As many as 25% of child care centers in a survey released April 10 said they could close without continuing support in the next state budget.
April Mullins-Datko is Head Start director for ADVOCAP, a social service agency serving Fond du Lac, Winnebago and Green Lake counties. She said that the agency’s four Head Start centers would likely not survive the loss of federal support.
“We would lose services for the 202 children we serve,” Mullins-Datko said. “It would exacerbate the child care crisis we have in our communities, which then has negative impacts on our available workforce.”
I think for most of the families, it would create a huge labor disruption. With no safe place to have your kids while you're at work, it'll create a disaster.
– Jennie Mauer, Wisconsin Head Start Association executive director
ADVOCAP’s centers include three in Fond du Lac County and one in Green Lake County, with 193 families relying on the program for the care and early education of their children.
“Ninety-three percent of my families are working or going to school full time,” Mullins-Datko said.
The agency’s Head Start federal contract is supposed to be good through Dec. 31, 2028, Mullins-Datko said, but with reports of defunding she fears that won’t be honored: “There just doesn’t seem to be any kind of adherence to law and contracts.”
Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council provides social services in Buffalo, Jackson, Trempealeau and Eau Claire counties in West Central Wisconsin. The agency’s programs include nine Head Start centers enrolling 442 children. Of those, 382 children are in preschool and 60 are in Early Head Start, for children from birth to age 3, said Thanh Bui-Duquette, Western Dairyland’s Head Start director.
Three centers are in cities — two in Eau Claire and one in Altoona — but the rest are in rural communities.
“We meet the needs of each individual community,” Bui-Duquette said. “The needs of the urban Eau Claire area look very different from rural Trempealeau County.”
Even with jobs, 96% of the families with children in Western Dairyland’s program have incomes below the federal poverty guideline. For children from those families, she said, Head Start has been demonstrated to improve long-term outcomes — increasing the chances of graduating from high school and going on to higher education, and reducing the chances of ending up in the criminal justice system.
“It’s important to have that solid foundation early on, especially for children from disadvantaged families,” Bui-Duquette said.
The news that Head Start is in the crosshairs of budget-writers in the Trump administration follows other jolts to the program in the last two months.
In late January and early February, Head Start operators reported widespread problems in their efforts to collect standard payments from the federal government. Under Head Start contracts, programs incur an expense then submit documentation through a federal online portal to get reimbursed. Head Start programs reported that payments stalled, for nearly two weeks in some cases, without explanation.
Payments have since resumed, but Mauer said directors are reporting demands for more information holding up payments.
“They’re getting substantial delays for things that are accepted expenses, which is concerning,” she said.
On April 1, Head Start operators learned that the program’s five regional offices across the country were closed without any advance notice, including the Chicago office that serves Wisconsin and five other states in the Upper Midwest.
Those events and the report that the program could be defunded have rattled Head Start employees and the parents who have counted on the program, operators say.
“Families and staff are both really scared and concerned,” said Bailey, the Reach Dane director. “Families are reaching out, worried the program is going to close, asking, ‘Is my child still going to be able to go to school?’”
Reach Dane’s human resources staff has been interviewing applicants for teaching jobs in the coming school year, and applicants are nervous about whether the job will exist, she added.
Bailey said the program is trying to be transparent with employees and families about the uncertainty and fight for the program’s survival, all without sparking panic.
“Trying to figure out how to navigate and inform folks when there’s no communication is a hard place to be,” she said.
This report has been updated.
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Robert "RJay" Fisher shows off a recording studio that is part of the Green Bay Office of Violence Prevention's new location. Fisher is a violence interrupter with the office. (Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner)
Robert “RJay” Fisher has personal experience with the damage gun violence can cause. His work with Green Bay’s Office of Violence Prevention aims to keep others from experiencing the same harm.
Fisher said that “having a brother who is now incarcerated for a situation that happened in Green Bay, that was pretty tough for me. And I know what type of trauma I experienced from that. I had a brother who was shot here on the west side of Green Bay, about 11 years ago. And so, I remember getting those calls, and having to deal with those emotions, and what that felt like.”
He said other family members have been shot. ”I also have lost a lot of friends due to gun violence,” said Fisher. “And just recently, two years ago, I lost my uncle, one of my only uncles, due to gun violence.”
Fisher is a violence interrupter at the Office of Violence Prevention, where he builds relationships with community members and tries to prevent violence before it happens.
The office listens to “rumblings in the community,” Fisher said. When they hear something from social media or word of mouth, it’s their job to put out the fire.
Fisher said he’s been in the community for a long time and worked for the Green Bay Area Public School District. He said his relationships and people’s respect for him enable him “to intervene in those situations and start conversations.”
“And then if they’re open [to it], I try to either meet with them or bring them into the space,” he said. “That’s why it’s critical to have a home base.”
Green Bay’s Office of Violence Prevention was formed in 2023 after the city was awarded a grant from the Medical College of Wisconsin. On Monday, the office held the grand opening of its new location on the east side of Green Bay.
Director Andrea Kressin described it as a safe space where relationship building and coaching can happen. This is important for the office’s prevention work to support people who are at the highest risk of engaging in violence or deter them from engaging in further violence, she said.
Police officers operated at the office’s old location, and high-risk individuals might not have a good relationship with police, Fisher said.
“We kind of take them out of their environment, and bring them in a calm, safe space where we can then use our CBT [cognitive behavioral therapy] strategies to kind of help them rewire the way they think,” Fisher said.
In its 2023 crime report, the Green Bay Police Department reported six homicides and a 17% decrease in assault offenses, which included gun violence.
In its 2024 crime report, the department reported four fewer homicides, but also reported a rise in crimes against persons of around 18%. Some of the offenses that led to the increase included aggravated assault, simple assault and kidnapping/abduction.
The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform partnered with Green Bay Police and other local community corrections agencies to study shootings and homicides in Green Bay between 2019 and 2021. The analysis found that in Green Bay “most gun violence is tightly concentrated on a small number of very high risk young Black male adults that share a common set of risk factors.”
These risk factors included involvement in street crews/groups and significant criminal justice history, according to the analysis. The analysis found that shootings were often caused by a “petty conflict over a young woman, a simple argument, or a feud on social media.” People involved in groups or gangs were also involved in a range of other criminal activities, such as selling drugs or robbery, which made them more likely to be involved in violence.
One of the report’s recommendations was that the city of Green Bay should invest in development and expansion of community-based violence intervention services.
Kressin said the Office of Violence Prevention has played a part in contributing to a short-term reduction in the number of homicides as well as shots-fired incidents in the community.
When a violent incident happens and has the potential to lead to retaliation in the community, a primary role of the office is to intervene, Kressin said. She also said the office has built partnerships with community organizations, participated in community events, hosted community conversations in Spanish and English and knocked on doors.
Fisher said the Green Bay Police Department shares information with the Office of Violence Prevention. The department can give information to Kressin, and the office can make a plan to get involved. The goal is to minimize and defuse a situation so they don’t have to contact the police, but the office will contact the police to avoid someone getting hurt, Fisher said.
The new location includes a recording studio, lending library, video production tools and interactive workshops aimed at building life skills in collaboration with community organizations, the office said in a statement.
Kressin said participants can learn about music production and build relationships with violence interrupters. One of the interrupters is working with podcasting and videography, and the Office of Violence Prevention is getting started with the rollout, she said.
Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis was one of the speakers at the grand opening’s press conference.
“Our police officers in our organization have been able to make some really great relationships, and a lot of us, myself included, have been able to see tangible results in real people’s lives as a result of that work together,” Davis said. “And so we’re looking forward to what the future holds for this program and for this community.”
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On a sunny spring day on a farm outside St. Louis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin celebrated a new era for America’s wetlands.
Flanked by farm equipment and a large American flag, Zeldin said federal rules about wetlands, long a source of frustration for people who want to drain them to grow crops or build homes, were going to relax.
“The federal government doesn’t need to be regulating every puddle on every property everywhere in America,” he said to a group of local farmers, in a state that has already lost nearly 90% of its natural wetlands.
Zeldin said the Trump administration will once and for all solve the hotly debated question of which wetlands are federally protected — determined by the tricky term “Waters of the United States” — so farmers won’t be punished for draining them.
That solution, Zeldin said, will come from a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared only wetlands connected to a “water of the U.S.” will be protected. That ruling, Sackett v. EPA, could remove safeguards from more than half of the nation’s remaining wetlands, which slow flooding, improve water quality and serve as important wildlife habitat.
“There is nothing to debate anymore … we’re going to follow the Supreme Court,” Zeldin said. “It’s going to be simple.”
But wetland protections have never been simple.
To align with Sackett, the EPA will rewrite the definition of “Waters of the U.S.,” which spells out which water bodies and wetlands are subject to federal regulation in the Clean Water Act. The term has been caught in the crosshairs of litigation and politics for decades. Environmental advocates claim more expansive federal protections are needed to preserve the country’s natural resources, while some farmers and homebuilders argue the government is overstepping its authority to control their land.
Zeldin’s proposed definition instructs the federal government to take a big step back from how many wetlands it protects, which conservationists have warned will further abuse a misunderstood ecosystem that has already experienced widespread destruction.
The battle to save what’s left will fall to the states, which don’t protect wetlands equally.
The Mississippi River, of course, doesn’t heed any state rules on its long journey from Minnesota to the Gulf, and its millions of acres of wetlands control flooding and catch pollutants all along the way. An uncertain future for those wetlands means an uncertain future for the river and the people, animals and ecosystems that rely on it.
Wetlands are places where land and water meet, and the Mississippi River Basin, which covers 40% of the contiguous U.S., hosts some 65 million acres of them.
What they look like varies immensely. The prairie potholes of the upper Great Plains formed from retreating glaciers. Peatlands, most common in Minnesota, are characterized by a layer of dead plant material called peat. The swamps of the Gulf South are home to water-loving trees, like cypress and tupelo. And along the coast, freshwater from the river’s mouth and saltwater from the ocean mix in tidal marshes.
Their common denominator is their great ecological diversity and their ability to relieve flooding, purify water, mitigate drought and provide rich wildlife habitat. Experts say in an era of increased storms, droughts and floods wrought by climate change, they’re needed now more than ever.
During the river’s massive, long-lasting flood in 2019, Nahant Marsh, a protected wetland in Davenport, Iowa, held about a trillion gallons of water from the Mississippi that would otherwise have flooded downstream communities, according to Brian Ritter, executive director of the marsh’s education center.
Despite their benefits, wetlands are in peril. Intentional destruction began in the country’s colonial days, when “drain the swamp” was a literal, not political, strategy to clear space for farmland and cities. They were also vilified, thought to harbor diseases, dangerous animals and even monsters and ghosts.
The states that border the Mississippi River have lost at least half of the wetlands they once had, and in some states, like Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, nearly all are gone. In 2019, the latest year for which data is available, only about 116 million acres of wetlands remained in the contiguous U.S., roughly half of the pre-colonial landscape.
In the last 50 years, societal views of wetlands changed as people learned more about their value. They also became a bipartisan issue. The 1972 Clean Water Act gave them federal protections; the 1985 Swampbuster provision in the Farm Bill penalized farmers who grew crops on converted wetlands; and former President George H.W. Bush declared “no net loss” of wetlands a national goal in the late 1980s.
But they are still disappearing. The Mississippi River Basin lost 132,000 acres of wetlands between 2009 and 2019, according to data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s the equivalent of about 100,000 football fields.
And as efforts to protect wetlands picked up, so did the issue’s political charge, launching fights over the remains of a system that was once far more vast.
“When people heard about wetlands, it was always, ‘There’s a wetland in between where I am now and what I need to do. And the goddamn government won’t let me fix that,’” said Tracy Hames, executive director of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association.
Before Sackett, the Supreme Court tried to lay down the law in Rapanos v. United States in 2006, when a developer in Michigan wanted to fill in wetlands on his property to build a shopping center. A majority of the justices agreed that the government had overstepped, but they offered two interpretations of which wetlands get federal protections. One was more restrictive, saying only wetlands that touch a protected body of water could be regulated, and one was broader, saying any wetlands that play a key role in improving downstream water quality could be regulated.
In the years that followed, presidential administrations have flip-flopped between the broader and more restrictive approach to governing wetlands, continually redefining “Waters of the U.S.”
Former President Joe Biden’s administration issued a broader “Waters of the U.S.” rule. But 26 states sued to block his rule from taking effect. That means that while those legal battles play out, the country is using two “Waters of the U.S.” rules to determine which wetlands are protected — Biden’s amended rule and an older version in the states that sued.
“Waters of the U.S.” has been a “pain in the side” for farmers and ranchers, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in Washington March 12 after Zeldin announced his intent to revise the rule.
“I need a rule that’s on one page, that’s sitting on the dash of my truck right beside my devotional book, and if I have a question about a ravine on my farm I can pick that one page up and read it and interpret it myself,” Duvall said. “It should be that simple.”
And homebuilders say to fix the nation’s housing shortage, which is estimated to be at least 1.5 million housing units, developers will need wetlands.
They’ve tried to avoid them because of the difficult permitting process over the years, said Tom Ward, vice president of legal advocacy for the National Association of Home Builders.
“To get these 1.5 million units, we’re going to have to go back to some of those more difficult pieces of property,” Ward said.
Speaking with reporters in Chesterfield, Zeldin said he’d end the ambiguity and back-and-forth with one word.
“Sackett,” he said. “S-A-C-K-E-T-T.”
On March 12 the EPA issued guidance that spells out what the new rule will do: Unless a wetland directly abuts another federally protected water, it will not get federal protections.
Importantly, that guidance isn’t legally binding. Until the EPA issues its new rule, wetlands will still have Biden-era protections, meaning half of the country will be under one rule, and half will be under another. And the rule-making process contains lengthy steps that can take years — the Trump administration issued its first “Waters of the U.S.” rule in 2020 — although Zeldin has promised this one won’t take as long.
That means the actual impacts of Sackett are yet to be understood, although some have attempted to predict them. Following the ruling, the EPA under Biden estimated that up to 63% of the nation’s remaining wetland acres could lose federal protections.
Another way to examine the impact is by looking at the determinations the Army Corps makes when someone wants to drain or fill a wetland. After the Sackett decision, about 18% fewer of those determinations found the wetland was federally protected, according to Adam Gold, coasts and watersheds science manager for the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund.
Although the tool Gold created to track the change in these determinations has limitations, in part because of a small post-Sackett sample size, he said it gives a “sneak peek” at how federal protections for wetlands are waning.
Even under a new rule that the Trump administration asserts will be more straightforward, wetlands will not have the same protections across the country because different states have different rules. Along the Mississippi River, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Mississippi have wetland protections that go beyond the arm of the Clean Water Act, an Ag & Water Desk analysis found. But Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas do not have more protective wetland laws on the books. Louisiana extends broader state protections to its coastal wetlands, but not inland ones.
In other words, it will be easier to develop wetlands for housing in Missouri, for example, than in Minnesota. That will likely cause confusion and variation across the country, said Mark Davis, founding director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy in New Orleans. “I think you’re almost guaranteed to have more confusion … we’re like everybody else. We’re reading tea leaves.”
Even the state laws are moving targets. Illinois is aiming to beef up its wetland protections, for example, while in Tennessee, lawmakers want to scale theirs back.
Still, Zeldin intends to close the case on “Waters of the U.S.,” stepping back from decades of broad federal protections for wetlands and giving farmers and developers the certainty they’ve long asked for, with Sackett as his guide.
But given the history of wetland regulation, certainty could still be an elusive target.
After all, the Biden administration defended its amended “Waters of the U.S.” rule as being consistent with the Sackett ruling, too, said Abby Husselbee, a staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Energy and Environmental Law program.
“To the extent that this EPA would proclaim to be the final arbiter of how Sackett applies to the definition of (Waters of the U.S.) — we see already that there are other interpretations,” Husselbee said. “I don’t necessarily know that those would go away forever.”
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge
W28488 Refuge Road, Trempealeau, WI 54661; 608-539-2311
Located in a quiet part of the river far from highways and railroad tracks, the wetlands at Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge — marshes, mostly — attract wildlife including beavers, muskrats and birds. In fall, migrating waterfowl fill the refuge’s wetlands.
N8327 Amsterdam Prairie Road, Holmen, WI 54636
Van Loon Wildlife Area is best known for preserving a series of unique bowstring arch truss bridges built in the early 1900s, but the trails pass through a floodplain forest rich with wetlands near the confluence of the Black and Mississippi rivers. The marshes and swamps in its 4,000 acres support a diverse range of wildlife, and the trees dazzle with color in fall.
W6488 County Road GI, Stoddard, WI 54658; 608-788-7018
Located at the southern end of La Crosse, the marshes and swamps around Goose Island are accessible by boat (follow the signed 7-mile canoe trail) and on foot. It’s also a good place to catch the sun setting over the wetlands, especially from the trails in the southern third of the island.
Avery Martinez of KMOV, Estefania Pinto Ruiz of KWQC and Elise Plunk of the Louisiana Illuminator contributed to this story. It is part of the series Down the Drain from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting collaborative based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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A new era dawns for America’s disappearing wetlands as feds retreat from oversight 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.
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