(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Senate voted to approve a measure that would allow Wisconsin voters this fall to limit the governor’s partial veto power.
(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers are pushing a bill that would end the ability of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees for animal market licenses, animal dealer licenses, animal trucker licenses…
(The Center Square) – One of the candidates for supreme court in Wisconsin continues to want to take abortion out of the conversation for this spring’s election.
A vast majority of the roughly 1,000 immigrants arrested by ICE in Wisconsin between January and October of last year had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. But arrests in Wisconsin of immigrants with no criminal history were ticking upward. Roughly 17% had no prior criminal convictions or pending charges. Roughly half of those without criminal histories were arrested at DHS’ downtown Milwaukee office, often while checking in on the status of their immigration cases.
DHS’s claims about arrestees’ criminal histories do not always match court records. Among the two dozen immigrants arrested in Manitowoc last October — the largest ICE raid in Wisconsin since Trump took office — was Abraham Maldonado Almanza, a dairy worker from Mexico. DHS claimed he had a prior conviction for identity theft, but court records in Wisconsin and Iowa, where Maldonado Almanza lived before moving to Manitowoc, show nothing to corroborate the claim. DHS also claimed that the Manitowoc operation netted a Honduran national charged with sexual assault of a child, but that man, Hilario Moreno Portillo, had been in ICE custody for months at the time of the Manitowoc arrests, court records showed.
Even without enforcement surges like those in Illinois and Minnesota, the Trump administration’s immigration policy overhauls are reshaping Wisconsin. We recently documented the consequences for two immigrant workers in key sectors of the state’s economy: a Mexican engineer at an aluminum foundry in Manitowoc and a Nicaraguan herdsman who lacks legal status while working on a dairy farm near Madison. Their employers, who rely on immigrant labor to expand or maintain their operations, are also feeling the pinch, as will consumers if farmers’ and manufacturers’ hiring woes drive up prices.
You can find more of our immigration coverage here.
As we continue reporting on the White House’s immigration crackdown, we want to hear from you. What questions would you like us to answer? What are we missing? Where should we look next?
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Officials from the town of Carlton and Cloverleaf Infrastructure told Wisconsin Watch the company is no longer pursuing a data center project near the Kewaunee Power Station.
The resolution happened in late 2025.
Cloverleaf Infrastructure is still interested in building a data center in northeast Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, plans for EnergySolutions to build a new plant at the Kewaunee Power Station are slowly moving forward. The company submitted files to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.
Leaders of data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure have decided against pursuing land to build a data center in the town of Carlton in Kewaunee County after local residents opposed the idea.
The company scrapped its plans in the northeast Wisconsin farming community in late 2025, Cloverleaf and town of Carlton officials confirmed last week.
“The town chairperson said, ‘I don’t support data centers. I don’t think this is a good fit,’” Cloverleaf’s Chief Development Officer Aaron Bilyeu said. “We shook hands and said ‘thank you.’”
Cloverleaf’s decision to back off makes Carlton one of the latest towns to fend off companies looking for the space to erect often-massive data warehouses powering artificial intelligence, social media and cloud computing.
Wisconsin Watch reported in October that some Carlton residents were nervous about selling local farmland to build a data center after town officials said interested developers reached out to them.
Those fears were stoked by news that Carlton’s shuttered nuclear power plant may see new life. The plant’s owner is seeking government approval for a new nuclear power station at the site because it believes data centers and artificial intelligence will increase the state’s energy demand.
“I’m against big business,” said town Chairman David Hardtke, who has pushed back against the idea for months. “People in the town of Carlton do not want the AI (data) center.”
Similar dilemmas have played out in other rural Wisconsin communities, as residents try to block tech giants from settling in their towns.
In recent weeks, Cloverleaf offered to buy property for a data center in Greenleaf, a village in Brown County. The move drew outrage from community members, leading Cloverleaf officials to ax the proposal last week.
The decision in Carlton was a much quieter conclusion for residents of a county where cattle outnumber people by nearly 5 to 1. Some community members told Wisconsin Watch they were nervous about what losing more farmland would mean for local families and business owners.
“Once they take land away, you know, it’ll never come back,” Chris Kohnle, president of the local Tisch Mills Farm Center, told Wisconsin Watch in September.
David Hardtke, town of Carlton chairman and third-generation farmer, poses for a portrait next to one of his many vintage tractors on Sept. 16, 2025, in Kewaunee, Wis. Hardtke confirmed that Cloverleaf Infrastructure is no longer looking to build a data center in the town. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Others were less concerned, telling Wisconsin Watch that Kewaunee County has stagnated since the nuclear plant shuttered. They shared hopes that investment from big business could create more economic activity, well-paying local jobs and a reason for young people to stay in the area.
“If you bring in an employer like that who is paying, you’re going to see development. You’re going to see new homes being built, and more businesses move in,” Kewaunee County resident Dan Giannotti said in August. “Because right now we’re just stagnant … nothing’s happening to speak of.”
Despite striking out in Carlton and Greenleaf, Bilyeu said Cloverleaf is still looking for a data center site in northeast Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is attractive to developers because of the tax incentives it offers and its cool climate. Data centers need cooling methods to prevent overheating — making Carlton’s proximity to a massive water source particularly attractive.
“We’re not the only ones looking for data center sites in the area,” Bilyeu said. “We’re just the only ones that are forthright, and we’ll actually talk to people and identify ourselves and let people know what we’re doing and what we’re interested in.”
Carlton still remains on the precipice of much potential change, as the Kewaunee Power Station project inches forward.
Last week, plant owner EnergySolutions submitted files to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that company spokespeople describe as “an important next step” in getting government approval to bring nuclear power back to the site. The permitting process is lengthy, and even if everything goes smoothly, they don’t expect construction would begin until the early 2030s.
A Republican proposal would require the Department of Public Instruction to expand access to mental health services for some Wisconsin high school students.
Spiking energy demand driven by data center development could lead to between $113 billion and $130 billion in total electricity system costs for Wisconsin by 2050, while increasing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
In his 2024 campaign to return to the White House, Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd in Green Bay in October wearing a bright orange work vest, pledging that if he won the presidency again, he would reduce prices and end inflation. But more than a year later, some Wisconsin consumers say that relief hasn’t materialized.
“Yes it’s Wisconsin, yes it’s January, yes it gets cold, we know all of that. But this is much colder than what we’re used to dealing with. It’s a big difference in these temperatures coming than what we typically see here," Green Bay meteorologist Kurt Kotenberg said.
Seven Democratic candidates for Wisconsin governor gathered for a forum in Milwaukee Wednesday evening, the first major event in what is expected to be a heated primary race.
Starting in October, the state's share of administrative costs for FoodShare, the state's name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will increase from 50 percent to 75 percent.
A Fox Valley construction company is dropping a lawsuit it filed against Green Bay over concerns about the city’s bidding process for a park pavilion project.
Organizers gather in Menomonie, Wisconsin in early December, 2025 to protest against a $1.6 billion data center proposal in their community. Residents’ concerns over data center development in rural Wisconsin revolve around lack of project transparency, water and energy usage, and financial impact on local tax bases. (Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group)
Blaine Halverson joked that his only exposure to data centers was from the Mission Impossible movies in the 1990s. That was, until one came to his town. Over the last seven months, Halverson’s community of Menomonie, Wisconsin, population 16,700, has become a flashpoint in a growing debate over data center development and local control in the state.
Halverson has lived in Menomonie, which is just over an hour east of Minneapolis, for most of his life. Like many others in his rural community, Halverson didn’t know much about the hyperscale data centers, built by the world’s largest technology companies, that are cropping up across the U.S. to power artificial intelligence. Then, in July 2025, Halverson was on vacation with his wife when he learned of a $1.6 billion data center proposal slated for around 320 acres of farmland on the outskirts of Menomonie.
Immediately, Halverson had questions.
“All of a sudden, I was activated,” said Halverson. “What really activated me was how far along this was, and that the public was just finding out.”
Over the next six months, Halverson and dozens of other concerned Menomonie residents coordinated a local opposition campaign that on January 5, 2026, resulted in Menomonie’s City Council revising a zoning ordinance to bar Balloonist, LLC, the developer representing an undisclosed ‘tech giant’, from moving ahead on construction.
An attorney for Balloonist LLC did not respond to the Daily Yonder’s request for comment.
In Port Washington, Wisconsin, many residents oppose a $15 billion data center campus that’s currently under construction for end-users Oracle and OpenAI. (No Data Centers in Ozaukee County Facebook group)
Halverson’s frustration about the project’s lack of transparency is one that has echoed throughout the state. In other rural counties and in villages sandwiched between larger cities like Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay, data center proposals in places like Beaver Dam, Port Washington, and Caledonia have been met with fierce opposition from residents. Developers eyeing land in Greenleaf, a village outside of Green Bay, and in Grant County, which borders the Mississippi River, have also faced community backlash. Commonly cited concerns revolve around project secrecy and the data centers’ projected energy usage, water needs, and financial impact on communities with small tax bases.
Beyond requiring vast amounts of power and water to keep operations running 24/7, large data center proposals in rural areas often represent a significant, if not dominant, share of the community’s tax levy. This leaves residents fearing what will happen if the planned data centers do not live up to their promises, should the stock market take a turn, the developers go bankrupt, or the technology inside the warehouse-like structures become obsolete.
“They’re not seeing the long-term risks,” said Prescott Balch about the elected officials who push for data center development in Wisconsin’s rural communities. Balch is a retired software developer and former technology executive at U.S. Bank. He also lives in Caledonia, Wisconsin, a rural village south of Milwaukee whose residents ousted a 244-acre Microsoft data center that was slated for land zoned for agriculture in October of 2025.
“No investment advisor, for example, would ever let you do [that] with your investment portfolio. They’d get fired for saying, ‘Put all your eggs in this one basket.’ It doesn’t matter how solid that one basket is. It’s still one basket with a lot of risk if it walks out the door,” Balch said.
A hot spot
Over the last year, rural Wisconsin has become somewhat of a hotspot for data center developers. The allure for Big Tech companies racing to build infrastructure to train and run complex AI models comes in the form of tax incentives, low-cost land, and, in many rural communities, flexible zoning codes.
But residents like Halverson and Balch are taking notice and starting to organize together. Opposition groups that have formed in communities faced with data center proposals are using digital tools like Facebook and Signal to connect with one another across the Badger State. Now, a growing coalition of rural residents and environmental organizations are urging state legislators to regulate data center development and, in some instances, taking legal action to improve transparency.
The debate over Wisconsin’s data center boom is both rooted in local governance and relevant to the national conversation about rising electricity costs. In an election year, data center infrastructure has become a political issue, yet it’s one that rural coalition members insist is nonpartisan. What’s on the ballot, including a crowded gubernatorial race, could influence that.
Why Wisconsin?
To grasp why data centers are coming to Wisconsin, you have to understand a particularly wonky part of the state’s tax code, according to Port Washington resident Michael Beaster. A resident of the rural city just north of Milwaukee, Beaster opposes the $15 billion campus being built by Vantage Data Centers to serve end-users Oracle and OpenAI as part of their $500 billion Stargate campaign to develop AI infrastructure across the U.S.
The wonky policy Beaster is talking about is a tax incremental district, or TID.
In Wisconsin, a TID lets developers pay their property taxes into a separate box from the rest of the community as a way to capture property value growth associated with new projects. During construction, a developer, like Vantage, contributes taxes to this special box to cover infrastructure costs associated with their project, like new roads and power lines. Depending on the terms of the TID, that tax money is then kept in the box until all infrastructure costs have been paid, often a period of 15-20 years.
Typically, this kind of tax policy helps small- or medium-scale developers, like new packing plants or housing developments, pay for their associated infrastructure costs over time. With hyperscale data centers, however, rural residents worry that the high costs of the developments’ power and water infrastructure will rack up for the community to pay while the developers’ taxes sit in a special box.
“If the village decides to raise the tax levy, it comes off the backs of the current residents only, and that is completely and utterly invisible right now to most people,” said Balch, who worked to reject Microsoft’s proposed data center campus in Caledonia last fall.
Residents gathered on November 4, 2025 for a Common Council Meeting in Port Washington, Wisconsin, where the city voted to create a tax incremental district (TID) for Oracle and OpenAI’s data center complex. The meeting was held in a local hotel ballroom to accommodate the large showing of community members. (Brian Slawson)
In November of 2025, the city of Port Washington approved a TID that enables Vantage to pay upfront for the estimated $175 million in infrastructure costs, plus $91 million for an electrical substation and $187 million in interest, associated with their data center campus, including upgraded water and sewer mains and new power infrastructure. Port Washington will then be responsible for paying Vantage back for those infrastructure costs over time.
The TID is set up as a pool of money to remain open for up to 20 years for the city to draw from to reimburse Vantage. Some residents, including Beaster, have expressed concerns that the financing model could end up raising taxes for locals. On January 2, 2026, a Port Washington-based group of activists filed a lawsuit against the city to challenge the TID.
“People don’t want to see their communities handed over to large corporations,” Beaster said.
Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke did not respond to the Daily Yonder’s request for clarification on whether the city’s TID would result in higher taxes for residents.
Last summer, a bipartisan measure in Wisconsin’s legislature updated the state’s tax incremental financing policy to exempt data centers from caps on the amount of money that can be held in a TID. The act mentions both Port Washington and Beaver Dam by name and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Tony Evers on July 8, 2025. In addition to TIDs, Wisconsin also offers a sales and use tax exemption to incentivize data center development. The exemptions are offered on a ladder based on a developer’s intended investment and the host county’s population, with less populous counties requiring less investment. For rural counties, the minimum investment required to claim the exemption is $50 million.
For Asad Ramzanali, former deputy director for strategy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under the Biden Administration, it is this kind of policy that goes against the idea that data centers should have to pay their “fair share”.
“When the largest companies, the most well-resourced companies, in the history of the world are behind these data centers, it feels particularly unfair to have states level tax breaks for construction,” Ramzanali told the Daily Yonder.
“People should not have to pay increased utility bills. People should not have to pay for transmission lines going up, [and] people shouldn’t have to deal with dirty water sources because of a data center.”
Nonpartisan, but political
With local pushback to data centers picking up steam, state legislators are taking note. Beaster said that’s a change from the attitude that some legislators had a few months ago, when his rural community members were mobilizing against the data center in Port Washington last summer and fall.
“When we started really getting involved in trying to mobilize, we tried to write letters and emails and stuff to state legislators, and they just weren’t very responsive,” Beaster said. “It felt to us like they were more interested in bringing these things here than regulating them.”
A drone photo showing land in Port Washington, Wisconsin, population 12,750, that was annexed for data center development. Highland Drive, the road pictured in the foreground, has been closed to the public. On January 2, 2026, a Port Washington-based group of activists filed a lawsuit against the city to challenge the tax incremental district. (Brian Slawson)
In early December, 2025, Democrats introduced a bill to regulate data centers and entice them to take climate-friendly steps. Under the proposed legislation, residents would be protected from footing the utility costs associated with data centers. If passed, the bill would also subject data centers to an annual fee, ranging from $2-3 million, to fund clean energy and low-income heating assistance programs. The legislation also includes a measure to hinge state tax incentives, like the sales and use tax exemption, upon data centers using at least 70% renewable energy.
In January, 2025, Republicans introduced a data center bill of their own, with similarities including mandated reporting on water usage and restrictions on passing development-related utility costs onto families and small businesses. The Republican legislation would also mandate that data centers wanting to use renewable energy would need to build those energy sources, like solar, on the same property.
The utility provisions in both the Democrat and Republican-backed bills come as the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) prepares to hear a case in February of 2026, from We Energies, the state’s largest utility, that will determine how much data centers will have to pay for their infrastructure, and how much gets passed onto other ratepayers.
We Energies has requested a pay structure that holds data centers accountable for 75% of their capital costs. That request has been challenged by the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club, which argues large customers like data centers should be held responsible for 100% of their associated costs.
“This is the decision for how much the largest utility is making large customers pay, and right now the proposal is really bad for an average residential customer,” said Cassie Steiner, a senior campaign coordinator at Sierra Club. The PSC is expected to hand down a decision on the 2026 rate structure in the spring.
Even as data center regulation captures lawmakers’ attention at the state capitol in Madison, organizers in Menomonie, Port Washington, and Caledonia maintain that local opposition isn’t tied to party.
“One of the things that has been really amazing to me about this process is that I know the people I’m standing shoulder-to-shoulder with in this group, a lot of them never vote the same way I would when we go into the into the voting booth in November,” Halverson said of his work in Menomonie.
“If it’s your farmland and your community, you’re an extreme environmentalist, and if it’s your power bill going up, then you’re a fiscal conservative.”
People travel through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Nov. 7, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials placed an asylum seeker who is eight months pregnant on a deportation flight Wednesday afternoon, even though she was in medical distress, her attorneys told States Newsroom.
ICE officials and the Department of Homeland Security responded to States Newsroom’s requests for comment, but did not answer questions about the specific case.
Zharick Daniela Buitrago Ortiz, a 21-year-old national of Colombia, has a pending asylum case, said one of her attorneys, Nora Ahmed, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana. Buitrago Ortiz was also represented by the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center.
As an asylum seeker, she was going through the credible fear process, a key step to establish an immigrant’s claim for asylum if they can show a fear of persecution or torture in their home country. Asylum seekers are typically allowed to live in the United States while their case proceeds.
Buitrago Ortiz is between 32 and 33 weeks pregnant and was deported from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Airport officials did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Ahmed said flying late in pregnancy can have serious risks.
Buitrago Ortiz earlier had been detained in a center in Louisiana. She was placed by ICE on a flight from there to Atlanta prior to her removal to Colombia, her attorneys said.
As she waited for the flight to Colombia, Buitrago Ortiz experienced intense, shooting pain in her back and abdomen, according to her attorneys. They said they were also concerned about the risk to her health and that of her unborn child if she was placed on the flight, which is roughly five hours nonstop.
ICE generally has a policy to not detain immigrants who are pregnant unless there are exceptional circumstances. Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about reports of ICE detainment of pregnant immigrants, and urged ICE acting Director Todd Lyons to order the release of any immigrants who were pregnant from ICE detention facilities.
Ahmed said as recently as Jan. 18, there had been no indication that Buitrago Ortiz would be removed from the United States.
Ahmed said Buitrago Ortiz came to the U.S. with her family. Her mother received a favorable credible fear interview, meaning an immigration official believed there was a possibility of harm if she returned to her home country.
The family arrived in El Paso, Texas, in early November, according to Buitrago Ortiz’s mother, who asked not to be named for fear of harming her own asylum case.
Additionally, Ahmed said the father of Buitrago Ortiz’s child was murdered earlier this month in Colombia.
“It’s important that we understand that there is a woman in medical distress,” Ahmed said. “The clock is ticking.”
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive to attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced resolutions Wednesday to recommend former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena the panel issued related to the investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The votes on both resolutions were bipartisan, though Democrats argued over several points during the nearly day-long meeting. The next step would be consideration by the full House. If approved on the House floor, the matter would be referred to the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington, D.C., and could potentially lead to a fine of up to $100,000 or even prison time of up to one year.
The resolution on Bill Clinton passed 34-8, with all Republicans and nine Democrats voting in favor.
The Democrats who voted to approve the resolution were Maxwell Frost of Florida, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Stephen Lynch and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Emily Randall of Washington, Lateefah Simon of California, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Dave Min of California voted present. Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett of Texas did not vote.
The resolution covering Hillary Clinton was narrower, 28-15, with only three Democrats, Lee, Stansbury and Tlaib, voting in favor.
Subpoenas defied by Clintons, others
Republicans on the committee, including Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, said the Clintons defied subpoenas to provide depositions about Epstein’s long-running record of sexual abuse of young girls.
“No witness, not a former president or a private citizen, may willfully defy a duly issued congressional subpoena without consequence,” Comer said. “But that is what the Clintons did.”
Democrats said they, too, wanted to hear testimony from the Clintons, whose depositions were ordered by bipartisan subpoenas last year, but that the committee Republicans were singling out the couple because of their partisan affiliation.
Various other officials, of both parties, who’d received subpoenas also did not comply. Neither did Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislane Maxwell.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump has not turned over documents related to the investigation, despite a November law requiring their full release, Democrats on the panel said.
Yet only the Clintons, influential Democrats, were being prosecuted for defying the committee, Democrats said.
“It’s interesting that it’s this subpoena only that Republicans and the chairman have been obsessed about putting all their energy behind,” ranking Democrat Robert Garcia, of California, said.
Comer responded that the other examples were different. Other officials had less personal knowledge of Epstein than the Clintons; Maxwell had said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, obviating the need for testimony; and the Justice Department was working, however slowly, on releasing the millions of documents required under the law, he said.
“As I’ve stated many times publicly, we wish this process was going quicker,” he said. “There’s a lot of documents, a lot of redactions. A lot of eyes have to be put on this. The Department of Justice is complying.”
In an open letter to Comer last week, the Clintons said they were working to assist in the investigation, but complained they were being treated more harshly than other witnesses, while also criticizing Comer’s handling of the case.
“Despite everything that needs to be done to help our country, you are on the cusp of bringing Congress to a halt to pursue a rarely used process literally designed to result in our imprisonment,” they wrote. “This is not the way out of America’s ills, and we will forcefully defend ourselves.”
Negotiations or stalling?
Members of each party argued over various issues the panel members had been negotiating with the Clintons, such as the location of the interview, whether notes or a transcript would be allowed and whether the Clintons could provide written testimony only, as other witnesses had.
Democrats on the panel said the Clintons and their lawyers had been working with the committee in good faith to iron out those issues. But Comer said they were stalling the panel in the hopes that Democrats would retake the House in November.
“We have been negotiating for five months,” Comer said. “This is clearly a stall tactic, hoping that the time clock runs out and the House flips and you all let them off the hook.”
Contrary to Democrats’ argument, not every witness was allowed to offer written testimony, Comer added, including Republican former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
Hillary Clinton inclusion questioned
Bill Clinton had a well-documented personal relationship with Epstein, including travel on the billionaire’s private plane. Photos of the two were among the documents released in the initial tranche the Justice Department provided under the November law.
But Garcia objected to the inclusion of Hillary Clinton in the committee’s resolution Wednesday, saying the available evidence appeared to confirm her public account that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s activities.
“No one who is serious about justice for Epstein’s survivors believes that Hillary Clinton has somehow been involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes,” Garcia said.
He added that Trump pledged to prosecute Hillary Clinton after he won the 2016 presidential campaign against her. Garcia said it appeared Trump was weaponizing the federal government against a political opponent.
Other Democrats said the committee was enforcing Trump’s political prosecution.
Comer said Hillary Clinton had a personal relationship with Maxwell and a financial one with Epstein.
Trump also had a personal relationship with Epstein for years. Democrats on the panel repeated Wednesday the widely made assertion that Trump’s Justice Department was shielding the president by resisting the production of documents.
Wisconsin DNR Secretary Karen Hyun testifies to an Assembly committee about legislation to address PFAS contamination. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
A Wisconsin Assembly committee held a hearing Wednesday on a pair of bills to help mitigate and clean up water contamination caused by PFAS — a class of compounds also known as “forever chemicals” that has been tied to cancer and developmental diseases in children.
For two and a half years, $125 million set aside in the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget to fund the cleanup of PFAS contamination has sat untouched as the Republican-controlled Legislature, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and a collection of interest groups were unable to reach agreement on how to structure the program and who should be held responsible for the pollution.
After initial optimism, the first legislative effort died after Democrats and environmental groups complained that the proposal let polluters off the hook.
While the debate in Madison has dragged on, communities including French Island near La Crosse, the town of Stella near Rhinelander, Wausau and Marinette have continued to face the harms of PFAS-contaminated water.
When the legislation was introduced again at the beginning of this legislative session, legislators again expressed hope that a compromise could be reached. Earlier this week, the bill’s authors, Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) and Rep. Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz), released a proposed amendment to the legislation. One of the bills directs how the money in the trust fund will be directed and the other creates the programs through which the money will flow.
At the hearing Wednesday, the duo emphasized how important it was for them to get the money out the door into affected communities and the need for compromise on the issue.
“The 2023-2025 budget included $125 million to address PFAS contamination and support cleanup efforts across the state,” Mursau said. “Unfortunately, those funds are sitting idle because we have failed to pass the legislation necessary to put them to work. Progress will require compromise. There are stakeholders on both sides of the aisle who may not like these amendments, but that is the reality of divided government, and it is not an excuse for inaction.”
The pair said the latest version of the legislation is the result of months of negotiations with the Department of Natural Resources and the Evers administration.
While the legislation still includes the “innocent landowner” provisions that have been at the heart of the dispute, the amended version tightens the definition of who qualifies. Wimberger said the new definition would still allow the DNR to bring enforcement actions against industries including paper companies and airports, but that the current version represents a lot of movement from the DNR and Evers.
“There was quite a bit of coming off the ledge on the governor’s side regarding innocent landowners,” Wimberger said.
Additionally, the bill creates a number of programs to test for PFAS and fund mitigation efforts by helping individual landowners dig new wells, helping communities upgrade water treatment systems and funding more comprehensive testing efforts.
But the language of the proposed amendments shows how difficult it has been for legislators to adjust the dial on Wisconsin’s PFAS policy. The bills now have the support of Evers, the DNR and some of the state’s leading environmental organizations, but industry groups including the state’s largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and the Wisconsin Paper Council argued at the hearing that the bill would single out certain types of industry for enforcement actions.
“Substitute Amendment One takes a huge step backwards in terms of protecting truly innocent landowners and passive receivers,” Adam Jordahl, WMC’s director of environmental and energy policy, said, referring to a particular provision of the bill.
WMC in recent years brought and lost a lawsuit that would have prevented the state’s spills law from being applied to entities responsible for PFAS pollution.
Several industry representatives also threatened that if the amended bills are signed into law, they could invite legal challenges because of “constitutional concerns.” Jordahl said that one of the bills treats municipal facilities such as landfills and water treatment plants differently than private businesses conducting similar activities, which could make the law vulnerable to a lawsuit.
“This discrimination raises a significant constitutional concern under the concept of equal protection,” he said. “A successful lawsuit raising an equal protection claim could result in the invalidation of those unfairly applied exemptions. Second, as a policy matter, we feel this simply makes no sense. What is the policy justification for treating commercial and industrial or manufacturing facilities differently when they’re conducting the same activities and operating under the same laws and regulations?”
Paper industry representatives said at the hearing it’s unfair for the bill to single them out because the industry will be subjected to increased scrutiny despite their claims that the business does not cause most PFAS pollution.
Last year, the DNR named a paper mill as the responsible party for the PFAS contamination in Stella, which has seen some of the highest concentrations of the chemicals in the state.
Despite the skepticism from the business community about the latest version of the legislation, lawmakers throughout the Capitol appeared confident that it could finally get across the finish line.
“I met with Republican lawmakers and the DNR last week about critical PFAS bill changes that will be necessary to garner my support, and I’m really optimistic we’re finally going to be able to get something good done here after months of successful and productive negotiations,” Evers said in a statement. “I’m grateful Republican lawmakers have formally introduced an amendment that reflects the changes we’ve agreed to so far as a sign of good faith. We still have some important details to iron out to make sure DNR has the resources they need, but we’ve made a lot of progress. So, I’m really hopeful.”
Both Evers and Wimberger noted that the only remaining sticking point in the negotiations is how many staff members the DNR will be authorized to hire to support the responsibilities required under the bill. The current version of the amendment authorizes 10 positions while Evers is requesting 13.
Republican leaders in the Legislature have also signaled that the bill is likely to move forward.
“I think it’s a move in the right direction,” Senate Majority Leader Devin Lemahieu (R-Oostburg) said. “I think it’s a bill that hopefully our caucus can get behind and maybe finally get that money out the door.”
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook leaves the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 21, 2026 in Washington, D.C, after the court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Cook. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices across the political spectrum appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump’s swift, informal dismissal of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, and his effort to influence the independent central bank that governs monetary policy in the United States.
The oral arguments Wednesday drew a high-profile appearance in the courtroom of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — now a target of a Department of Justice investigation. For months prior to the federal probe, Trump has threatened to fire Powell if the chair did not quickly lower interest rates.
For two hours, the justices heard arguments over whether Cook could remain on the board, as a lower court ruled, while litigation continues examining if Trump violated a “for cause” removal statute when he fired her over social media in late August.
Trump alleged in an Aug. 25 letter posted to his Truth Social platform that Cook committed financial fraud by lying on mortgage loan documents. Trump declared he had “sufficient cause” to remove Cook based on alleged “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter.”
Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can only remove board governors “for cause” — as designed by Congress in an effort to preserve the central bank’s independence.
Trump claims his removals of members of independent government agencies are not reviewable by the courts.
Cook has denied any wrongdoing and challenged the president, the board and Powell, essentially arguing in court that an “unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications,” submitted prior to her Senate confirmation, does not amount to cause for removal. Cook also argued that Trump denied her due process in not giving her notice or a chance to respond to his allegations.
Cook, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, has continued to perform her board duties, without interference from Powell.
Alito questions ‘hurried manner’ of firing
During lengthy questioning of U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what the risk would be in allowing Cook to remain in her job while the administration made its case to the lower courts.
“The question is: What is the harm of allowing that injunction to remain, because she’s in office now and would just continue?” Brown asked.
Sauer, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, said the administration asserts “grievous, irreparable injury to the public perception, to the Federal Reserve, of allowing her to stay in office.”
“Do you have evidence related to the public perception, or is this just the president’s view?” Jackson, a Biden appointee, pressed back.
Sauer said the evidence regarding Cook’s two separate mortgage applications was contained in Trump’s “dismissal order,” referring to the letter posted on social media.
Moments later, Brown asked if Cook was “given the opportunity in some sort of formal proceeding to contest that evidence or explain it?”
“Not a formal proceeding. She was given an opportunity in public,” Sauer said.
“In the world? Like she was supposed to post about it, and that was the opportunity to be heard that you’re saying was afforded to her?” Brown asked.
“Yes,” Sauer replied.
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the high court’s most conservative members, asked Sauer why the removal had to be handled “in such a hurried manner.”
“You began by laying out what you claim to be the factual basis for the for-cause removal, but no court has ever explored those facts. Are the mortgage applications even in the record in this case?” asked Alito, who was appointed to the court under President George W. Bush.
“I know that the text of the social media post that screenshots the mortgage applications is in the record. I don’t recall if the paperwork itself was in the record,” Sauer said.
Federal Reserve independence
Over several minutes of back-and-forth, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Sauer on the importance of the Federal Reserve’s independence.
“Let’s talk about the real world downstream effects of this. Because if this were set as a precedent, it seems to me — just thinking big picture, what goes around, comes around — all the current president’s appointees would likely be removed for cause on Jan. 20, 2029, if there’s a Democratic president, or Jan. 20, 2033,” argued Kavanaugh, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.
“We’re really at, at will removal. So what are we doing here?” he asked.
“I can’t predict what future presidents may or may not do,” Sauer replied.
“Well, history is a pretty good guide. Once these tools are unleashed, they are used by both sides, and usually more the second time around,” Kavanaugh said.
Kavanaugh later challenged Cook’s lawyer, Paul Clement, over whether his argument was “tilting the balance too far the other direction from where the solicitor general is.”
Clement responded, “This is a situation where Congress, political animals, one and all, knew better than anyone that the short-term temptations to lower interest rates and have easy money was a disaster in the long term, but was going to be irresistible.
“And so they tied their own hands by taking the Fed out of the appropriations process, and they tied the president’s hands,” the Alexandria, Virginia-based attorney said.
In a statement following arguments, Cook said the case is “about whether the Federal Reserve will set key interest rates guided by evidence and independent judgment or will succumb to political pressure.”
“Research and experience show that Federal Reserve independence is essential to fulfilling the congressional mandate of price stability and maximum employment. That is why Congress chose to insulate the Federal Reserve from political threats, while holding it accountable for delivering on that mandate. For as long as I serve at the Federal Reserve, I will uphold the principle of political independence in service to the American people,” Cook continued in the statement.
Regulating interest rates — to cool inflation or stimulate the economy — is one tool the central bank uses to accomplish its dual mandate on employment and price stability.
Subpoena issued
The arguments occurred just a dozen days after Powell received a federal grand jury subpoena as part of a Department of Justice probe into allegations that he lied to Congress about multi-year renovation costs to the central bank’s District of Columbia headquarters.
The revelation of a federal investigation of Powell ignited sharp criticism, even from some Republicans.
Powell alleged in a rare video statement that the administration’s “unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”
He continued, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”
Trump first nominated Powell in 2017 to head the Federal Reserve, for a four-year term that began in February 2018. Biden reappointed him in 2021, and Powell received overwhelming support in an 80-19 Senate confirmation vote.
Wednesday’s arguments also came less than two months after the Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump’s firing of another member of an independent federal agency, Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
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