A sign acknowledging Stewardship program support at Firemen's Park in Verona. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A Wisconsin Assembly committee deadlocked 6-6 Wednesday on a Republican-authored bill to prevent the broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program from lapsing next year. 

The program, which allows the state Department of Natural Resources to purchase, conserve and maintain public land enjoys bipartisan support among Wisconsin residents. However a subset of Republican legislators have soured on the program’s intentions, arguing too much land has been pulled off local property tax rolls in northern Wisconsin. Republicans have also complained that a state Supreme Court decision removed their authority to conduct oversight of the program. 

Previously, members of the Joint Committee on Finance had the ability to anonymously hold up stewardship projects. 

Republicans in the Legislature stripped money to re-authorize the program out of the state budget earlier this year and both parties have proposed competing pieces of legislation to keep it running beyond 2026. 

On Wednesday, the Assembly Committee on Forestry, Parks and Outdoor Recreation took up the Republican bill, authored by Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc). Democrats and environmental groups have been unsupportive of the Kurtz bill since its initial release because it requires that any attempt by the DNR to acquire land at a cost of more than $1 million be approved by the full Legislature through standalone legislation. 

Critics have argued the full legislative process is the opposite of what the Court intended when it took the anonymous hold power away from JFC, that the Legislature could never move quickly enough for the speed at which real estate transactions must sometimes take place and the public nature of legislation could scare off potential sellers. 

Earlier this week, Kurtz released a proposed amendment to his bill that would lower the threshold requiring legislative approval from $1 million to $250,000. 

A Democratic proposal, which was introduced as a separate bill this summer and offered as an amendment to the Republican bill this week, would create an independent board, nominated by members of both parties, to oversee the program outside of the legislative process. 

On Wednesday, the committee voted 7-5 in favor of accepting Kurtz’s amendment to his bill. Rep. Paul Melotic (R-Grafton) voted with the committee’s four Democrats against the amendment. 

But on the vote to advance the bill out of committee, Reps. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) and Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) joined the Democrats to vote no, resulting in the 6-6 tie.

When an Assembly committee votes for a bill, it reports the bill to the full Assembly floor and recommends that it be passed. According to Assembly rules, when a committee ties on a vote, the chair of the committee has the discretion to report the bill to the full Assembly “without recommendation.” 

The bill has already been reported to the full Assembly for a potential vote, according to the office of Rep. Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz), the committee’s chair.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point), a co-author of the Democratic proposal, said “Wisconsin Democrats are united in their support and vision for Knowles-Nelson,” while “Republicans cannot seem to agree on a path forward.”

Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives at the non-profit land trust organization Gathering Waters, told the Wisconsin Examiner that Wednesday’s vote shows the only way to save the program is with a bill that can get support from both parties. 

“Today’s hearing was a missed opportunity for bipartisan cooperation on the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program,” Carlin said. “There is ample room for compromise across the aisle. But today’s deadlocked committee vote demonstrates that no reauthorization is going to move forward without buy-in from both parties. The hearing should motivate legislators on both sides of the aisle to come together and work out a compromise that keeps Knowles-Nelson working for Wisconsin.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Fred Clark (standing) Democrat from Bayfield County, talking to John Kotar, retired UW-Madision Forestry, Ecology and Management Proffesor in Cable, Wisconsin, Oct. 22. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

In 2021, Fred Clark, who represented Baraboo as a Democratic representative in the state Assembly from 2009 to 2014, moved north to Bayfield County to retire, but over the last year, he said, he has become concerned about what he sees as an assault on the U.S. Constitution and the future of America, so he decided to re-enter politics.

Clark recently announced he’s running for Congress to represent Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.

Incumbent Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) is running for governor and two of the highest profile Republican state senators in the district — Romaine Quinn of Rice Lake and Mary Felzkowski of Tomahawk — both recently announced they will seek reelection to  the state Senate. The other candidates who have announced they are running for Tiffany’s seat,  three Republicans and one Democrat, have little districtwide name recognition. 

Clark sees an opportunity to mount a strong campaign as he tries to flip the large, Republican-leaning district, which covers much of the top half of Wisconsin, from red to blue.

“I think this is the first time in 15 years to have a truly competitive election in the 7th Congressional District,” he said. 

Clark, who is also not widely known in the 7th CD, has his work cut out for him. His background in logging, as the owner of Clark Forestry, Inc., could appeal to voters in the northwestern district, where forestry products are a critical part of the economy. He has also worked as a forestry consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and as a forest ecologist for The Nature Conservancy, and was the executive director and a founding board member of Wisconsin’s Green Fire, a conservation group. 

He also has a history of building relationships with Republicans and independents, which is critical in a  district that has voted by wide margins for Republicans since 2010, starting with former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Hayward), now Secretary of Transportation. Duffy who won the district before it was redrawn following the last Census, and then increased his winning margins in the redistricted boundaries for four more elections. Tiffany also won by wide margins.

At a meeting of Democrats in Cable on Oct. 22 at The River Eatery, a venue heavily supported by the silent sports community that tends to vote blue, Clark was asked if he would reach out to independents and Republicans in the district. He answered in the affirmative, saying his goal is to convince 40,000 voters who either did not vote or voted Republican in the last congressional election to “reevaluate” their decision.

“I’m asking a lot of people who may have voted Republican in the past to think about who’s going to represent their interest the best and who’s got the ability to work for you and will show up and listen,” he said. “People want to shake your hand and look you in the eye and believe that they share enough with you that they could trust you to represent them, even if you didn’t agree with them on everything.”

At that Oct 22 meeting, Clark criticized policy decisions in Washington he said were “hurtful and damaging and are being felt across rural America right now.”

Clark is critical of the Big Beautiful Bill passed this summer by Republicans, and of their refusal to extend Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies. More than 270,000 Wisconsinites are projected to lose health insurance because of either dropping their coverage when premiums rise or losing Medicaid under the new rules. .

Clark is also concerned there will be fewer federal dollars to support rural hospitals.

“The health care outcomes are going to be worse and the rural health care system that we all rely on is going to continue to get worse because we’re going to lose doctors and we’re going to lose specialists and we’re going to lose clinics,” he said.

Support for wood pulp sustainable fuel initiative

Hayward is in the running, along with two other sites in Michigan and Minnesota, for a large $1.5 billion sustainable aviation fuel plant using pulp wood. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is offering $60 million in incentives on top of a  $150 million grant funded through the Department of Natural Resources forestry account. It could be a boon to the wood pulp industry, but there have also been environmental concerns that the operation involving chipping trees in the field would leave less timber debris that adds nutrients to the soil, helping to protect the long-term health of the forest.

As a forester, Clark  believes the project would be good for the economy. The state’s  pulp and paper industries have been in a long  decline.  Clark says chipping  can be done in a manner that doesn’t risk the forest, but he is also critical of the  state’s plan to offer  the $150 million grant.

“We need to find new uses for wood from Wisconsin forests, and it’s really important that we have those markets for wood so that people managing forest land can continue to do that and we have a strong forest-based economy,” he said. “The sustainable aviation fuel truly is an opportunity to add a new product, or forest products mix, that could be good for forest conservation and forest ownership.”

“What I’m concerned about,” he added “and I don’t think it’s a good idea, is to hand out a $150 million cash subsidy to try to get into a bidding war with other states to land this plan.” He says he prefers the idea of offering tax credits as incentives to “writing a big blank check to this company.”

Worries about privatizing forestry

Clark also supports the Good Neighbor Authority program with the U.S. Forest Service, which involves county forestry departments helping to manage federal forest harvests. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) was instrumental in establishing the program.  

“What the Good Neighbor Authority has done is just provide some extra flexibility for the Forest Service to get important work done and to meet their timber goals,” he said. “Working through states, it can work well when it’s well managed, but the risk here is that this administration throws open the door to basically privatize most of forest management, and if you let that happen, you’re going to have people and organizations setting up these timber sales that aren’t respecting the wildlife habitat and the soil conservation and the water protection that all needs to be part of any forest management. So the training and the standards and maintaining consistency are some of the most important things that we need to do with Good Neighbor Authority, and it’s got to be well managed or it won’t be successful.”

Help for Wisconsin farmers and small business

The number of small dairy farms in Wisconsin continues to decline as giant operations grow. Clark says the solution to the scourge of farm bankruptcies is to work on returning to supply management, keeping the milk supply at a level that offers attractive prices instead of emphasizing higher production, which suppresses prices and favors larger dairy operations.

“Honestly, as long as the incentives are all toward maximizing production that’s going to continue to keep prices at a place where only the biggest producers are going to survive and we’ll continue to see the erosion of the small farms who simply can’t produce enough milk at a cost above production,” he said. “Other countries that have effective supply management programs are actually able to maintain pricing that allows everybody to stay in business, and I think that’s the conversation among milk producers and folks in Congress that needs to be had.”

Clark is also critical of Trump’s tariffs for undermining efforts in the farming community to establish overseas markets.

“We’re seeing right now the impacts of the tariff war on everything from soybean producers who [lost]  markets in China … to hardwood lumber producers here in Wisconsin, who also have depended on Canadian and other international markets that are losing those markets, to ginseng producers in Marathon County, who have now lost their single biggest customer, China, which purchases the vast majority of American ginseng,” he said.  “All those markets that took years to develop are being essentially kneecapped by this president in this crazy tariff war.”

On his platform for “rebuilding our rural economy” Clark notes the need for “long-overdue tax reform that claws back 40 years of tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and our most profitable corporations.”

“We need a much fairer system,” he said. “There are simply way too many gigantic tax benefits that the largest corporations are able to use in order to effectively pay almost no taxes, and in many cases, these are some of the most profitable industries in our nation. You know, the net result of that is that we’ve got a giant amount of national debt. I believe it’s over $37 trillion of national debt. That is not good for America, and we can’t balance that debt on the backs of the people who need the services of the government the most.”

Clark is advocating for targeted subsidies for small- and medium-sized businesses, which he said generate jobs in rural communities. Asked about one notable failure in the district — the millions in federal grant dollars allocated to the Park Falls mill, which failed to keep the plant operational, he said, “When you’re providing incentives to private businesses, there’s always a risk.” 

“So because the business used a subsidy and ended up failing, that doesn’t mean we failed, but it does mean to me, we’ve got to make those investments smartly,” he added. Giving a large grant to a business that might come from outside the state to build a sustainable aviation fuel plant is one plan he says needs more scrutiny.  

“If you’re trying to start a small farm or small forest products business or manufacturing business, and you go to the Small Business Development Corporation, the Small Business Administration for a loan, you’re going to be wading through paperwork tall as your arm on your desk by the time you’re done, hours and hours,” he said.  “I think we can make that easier, and I think we can make those funds more available. And what we know is that even though big employers get a lot of the attention, if you add up the scope of small businesses, that’s actually where most of the jobs are, and those owners are the people who are committed and rooted in those communities.”

One of the things Clark doesn’t directly cover in his platform is the affordable  housing crisis. 

Clark said housing may be more important in tourist areas, like the 7th District, where so many seasonal homes are used as short-term rentals (STRs) instead of long-term family housing.

“We need communities that have the ability to zone and regulate that (STRs) more effectively, and then we need to go back and figure out how to make housing affordable, which is the availability of financing,” he said.

Immigration reform

Clark acknowledges that many voters in the 7th CD supported Trump’s promise to beef up border security and deport immigrants who commit crimes, but he is critical of how the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) law enforcement agents are operating in communities.

“We need to have a secure border and immigrants who are here illegally, and most especially immigrants associated with criminal activity — we absolutely need enforcement on that,” he said. “And those people should be deported. What we have going on right now, however, is it’s essentially a war of fear in American cities. And ICE is an agency that is really one of the only federal agencies that’s seen its budget dramatically increased. They’re hiring new ICE agents as fast as they can, with a minimal amount of training, and it’s already clear that many of these people simply don’t have the experience and the training to be doing what they’re doing. And I don’t care what party you belong to, seeing people in masks who aren’t even identifying themselves, calling citizens and legal residents out of their homes without judicial warrants, many of whom will never see a court or a judge — it’s wrong and it’s unconstitutional, and it’s not making American communities safer.”

Clark also wants Congress to fully flex its constitutional authority to “curb the abuse of emergency powers” exercised by Trump. Democrats would be able to provide that check if they win the majority of the House in 2026. He also said Democrats should hold town hall meetings, “taking the case to voters.”

“Republicans in Congress have been completely afraid to do that,” he said of in-person town hall meetings. “Congressman Tiffany hasn’t done it. And that’s talking to the people that you represent. You know that’s No. 1.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Some USDA office functions will be suspended during the government shutdown. (USDA Photo by Lance Cheung)

Nearly half of U.S. Department of Agriculture employees will be furloughed during the federal government shutdown, though key programs that support nutrition, forest preservation and wildfire prevention, the most pressing plant and animal diseases and agricultural commodity assessments will continue.

Many offices, including county USDA service centers, will be closed or operating with minimal staff until Congress agrees on a temporary spending package. Support, payment processing and other functions of these offices are also suspended during the shutdown.

Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending bill Tuesday which resulted in the start of a government shutdown at midnight and federal agencies had to implement the contingency plans required by the Office of Management and Budget.

According to the contingency plan filed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only a handful of agency operations will continue during the shutdown. The primary objective is that agencies cannot incur financial obligations if the funding source has lapsed and any planned or in-the-works activities that would incur new obligations, must cease. 

Activities that may continue during the shutdown include those that are financed by something other than current year appropriations, expressly authorized to continue, either by law or by necessary implication, necessary to the presidential duties and powers or related to emergencies that endanger human life or the protection of property.

According to the plan, more than 42,000 USDA employees are expected to be furloughed during the shutdown. That’s about half of the more than 85,000 employees the agency said would be “on board” prior to the shutdown. 

USDA programs that will continue despite the shutdown: 

• Farm loan processing.
• Certain natural resources and conservation programs that are mandatory under the farm bill or to protect human life and private property, like the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, dam safety and rehab work, the National Water and Climate Center which tracks flooding and weather risks and the National Soil Survey Center. 
• “Core” nutrition safety net programs. This includes SNAP and child nutrition programs which have funding appropriations through October. The Women Infants and Children, or WIC, program is set to continue through the shutdown “subject to the availability of funding.” According to the plan, WIC can “recover and reallocate” unused grant funding from previous years to cover gap in coverage. 
• Food safety operations, like inspections and laboratory testing.
• Wildfire preparation and response. 
• Activities like grading, assessment, inspection, import and export for farm commodities. These activities are supported by user fees and therefore not impacted by the shutdown.
• Emergency programs under USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that address new world screwworm, highly pathogenic avian influenza, African swine fever, rabies and exotic fruit flies. Surveying for other plant and livestock diseases will cease during the shutdown. 
• Prior obligations in the Section 521 rental housing agreement program. This is the program element of USDA Rural Development offices that will persist.
• Operational requirements like human resource policies, cybersecurity and critical IT infrastructure. 

Under the contingency plan, USDA functions like ongoing research, reports, outreach and technical assistance are suspended. The agency will also stop processing payments and disaster assistance. 

Trade negotiations, hazardous fuel treatments, special use permits, regulatory work, training and travel by USDA employees and agencies are also suspended. 

According to the contingency plan, most functions are suspended for the Risk Management Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, Food and Nutrition Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Economic Research Service, National Agricultural Statistical Service, Rural Development, and staff offices.

Website updates are also suspended under the shutdown. A banner atop the USDA website informs visitors that the website will not be updated “due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown.” 

“President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people,” the banner reads. 

According to the plan, “all activities will cease” for the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and her office during the shutdown. 

Approximately 67% of Farm Service Agency, or FSA, employees will be furloughed. According to the plan, selected leadership at headquarters and USDA offices will stay on during the shut down. This means county service centers, and the majority of the services they offer, will not be available during the shutdown. 

Nearly all, 1135 out of 1237 employees, at the Food and Nutrition Service offices were projected to be furloughed during the shutdown, though according to the plan, enough employees remain to facilitate SNAP, child nutrition programs and WIC. WIC must make unspent funds from past years available in order to continue operations through October.

Close to 20,000 of the 32,390 Forest Service employees will continue to work on certain approved areas of agency work, like wildfire prevention, protection of federal land and federal directives to expand timber production. Public access to recreation sites managed by the department will be reduced, according to the plan. 

A significant portion of Agricultural Marketing Service operations are funded by previous farm bill appropriations or by user fees, so services like the Federal Grain Inspection Service and dairy grading will continue, as will market news information.

Operations like country of origin labeling, the packers and stockyards program, the national organic program, shell egg surveillance and the pesticide data program will be suspended. 

The plan calls for a number of reconsiderations in the event the shutdown persists longer than 5 days. This could include, for example a farm loan employee or other staff member on call at USDA service centers, or the reinstatement of some furloughed employees to deal with wildfire management. 

Glenn “GT” Thompson, chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, blamed Democrats, who demanded extentions to the Affordable Care Act be added to the stopgap spending bill, for shutting down the government and putting “critical USDA services in jeopardy.”

“These political games harm rural America through disruptions to farm payments, disaster relief, food assistance, and other critical services,” the Republican from Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Performative photo ops at state fairs and lip service to the producers who feed, fuel, and clothe our country won’t hide the truth—Democrats forcing a government shutdown only inflicts more pain on our agricultural economy.”

New heat-transfer system targets HVAC’s biggest inefficiencies, delivering up to 10x the performance without refrigerants, pumps, or significant energy input. When it comes to building a sustainable energy future, there are two sides to the equation: generation and demand. While most of the attention has been placed on producing more clean power, there’s an equally …

The post A New HVAC “Force” Cuts Energy, Boosts Efficiency appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• The $111 billion state budget adopted last month doesn’t extend the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, but it does include two conservation earmarks totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district.

• The projects include repairs to Echo Lake Dam, which Vos said will save Burlington taxpayers $3,000.

• Environmental advocates are hopeful the Legislature will still extend the Knowles-Nelson fund before the end of the current session. A Republican bill would reauthorize it for four years at $28.25 million per year with additional legislative controls.

Wisconsin’s recently passed budget doesn’t include the extension of a popular land conservation program, but it does include two earmarks for environmental projects in the home district of the state’s most powerful Assembly Republican.

After Republican legislators declined to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund in the state budget, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five natural resources projects, criticizing the Legislature for choosing “to benefit the politically connected few” instead of supporting stewardship through the statewide fund. 

“I am vetoing this section because I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

However, Evers didn’t veto other natural resources projects, including two totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district in southeastern Wisconsin west of Racine. Asked why Evers spared those projects, his spokesperson Britt Cudaback referred Wisconsin Watch, without specifics, to the agreement between Evers and legislative leadership that cemented the $111 billion two-year budget. 

Local environmental earmarks in the state budget are nothing new, but the latest examples highlight how such projects can take on greater political dimension when not overseen by civil servants at the DNR and the Legislature’s budget committee, as has been the process for more than 30 years since the creation of the Knowles-Nelson fund. Legislators have allowed the program to inch closer to expiration while attempting to secure stewardship programs in their own districts.

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund supports land conservation and outdoor recreation through grants to local governments and nonprofits and also allows the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase and maintain state land. The program is currently funded at $33 million a year until the end of June 2026.

Local governments and nonprofit organizations can apply for Knowles-Nelson grants during three deadlines every year, and DNR staff evaluate and rank projects based on objective criteria including local public support, potential conservation benefits and proximity to population centers. 

Despite not authorizing the fund through the state budget, Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, committed to reauthorizing the fund and introduced stand-alone legislation in June to reauthorize the stewardship fund at $28.25 million per year for the next four years.

Burlington receives $15 million for two natural resources projects

The two projects in Vos’ district received a total of $15 million in state taxpayer dollars from the general fund and were the only natural resources earmarks mentioned in the state budget agreement between Republicans and Evers.

The only larger natural resources earmark — a $42 million grant for a dam in Rothschild — was added by the Joint Finance Committee and included in the final state budget, though it wasn’t mentioned in the agreement. That grant isn’t funded with general fund revenue, but rather a separate forestry account, which includes revenues from the sale of timber on public lands.

In a statement on the inclusion of funding for the projects, Vos, R-Rochester, touted how $10 million for the Echo Lake Dam will save Burlington residents an average of $3,000 in taxes that would otherwise fund the project. Upgrades to Echo Lake will cost as much as $12 million including $3.5 million for dam modifications and up to $5 million for lake dredging. 

For years, city officials in Burlington have grappled with how to address the Echo Lake Dam. In 2022, the Burlington City Council considered removing the 200-year-old dam but ultimately voted to keep it after residents expressed support though an advisory referendum. The dam needs upgrades because it doesn’t meet DNR requirements to contain a 500-year flood.

The Browns Lake Sanitary District also received $5 million for the removal of sediment in Browns Lake. Local residents have raised concerns over sedimentation in the lake, affecting the lake’s usability for recreation and ecological balance. 

In a website devoted to the Browns Lake dredging, Claude Lois, president of the Browns Lake Sanitary District, thanked Vos for including $5 million for the project and advised residents: “If you see Robin Vos, please thank him.”

DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek directed Wisconsin Watch to Evers’ spokesperson, declining to answer questions on whether the two projects in Vos’ district could have been covered by Knowles-Nelson funds. The Echo Lake Dam project tentatively received a grant for over $700,000 from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund last fall for development of gathering spaces adjacent to the lake. 

Vos did not respond to a request for comment. 

Other conservation projects were vetoed by Evers, including a $70,000 dredging project on a section of the Manitowoc River in the town of Brillion. Ultimately, the DNR and the Evers administration provided funding for the project after Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, and local farmers criticized the veto, claiming that they were at risk of flooding without funds for the dredging project. 

Rep. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, said he was surprised and disappointed with Evers’ veto of the Deerskin River dredging project in his district. He called Evers’ reasoning a “lame excuse, using the Knowles-Nelson program as political cover” in an email statement to Wisconsin Watch. Swearingen said he and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, were considering alternative funding sources, including introducing stand-alone legislation to finance the dredging project.

Swearingen declined to say what he thought about the projects in Vos’ district getting funded. Other Republican lawmakers with vetoed projects in their districts didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, a member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, told Wisconsin Watch she supports Evers’ vetoes because the earmarked projects did not go through the process the DNR uses to evaluate the benefits of particular projects.

Andraca said while several earmarked projects were likely strong contenders for Knowles-Nelson, without the DNR’s process of evaluating project merit, the most beneficial projects may not receive funding.

“We need to make sure that we’re taking into account that the best, most important projects are being funded, not just the projects that are in someone’s (district) who might have a little bit more sway in the Legislature,” Andraca said.

Paul Heinen, policy director for environmental advocacy organization Green Fire, lobbied for the first stewardship fund in 1989. Heinen said legislators have pushed for stewardship projects in their districts through the state budget process for as long as the stewardship fund has existed.

“The DNR has a process by which they go through to analyze projects, and that’s all set up in the code and everything,” Heinen said. “But of course, just like Robin Vos and any other legislator, if they can get something in the budget, it’s faster and you don’t have to go through the steps in order to get something done.”

In the 2023-25 budget cycle, the largest natural resources earmark was $2 million for dredging Lake Mallalieu near River Falls. 

Heinen said legislators are faced with a conundrum — they claim to oppose statewide government spending on stewardship, but want projects in their own districts. 

“Publicly, they say they’re opposed to government spending in this boondoggle stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “But then when it gets down to something in their district, they are at the ribbon cutting.” 

State Supreme Court decision complicates reauthorization

For years the JFC halted Knowles-Nelson conservation projects by not taking a vote on them, something critics referred to as a “pocket veto.” The Evers administration sued over the practice, and in July 2024 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 6-1 the Legislature’s pocket veto was unconstitutional.

“What the court said was that the finance committee by going back after the fact and blocking an appropriation that had already been approved by the entire Legislature, and that was an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority,” said Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, an alliance of land trusts in the state.

Republicans have said trust issues with both the DNR and the Evers administration prevented them from releasing Knowles-Nelson funds without more control.

Kurtz and Testin’s proposed bill also includes new requirements for legislative approval for larger projects over $1 million in an effort to allow legislative oversight without the pocket vetoes.

The bill’s funding level is below the $100 million per year for 10 years that Evers proposed in his budget, but close to current funding levels of $33 million per year. 

In 2021, the fund was reauthorized with $33.2 million per year for four years. In 2019, the fund was reauthorized for only two years, breaking a cycle of reauthorization in 10-year increments.

A poll of 516 Wisconsin voters commissioned by environmental advocacy organization The Nature Conservancy found 83% supported Evers’ proposal, with 93% of voters supporting continued public funding for conservation. However, most respondents were unaware of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund.

Funding for Knowles-Nelson peaked in 2011 and was reauthorized under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was the first governor to approve funding for the stewardship fund in 1989.

“There was a lot of talk initially from mostly Republican legislators who were skeptical of the governor’s proposal,” Carlin said. “But it’s really only a huge amount of money in comparison to how the program had kind of been whittled down through the years.”

In a January interview with the Cap Times, Vos said the chances of Republicans reauthorizing the fund were less than half. 

Andraca said she hears more from constituents about the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund than almost any other program.

“I seriously hope that my Republican colleagues are serious about passing something because it would be a real tragedy to lose something like this that has bipartisan support and has been so instrumental in preserving Wisconsin’s natural areas,” Andraca said.

‘Totally uncharted territory’ for stewardship funding

Carlin said the failure to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson puts land stewardship organizations and local municipalities — the typical recipients of Knowles-Nelson grants — in “totally uncharted territory.” 

Although Knowles-Nelson funding is set to expire at the end of next June, Carlin said local governments and land trusts face uncertainty in planning because they aren’t sure the Legislature will get the new reauthorization bill done.

“Similar to what you’re probably hearing from folks about federal budget cuts … this just totally scrambles the planning horizon,” Carlin said.

Heinen, however, is more optimistic the Legislature will vote to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson. 

“90-plus percent of the people in the state of Wisconsin want the stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “Legislators know that. They’re not going to go running for reelection in November of next year and have their opponents say, ‘Why are you against the stewardship fund?’ So I’m really not worried about it at all.”

Budget deal’s $15 million in earmarks for Robin Vos’ district highlight politicization of Wisconsin’s conservation funding 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.