A farmhouse sits along a gravel road near Elgin, Iowa. For at least the next dozen years, rural areas will continue to have only about two-thirds of the primary care physicians they need, according to a new report. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
For at least the next dozen years, rural areas will continue to have only about two-thirds of the primary care physicians they need, according to a report released Monday.
The nonprofit Commonwealth Fund based its analysis on federal health workforce data. Its report comes just days after states applied for portions of a $50 billion rural health fund included in the broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. Some states want to use the federal money to expand their rural residency programs, as physicians who complete their residencies in rural areas are more likely to practice in one.
About 43 million people live in rural areas without enough primary care physicians, according to the report. Across the country, nearly all — 92% — of rural counties are considered primary care professional shortage areas, compared to 83% of nonrural counties. Forty-five percent of rural counties had five or fewer primary care doctors in 2023. Roughly 200 rural counties lacked one altogether.
Nationally, the report found there was an average of one physician per 2,881 rural residents. States in the South had 3,411 patients per physician, whereas states in the Northeast had 1,979 residents per physician.
Rural residents are less likely to use telehealth for primary care, largely because of limited broadband internet access. About 19% of rural respondents said they received health care from a primary care physician via telehealth over the past year, compared with the national average of 29%.
The report also took the pulse of states’ participation in national programs for rural areas, such as a federal loan repayment and scholarship program for physicians working in areas with a shortage of health care providers. In 2023, 40% of rural counties had at least one primary care clinician participating in the program — compared to 60% of nonrural counties.
While the demand for primary care physicians will surpass the supply, the study estimates that the supply of rural nurse practitioners will exceed demand over time, as nurse practitioners are the fastest-growing type of clinician in the U.S., regardless of geography, the authors wrote.
Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
New EPA draft rules seek to narrow the scope of the Clean Water Act by further defining the Waters of the United States. Pictured here is Little Walnut Creek in Waukee, Iowa on May 5, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed Monday new rules to define the waters of the United States, or WOTUS, protected under the Clean Water Act.
The move was celebrated by farm groups that oppose a broad interpretation of the law, while environmental groups said the rule change would end protections for millions of acres of wetlands and small streams.
Waters of the United States defines the scope of the Clean Water Act and which waters can be regulated with federal water quality standards. The WOTUS definition, which is not laid out in the Clean Water Act, has been the source of several U.S. Supreme Court cases in recent decades, most recently in Sackett v. EPA.
The high court ruled in May 2023 that wetlands without a “continuous surface connection” to navigable waters did not qualify for Clean Water Act protections. This was upheld by EPA final rules issued in August 2023, that not only applied to wetlands, but also removed the requirement that waters have a “significant nexus” to a navigable water.
Some conservative groups and lawmakers argued the 2023 EPA interpretation did not go far enough to adhere to the court’s decision in the Sackett case.
EPA’s new rules, made in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would “fully implement” the Sackett decision, “accelerate economic prosperity” and support the role of states and tribes in regulating their land, according to the agency’s news release.
“When finalized, the rule will cut red tape and provide predictability, consistency, and clarity for American industry, energy producers, the technology sector, farmers, ranchers, developers, businesses, and landowners for permitting under the Clean Water Act,” the EPA release said.
The proposed rules would further define terms like: relatively permanent, continuous surface connection and tributary. The rules also establish that tributaries must connect to navigable waters via features that have “consistent” and “predictable flow.”
The rules say wetlands must be “indistinguishable” from jurisdictional waters, with a “continuous surface connection.” The rules will also limit permafrost wetlands from the scope of the definition, include guidance on “wet season” water bodies, and offer exclusions on ditches, prior converted cropland, and waste treatment systems.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the proposed rules will protect navigable waters, advance cooperative federalism and result in economic growth.
“Democrat Administrations have weaponized the definition of navigable waters to seize more power from American farmers, landowners, entrepreneurs, and families,” Zeldin said in a statement. “We heard from Americans across the country who want clean water and a clear rule. No longer should America’s landowners be forced to spend precious money hiring an attorney or consultant just to tell them whether a Water of the United States is on their property.”
According to the release, the proposed rules were formed around feedback from states, tribal nations, local governments and listening sessions.
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said, in the release with EPA, the farm organization was “pleased” with the new rules.
“The Supreme Court clearly ruled several years ago that the government overreached in its interpretation of what fell under federal guidelines,” Duvall said. “We are still reviewing the entire rule, but we are pleased that it finally addresses those concerns and takes steps to provide much-needed clarity.”
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association similarly celebrated the draft rules Monday. The association’s president and Nebraska cattleman Buck Wehrbein said the previous interpretations of the rule have meant things like “prairie potholes or dry ditches” fall under federal regulation.
“Waters of the U.S. has been a longstanding and frustrating issue for family farmers and ranchers,” he said in a statement. “Every few years, the definition of a ‘water of the U.S.’ has changed … We appreciate the EPA finally fixing previous WOTUS rules and supporting America’s family farmers and ranchers.”
Environmental groups said the newly proposed rules put habitat, drinking water and structures at greater risk.
Environmental Defense Fund’s Vice President Will McDow said EPA’s proposed rules were “not based in science, difficult to implement in practice and will create a dangerous lack of clarity.”
“This rule brings tremendous uncertainty and risk to our nation’s drinking water, flood protections and critical habitats,” McDow said in a statement.
The environmental group Food & Water Watch said the draft rules eliminate “bedrock” protections for rivers, streams, and wetlands. The group said in a news release the rules would “compound the damage” of the Sackett decision that “eliminated protections for tens of millions of acres of sensitive wetlands and small streams.”
Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen said the rule “flies in the face of science and commonsense” and will lead to more pollution downstream. Wetlands, Heinzen said, offer “critical functions” in providing habitat, protecting clean water and reducing flooding.
“Clean water is under attack in America, as polluting profiteers plunder our waters — Trump’s EPA is openly aiding and abetting this destruction,” Heinzen said. “This proposed rule weakens the bedrock Clean Water Act, making it easier to fill, drain, and pollute sensitive waterways from coast to coast.”
The proposed rules will be published in the Federal Register and open for public comment for 45 days. EPA and the Army will hold two public meetings before developing final rules.
This story was originally produced by Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The Palmyra public safety building. (Photo via Palmyra Fire Rescue Facebook page)
The Village of Palmyra in southeastern Wisconsin announced Friday that the village board and police department have decided not to move forward with a controversial agreement with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).
“We deeply value the feedback we have received from our community — on all sides of the discussion,” Village Board President Tim Gorsegner and Interim Police Chief Paul Blount said in a statement on the village’s website.
“After careful consideration of those voices, along with additional research and review, we believe that at this time, the best course forward for Palmyra is to take no further action on the proposed agreement,” the village officials said.
Blount previously said that the department’s application to ICE’s task force model was pending review by the village board.
ICE’s task force model allows officers to “enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties, such as identifying an alien at a DUI checkpoint and sharing information directly with ICE,” and it lays out when officers can make immigration arrests. Officers may also exercise limited authority on ICE-led task forces.
In September, Blount said Palmyra police would work with ICE when someone was involved in criminal activity, wanted on a warrant or facing criminal charges. He said they would not go door to door to check peoples’ documentation or profile people who they think may lack documentation.
The immigrant rights organization Voces de la Frontera celebrated Palmyra’s decision not to work with ICE. Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said in a statement, “when we push back together, we stop policies that harm immigrant families and undermine public safety.”
The village’s statement said the original intent in exploring the agreement was to collaborate with federal law enforcement partners in ways that could strengthen their ability to reduce crime and keep Palmyra safe. The village said it also sought to prevent human trafficking and narcotics trafficking.
Blount said in September that the program would allow for access to databases and resources that enhance investigations and help combat serious crimes such as narcotics trafficking and human trafficking. He also said the program would come with significant financial incentives from the federal government.
On Monday afternoon, ICE removed Palmyra from a list of departments with which it cooperates on its website.
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Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has been granted access to all grand jury materials in his case after a federal judge found “profound investigative missteps” that could result in the dismissal of Comey’s indictment.
Eastern District of Virginia Federal Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick wrote Monday that issues with evidence, testimony and statements to the grand jury outweigh the usual heavily guarded secrecy of proceedings.
The government filed a motion for an emergency stay hours after the order.
In the 24-page order, Fitzpatrick delivered a scathing account of the government’s mishandling, and possibly illegal access to, evidence presented to grand jurors, including a potential Fourth Amendment violation.
Additionally, the single person to testify before the grand jury was an FBI agent who knew that the evidence he reviewed may have been attorney-client privileged or confidential information, according to the order.
Fitzpatrick also found that the entirety of the grand jury proceedings was not provided to the court, and that two statements to jurors by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan “could reasonably form the basis for the defense to challenge whether the grand jury proceedings were infected with constitutional error.”
“(A)s the Court has found, these materials are essential if Mr. Comey is to fully and fairly defend himself in the face of the irregularities that have characterized this investigation from its inception,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
Fitzpatrick concluded “the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”
The order stemmed from Comey’s motion to access the grand jury proceedings.
District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, a President Joe Biden appointee who is overseeing the Comey case, ordered the materials be turned over, but the process was halted when the government challenged the order.
Nachmanoff then remanded the case to Fitzpatrick, who in 2022 was selected on merit by a panel of U.S. District judges in the Eastern District of Virginia to hold the magistrate position for eight years.
A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted Comey in September on one charge of making false statements to Congress during testimony in 2020 and another of obstructing a proceeding of Congress.
Prosecutors had sought an additional charge of making false statements, but the grand jury returned only the two charges.
Trump, who publicly urged U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey, ousted the then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik S. Siebert.
Trump replaced the office’s top prosecutor with former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan, who swiftly obtained an indictment.
Comey pleaded not guilty on Oct. 8.
Comey’s legal team is simultaneously fighting Halligan’s appointment as unlawful.
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel speaks with reporters after an event Feb. 26. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Former state Attorney General and conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel has been appointed as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Schimel, who was also previously a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and the Waukesha County district attorney, will now be the highest ranking federal prosecutor in the district that covers the eastern part of the state, including Milwaukee.
Usually, U.S. attorneys are first recommended for the office by the two U.S. senators in a state and then nominated by the president before being confirmed by the Senate. In Wisconsin, Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson operate a joint commission responsible for finding candidates.
Schimel told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the commission was unable to reach a consensus for the job — which has been empty since February when former U.S. attorney Gregory Haanstad, a Biden appointee, left the role as part of the normal transition when a new party enters the White House.
In a statement, Baldwin accused Trump of “blowing up Wisconsin’s bipartisan judicial nominating process” and “ignoring Wisconsinites of all stripes” by choosing Schimel, whom voters rejected twice, in his races for state attorney general and Supreme Court.
Once the commission failed to find a candidate, Schimel said he reached out to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom he knows from their time as state attorneys general.
Interim U.S. Attorneys are allowed to hold that role for 120 days, though the Trump administration has tried in other states to extend that period.
Schimel will now take over the office as it manages increased federal immigration enforcement happening in the state and heads into the highly political trial of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who federal prosecutors have alleged obstructed the work of federal agents attempting to apprehend a migrant in the county courthouse. Dugan’s trial is set for Dec. 15, Schimel told the Journal-Sentinel the prosecution team on the case will remain the same.
Schimel ran for the state Supreme Court earlier this year in what became the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history — largely due to the involvement of Elon Musk, who was at the time a part of the Trump administration through his DOGE office.
Schimel lost by more than 10 percentage points to Justice Susan Crawford. In his campaign, he touted his prosecutorial experience but was unable to separate himself from criticism that he was too closely tied to Trump and Musk.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency building in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — David Richardson, the senior official performing the duties of the administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has resigned and moved to the “private sector,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Monday.
Karen Evans, the agency’s chief of staff, is expected to take on the role of acting administrator starting Dec. 1.
“Mr. Richardson led FEMA through the 2025 hurricane season, delivering historic funding to North Carolina, Texas, Florida, New Mexico and Alaska, and overseeing a comprehensive review that identified and eliminated serious governmental waste and inefficiency, while refocusing the agency to deliver swift resources to Americans in crisis,” the spokesperson said.
President Donald Trump has yet to send the Senate a nominee for FEMA administrator, opting instead to have a string of officials serve as acting leaders of the agency that he hopes to overhaul in the months ahead.
Cam Hamilton worked as the senior official performing the duties of the administrator until May, when he was let go one day after he testified before a House committee that he did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Richardson, who was working as the assistant secretary of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the Department of Homeland Security, was then named as the senior official performing the duties of the administrator at FEMA.
Richardson testified before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee in July that FEMA’s response to the catastrophic Fourth of July floods in Texas was well managed.
“Texas got what they needed when they needed it,” he said at the time.
The Washington Post reported in September that “key staff members could not reach” Richardson for “about 24 hours in the early aftermath” of those floods, which killed more than 130 people.
The White House deferred questions about Richardson’s resignation to the Department of Homeland Security, opting not to say whether Trump would eventually send a FEMA administrator nominee to the Senate for confirmation.
Trump has long criticized FEMA and created a review council earlier this year to assess how the agency performed during the last few years and suggest ways to rework its structure.
The review council was supposed to send Trump its recommendations before Monday but missed the deadline.
The Homeland Security spokesperson who confirmed Richardson’s resignation to States Newsroom said the administration expects the report to be released in the near future.
“We anticipate the forthcoming release of the FEMA Review Council’s final report, which will inform this Administration’s ongoing efforts to fundamentally restructure FEMA, transforming it from its current form into a streamlined, mission-focused disaster-response force,” said the spokesperson.
A sign is seen outside the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center at Weaverville Town Hall on March 29, 2025 in Weaverville, North Carolina. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The review council that President Donald Trump tasked with overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency was supposed to release its recommendations before Monday but missed the deadline.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security declined to say when the report would be published, but wrote in a statement that it would “inform this Administration’s ongoing efforts to fundamentally restructure FEMA, transforming it from its current form into a streamlined, mission-focused disaster-response force.”
A congressional staffer, not authorized to speak publicly, said the report could be published as soon as mid-December. A spokesperson for Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a council member, said the review council will vote to finalize the report at an upcoming public meeting.
Trump established the 12-person council through an executive order he signed back in January and tasked the group with releasing the report within 180 days of its first meeting, which it held on May 20.
That should have meant a release this past weekend, though it’s possible staff writing the report were furloughed or tasked with other work during the 43-day government shutdown.
The council, co-chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, held three public meetings earlier this year, where members spoke about possible ways to restructure FEMA but didn’t preview what recommendations they would actually put in the report.
Trump said in June “the FEMA thing has not been a very successful experiment” and that he would like states to shoulder more of the responsibility for natural disaster response and recovery.
“When you have a tornado or a hurricane, or you have a problem of any kind in a state, that’s what you have governors for,” Trump said. “They’re supposed to fix those problems. And it’s much more local. And they’ll develop a system. And I think it will be a great system.”
The FEMA Review Council’s report is supposed to include an
Any major changes to FEMA would likely need to move through Congress before they could take effect. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers hasn’t waited for the review council’s suggestions to get started.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 57-3 in September to send a bill to the floor that would make significant changes to FEMA, including making it a Cabinet-level agency.
House GOP leaders have yet to schedule the legislation for a vote. If passed, it would need Senate approval and Trump’s signature to become law.
Women who say they were abused by disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein raise their hands as attorney Bradley Edwards speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday night abruptly changed his tune, telling House Republicans to vote on a bill to compel the Department of Justice to release all files related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting federal trial.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown.’”
Trump continued in his signature style of arbitrary capital letters: “The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on “Epstein,” are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”
The House is expected to vote Tuesday after a bipartisan discharge petition garnered 218 signatures last week, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson, of Louisiana, to bring a bill to the floor that would compel the DOJ to release Epstein investigation materials.
It’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would bring the legislation to a floor vote in the GOP-controlled chamber.
Kentucky’s Thomas Massie co-sponsored the petition with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Three other House Republicans, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, joined all Democrats in signing.
The House’s newest Democrat, Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva, became the 218th signature after she was sworn in Wednesday by Johnson, following weeks in which the chamber was out of session. Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva until after the government shutdown, breaking a precedent of swearing in new members when the chamber is out.
Johnson has not been in favor of a vote, and rather has pointed to the ongoing House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s investigation into the Epstein documents.
Committee Republicans released more than 20,000 pages of Epstein’s emails on Wednesday, many of which contained Trump’s name.
The committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., revealed the massive trove of emails from Epstein’s estate after the panel’s Democrats released a selection of the correspondence that included the allegation that Trump “knew about the girls because he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Epstein was referring to Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator, who would later be convicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
Trump denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes, and has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club. Epstein was convicted in Florida of soliciting minors for sex in 2008.
Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, who surrounded himself with the rich and powerful.
Committee Republicans did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment Wednesday on how long the committee has had possession of the emails and their timing of the data dump.
The committee has subpoenaed several people in relation to the probe, including Maxwell, several former U.S. attorneys general and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also the president’s former personal defense attorney, to interview Maxwell in a Florida prison in July.
According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”
Soon after, Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas, and House Democrats claimed this month that a whistleblower revealed the convicted sex offender was being “pampered” by the warden. House Democrats also claimed the whistleblower revealed Maxwell was preparing a commutation application to Trump for release from her 20-year sentence.
The FBI issued a July memo stating the Department of Justice would not be releasing any further information on the government’s sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
The announcement sparked a firestorm of demands over the summer to release all investigative material, even among Trump’s supporters in Congress and far-right media influencers, including Megyn Kelly and the late Charlie Kirk.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to release the files.
Since the FBI memo, a magnifying glass has been fixed on Trump’s past relationship with Epstein.
The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump denies that he created and signed the birthday doodle.
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
Trump has denied all reports.
A series in the Miami Herald in 2018 by journalist Julie K. Brown drew wide attention to Epstein’s crimes and Trump’s appointment in 2017 of former Miami federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who cut a deal in 2008 to end a federal investigation into Epstein, as the secretary of Labor.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Tim Brown/Getty Images)
The Federal Aviation Administration early Monday lifted an order that airlines cut domestic flights to 40 major U.S. airports, as air traffic control staffing levels improve following the six-week government shutdown.
The move came just before the busiest travel week of the year, though it was unclear how long it would take for airlines to resume normal operations.
The FAA’s safety team recommended ending the restrictions after seeing only one staffing trigger affect travel Sunday, according to an agency press release. There were 81 staffing triggers on Nov. 8, a few days before the end of the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
“I want to thank the FAA’s dedicated safety team for keeping our skies secure during the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history and the country’s patience for putting safety first,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in the release. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, controllers have returned to their posts and normal operations can resume.”
The government reopened after a 43-day shutdown on Nov. 12.
Air traffic controllers were required to work without pay during the shutdown, leaving many to pursue second jobs and the workforce overstressed. The order to reduce flights, peaking at 6% at major airports, was meant to reduce that stress.
The banners at the tops of major U.S. airline websites warning of canceled flights disappeared by Monday morning.
One carrier, Southwest, replaced it with a message that its normal schedule would resume Monday.
“Good news, the US government shutdown has ended,” the message read. “Our full schedule resumes on Nov 17. Book your next trip with confidence today.”
A Kwik Trip station in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, was among the locations chosen for new charging stations in the first round of Wisconsin's build-out for its charging station network under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program (NEVI), part of the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted during President Joe Biden's term in office. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
A program to expand electric vehicle charging stations in Wisconsin is getting a $14 million jolt with plans to build 26 more stations across the state.
Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced the expansion plan Monday.
The announcement recharges the state’s electrical vehicle charging network project, supported by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. NEVI, part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law signed by then-President Joe Biden, provides grants to states to build more charging stations.
“Transportation is evolving, and departments of transportation and states have to adapt with that evolution,” said John DesRivieres, WisDOT’s communications director. “As the market and the number of folks who are driving electric vehicles grows, EV infrastructure is needed.”
NEVI funding paused after President Donald Trump took office, and Wisconsin was one of 15 states along with the District of Columbia to sue the Trump administration in May for cutting off money for the program. A federal judge blocked the administration in June from defunding NEVI, and the Wisconsin DOT subsequently restarted its program.
The $14 million in federal funds for Wisconsin’s new round of charging stations will go to projects in communities throughout the state, from Superior in the northwest to East Troy in the southeast. They include 11 locations at Kwik Trip service stations, six locations at hotels or resorts, six locations at other service station brands and a handful of other businesses.
“My administration and I have prioritized ensuring our state’s infrastructure meets the needs of the 21st Century since Day One because expanding our clean energy and electric vehicle infrastructure helps create jobs and bolster our economy, and it’s good for our planet, too,” Evers said. “Thanks to our actions to get the Trump Administration to release this critical funding that they were illegally withholding, we are thrilled to see the NEVI program continue to support these goals and further move us toward the clean energy future Wisconsinites deserve.”
The transportation department chose projects based on their location, their potential for future development, and the business site’s hours. Extended hours were given preference to accommodate longer refueling times, according to WisDOT.
Wisconsin’s plan calls for charging stations along 15 major interstate, U.S. and state highway corridors that cross the state. A WisDOT EV charging station dashboard shows the locations for all planned chargers in the state.
With the round of grants announced Monday, Wisconsin has invested a total of $36.4 million in federal funds for 78 projects.
The first round, announced in May 2024, invested $22.4 million to build 52 stations. Of those, 11 are operational, 16 have been authorized for construction and the rest are in pre-construction phases.
A federal tax credit for electric vehicles that was included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act abruptly ended, effective Sept. 30, under the Republican tax-cut and spending mega-bill enacted in July.
“There are already 37,000 EVs on the road today, and we saw that number spike as people raced to purchase EVs before the federal tax credit expired,” said Alex Beld, communications director for Renew Wisconsin, a nonprofit that promotes policies and programs to expand solar, wind and hydropower along with building electrification, energy storage and electric vehicles.
“By expanding our network of charging stations, we hope to see that number continue to climb,” Beld said. “Through this transition away from gas-powered vehicles, we can reduce emissions and support our state’s economy.”
An analysis by SRI International published in 2023 for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. concluded that “there is a tremendous opportunity for Wisconsin to develop a globally competitive cluster centered on the manufacturing of EVs and EV-related equipment, which in turn can help revitalize Wisconsin’s automotive manufacturing industry and drive statewide economic development.”
Beld said that jobs related to clean energy grew four times faster than the rest of Wisconsin’s economy in 2024.
“If this funding had been clawed back permanently, I think we would have still seen progress,” Beld said. “It would have certainly been slower and would have likely cost the state jobs.”
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A Nov. 14 conference at UW-Madison debated the merits of bringing fusion voting back to Wisconsin (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Dozens of political scientists, election experts and members of the public gathered in a UW-Madison conference room Friday to debate whether returning to a 19th century election process could empower voters and help turn back the United States’ slide toward authoritarianism.
The event centered around fusion voting, which is the practice of allowing more than one political party to nominate the same candidate on a ballot. Currently used in Connecticut and New York, the fusion voting system means the candidates on the left can appear on the ballot under both the Democratic Party and the smaller Working Families Party while candidates on the right appear for the Republican Party and the Conservative Party.
In theory this can give the minor parties enough influence to push for policy changes. A minor party that can swing 4% of a vote total can move the needle.
Throughout the 1800s, fusion voting was the norm across the country — the Republican Party itself was formed in Wisconsin as a fusion party by voters who felt that the major parties at the time, the Democrats and Whigs, weren’t doing enough to end slavery. Eventually, the two major parties worked together to get the practice banned in most of the country.
Often, minor fusion parties are further from the ideological center than the major parties, but a lawsuit is currently pending in Wisconsin from a group called United Wisconsin aiming to create a fusion party that connects moderate voters who don’t feel like they’re represented by the modern Democrats or Republicans. The effort is being helmed by former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz and former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney. The group is represented in the lawsuit by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward.
Lawsuits to reinstate fusion voting are also pending in New Jersey and Kansas.
Lilliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, said during the conference that the two party system and primary election process have polarized the country’s politics and made our’ “sense of winning or losing” more “existential.”
Looming over the discussions, but without being explicitly mentioned very often, was the Trump administration’s anti-democratic actions — including denying the outcome of the 2020 election, supporting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and pardoning Wisconsin’s fake electors — and the threat of authoritarianism. The debate Friday was often an exchange over how fusion voting fits into broader systemic reforms and if it can be used in tandem with proposals including proportional representation, multi-member congressional districts, ranked choice voting, gerrymandering prohibitions, filibuster reform and others.
“It makes it possible for people who want to organize and who want to create and claim their own political power, to do so in an effective way,” Beau Tremitiere, an attorney from the non-profit Protect Democracy, said. They’re exactly right. “People are deeply dissatisfied with the system. There’s a lot of energy to do something better and fusion makes that easier.”
Fusion advocates said the system allows politics to be more dynamic. People’s political beliefs don’t always fit neatly in a party system that encourages big tents and the necessity of coalition management in those big tents means that parties aren’t encouraged to distance themselves from their most extreme members.
“Politics is a complex, dynamic system that is always changing,” said Lee Drutman, who studies political reform at the think tank New America. “And the key is, how do you keep it from spiraling out of control? How do you keep it from a self-reinforcing tumult? And if you have a party system problem, which we do, you need a party system solution.”
But several speakers at the conference also laid out the limits and downsides of fusion voting. It’s not a major structural reform. Fusion parties are usually further from the ideological center, so if the goal is a more moderate politics, it’s not clear fusion will deliver that. Members of the Green Party expressed concern that fusion enables a patronage system of political favor trading.
Overall though, the conference often returned to the idea that the country is in a democracy crisis and experimentation is a good thing in the effort to turn it around.
“I’m supportive of experimentation,” Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, said. “It seems to me, we should see more real world experiments.”
Schultz, who was in the Legislature from 1983 to 2015, said he’s trying to establish a fusion party in Wisconsin to get more “humanity” in the state’s politics.
“Why fusion voting? Why does it matter? Because of agency, the fact that suddenly people get a chance to sit at the table, to be a part of the discussions that matter to them,” he said. “Yes, fusion voting is not the be- and end-all political reform, but it is, in my opinion, an essential part of our future if we’re going to get back to having a healthy democracy.”
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