WASHINGTON — Spikes in energy prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran drove up inflation for Americans in March, according to the latest consumer price index figures released Friday.

Costs jumped 0.9% in March compared to the previous month — that’s up from the 0.3% increase in February. 

Prices for all items together, including food, energy, shelter and other commodities like vehicles, rose by 3.3% from a year ago. That’s the highest annual jump since May 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data. 

Fuel costs drove the spike, with gasoline and fuel oil together rising 10.9% in March compared to the previous month. Singled out, gas prices jumped 21.2% in March. The cost for airfare, largely driven by jet fuel prices, rose 2.7% in March, up from the 1.4% jump in February.

President Donald Trump launched the joint war in Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. In response to the intense bombing campaign that killed the country’s supreme leader and numerous senior officials, the Iranian regime effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in and out of the Persian Gulf vital to the transport of one-fifth of the world’s petroleum.

As of Friday, Americans were paying $4.15 on average nationwide for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA. The average for diesel across the U.S. is $5.68 per gallon.

Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.

Iran’s de facto takeover of the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to strike any tankers, other than a handful from friendly countries, has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, according to the International Energy Agency.

Despite a tenuous ceasefire agreed to Tuesday evening Eastern time, Iran is still controlling the strait. Ten oil tankers transited the waterway Tuesday, and only one on Wednesday, according to the latest figures available from the Joint Maritime Information Center, which tracks tankers and cargo ships worldwide that are transmitting location data.

Prior to the war, roughly 140 vessels daily flowed freely through the Strait of Hormuz.

Dems pounce on affordability issue

Democrats blamed Trump Friday for higher inflation, as affordability is emerging as perhaps the single-most important issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November that will determine control of Congress.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said the president is “pushing working families to the brink.” 

“Trump promised to ‘lower prices on Day One,’ and instead he waged an unhinged trade war and started an unpopular war with Iran — and what have Americans gotten in return? Nothing except even higher prices. Americans are sick and tired of this president putting his own interests first and using their hard-earned dollars to fund his war instead of making health care more affordable or expanding access to child care,” Martin said in a statement Friday morning.

White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai responded to the inflation figures, saying the president “has always been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, disruptions that the Administration has been diligently working to mitigate.”

“Although gas and energy prices are seeing volatility, prices of eggs, beef, prescription drugs, dairy, and other household essentials are falling or remain stable thanks to President Trump’s policies. As the Administration ensures the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, the American economy remains on a solid trajectory thanks to the Administration’s robust supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance,” Desai wrote in a statement Friday morning posted on social media. 

Other costs

The price index for food consumed at home decreased 0.2% compared to the previous month, but increased 1.9% from a year ago. 

The costs of fruits and vegetables rose 1% in March compared to the previous month, but prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs declined 0.6%, according to the latest BLS figures.

The price index for items minus food and energy rose 0.2% in March, matching the increase in February. The cost of all items, less food and energy, rose 2.6% over the past 12 months.

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A coalition of electrical utilities, including two major players in Wisconsin’s power supply, is seeking federal intervention to pause competitive bidding for transmission projects needed to meet the vast energy needs of the data center boom.

The coalition filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Tuesday asking the agency to exempt at least some major grid upgrades from bidding, arguing “bureaucratic red tape” can tack months onto project timelines and strain the country’s ability to “achieve dominance” in artificial intelligence. 

“This complaint is about whether our country will seize, or squander, a generational chance to own the next century,” the utilities wrote.

Among the companies behind the complaint are Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin, and American Transmission Company (ATC), which owns and operates transmission lines across much of Wisconsin. 

National and statewide ratepayer advocacy groups reacted with alarm, casting the utilities’ request as a recipe for higher electricity bills. 

“Utilities rushing to catch a ride on the AI investment gold rush need to slow down and think about the impact their proposals are having,” wrote Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Tom Content, as customers “wake up like Groundhog Day to rate hikes well above the cost of living.”

The complaint and the pushback it prompted mark the latest phase in a long-standing fight over the benefits of opening the transmission market to competition.

Stiff competition

FERC first introduced competitive bidding for regional transmission projects in 2011 after ratepayer advocates lobbied for change, arguing that the earlier process — allowing local monopolies to control all projects within their territories — all but guaranteed inflated costs.

The shift set off a race between developers angling for a piece of the action. When a developer wins a transmission project, it also picks up a new revenue stream: Regulators pre-approve developers’ “return on equity,” or profit on each dollar invested.

Dozens of developers have lined up to bid since the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), a nonprofit that manages the wholesale electricity market and grid for much of the Midwest, approved more than $10 billion in new transmission projects in 2022. A new round of projects approved in December 2024 added about $22 billion to the total, and the list of prospective bidders grew once again.

Some are local utilities hoping to maintain control of their territory; others are powerful national utilities venturing outside of their turf, international developers wading into the U.S. market, and startup transmission developers backed by private equity firms.  

While the data center rush had already begun in the Midwest by the time MISO approved the latest set of transmission projects in 2024, the approved projects often couldn’t account for the scale and breakneck pace of the data center developments that emerged in the region soon after. With the boom now in full swing, the tenor of competition for transmission projects is changing.

Debate over bidding benefits 

MISO, which is also responsible for picking a developer for each project, has favored lower-cost bids with more substantial “cost containment” measures designed to shield customers from budget overruns. Ratepayer advocates say the lower bids are proof the bidding requirements are working, pushing even major national utilities to underbid competitors.

In their complaint to FERC, the coalition of utilities — which calls itself the “Grid Acceleration Coalition” — argued the benefits of competition are “unproven.” 

Projects entirely within one utility’s territory aren’t subject to competitive bidding; those projects routinely exceed initial budgets by millions of dollars. While cheaper bids tend to win competitive projects, the utility group argued that even those projects aren’t immune to budget overruns.

But the core of the utilities’ case is about time, not money. They argue the bidding process adds months to project timelines without clear benefits.

In their view, those delays harm customers, in part by slowing the construction of transmission lines that could expand access to cheaper electricity and prevent blackouts, and pose national security risks. 

“These projects — expressways for power — are as critical to meeting today’s challenges as the Eisenhower interstate highway system was to prevailing in the Cold War,” the coalition argued in its complaint. “China has devoted itself to overtaking America as the world’s AI leader and is just months behind.”

The utilities pointed to a recent example in Wisconsin: Last month, MISO reversed its decision to award three substations in Fond du Lac, Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties to private-equity-backed startup Viridon, instead handing the projects to ATC. 

ATC’s initial bid was more expensive than Viridon’s, but the company successfully argued it alone could build the substations in time to serve the nearby Vantage data center campus in Port Washington. 

MISO’s initial plans set a goal to complete the substations by 2033; the Port Washington data center plans to come online in early 2028. Though ATC emerged victorious, it told FERC that the 15-month delay between MISO’s initial approval of the substations and the reversal was “completely unnecessary.”

Ratepayer advocates and other observers, however, quickly pointed out that even noncompetitive projects run into delays. ATC’s Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line in southwest Wisconsin, for instance, came online in 2024 — more than a decade after MISO approved it — following prolonged legal battles with conservation groups. 

“All developers can experience construction delays,” said Claire Wayner, a senior associate with the clean energy nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute. “It’s not like there’s a silver bullet.”

Opponents also underscored that two competitively bid projects in the Southwest met their in-service date goals last year. 

“Competitive transmission projects have been shown to have a better track record of adhering to cost containment and completion schedules than noncompetitive projects,” said Paul Cicio, chair of the national Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition. “A moratorium would move us backward at precisely the wrong time.”

The back-and-forth over the merits of competition is nothing new, Wayner noted. “The tricky thing with transmission competition is that there are stories of projects from both sides of the aisle that support their positions.” 

The push to pause competition

The utility group proposed two options to FERC: Allow MISO and a Southwestern regional grid operator to exempt projects from competitive bidding on a case-by-case basis or suspend competition entirely for the next five years — “a period pegged to when our country must begin building the infrastructure that will decide which nation wins the AI race.”

The utilities added that they don’t intend to “claw back” other projects already awarded or interrupt ongoing bidding processes.

During that five-year period, national forecasts estimate data center electricity demand could reach up to 25% of the country’s total energy use. MISO alone projects that it may need to double its current pace of generation growth to avoid shortfalls in the near future.

MISO’s territory, stretching from the Upper Midwest to Louisiana, has seen by far the most dramatic increase in data center capacity since 2020 relative to other regional grid networks.

The right of first refusal fight

After FERC introduced competitive bidding in 2011, utility groups turned to state legislatures. The result: right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) laws that give established local utilities first dibs on transmission projects in their territories, including those planned by regional grid operators like MISO.

Utilities prevailed in Minnesota and Michigan; Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down its ROFR law in 2023 after a national transmission developer challenged its constitutionality, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker vetoed an ROFR bill the same year.

But similar efforts have failed in Wisconsin. State lawmakers have consistently rejected ROFR proposals, including a 2025 bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

Wisconsin ratepayer advocates see the FERC complaint as a work-around. “It is another effort by the utilities to defeat competition,” Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch. “When they lose in state legislatures and then lose out on competitive bids,” he added, “they go back to FERC.”

In the utilities’ complaint, Xcel Energy cited Wisconsin’s lack of an ROFR law, and the resulting bidding process for projects in the state, as posing a risk of delaying upgrades needed to serve a data center across the border in Minnesota. 

The company wouldn’t comment about the parallels between the options utilities suggested in the FERC complaint and ROFR laws. Instead, spokesman Kevin Coss pointed to permitting reforms in Minnesota — a 2024 law streamlining permitting for clean energy projects — as another example of the company’s efforts to “speed the buildout of critical infrastructure across our systems.” Xcel did not bid on any of the competitive projects in Wisconsin.

In a statement to Wisconsin Watch, ATC argued the options its coalition suggested to FERC “would not operate as a substitute” for an ROFR law, “even temporarily or on a case-by-case basis.”

Buildout costs fall to ratepayers

Regardless of who builds a transmission line, ratepayers cover the construction and maintenance costs through their electricity bills. We Energies estimates that transmission-related costs account for about 10% of customers’ bills. 

Customers across the Upper Midwest share the costs of MISO-designed projects across multiple states, spreading costs among a larger number of ratepayers.

But billing practices vary. In some cases, utilities can only bill ratepayers for the costs of building a transmission project after it comes online. When ATC builds a transmission line, FERC allows the developer to begin billing customers while the line is still under construction.

ATC says this approach saves customers money in the long term by reducing interest on construction costs.
Ratepayer advocates see it differently. “Consumers are paying for projects without receiving the benefits,” Cicio said. Transmission projects take years to complete, and short-term increases in monthly electricity bills don’t square well with concerns about affordability and the risk of stranded assets if the AI boom goes bust.

Adding to the frustration: a planned 9.2% electricity rate increase for We Energies customers in eastern Wisconsin over the next two years. That rate hike in part reflects the addition of generators, including new natural gas plants in Milwaukee and Kenosha counties, needed to meet data center demands.

Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission will soon decide how to divvy up costs of powering We Energies-served data centers — a decision that could set a statewide precedent.

Utilities seek federal pause on grid bidding amid AI-driven power demand 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.

A more than $200 million federal loan could help complete construction on a medical isotope manufacturing facility in Janesville that will eventually support about 150 full-time jobs.

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City Clerk Nikki Elsen said the last remaining regular license and one of the city's few reserve licenses are expected to be granted at Thursday's city council meeting. 

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Antitrust lawsuits from across the country against three fire truck manufacturers — including two based in Wisconsin — will now be centralized in a federal court in the Badger State.

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The delay comes as energy use in the region is expected to skyrocket due to data center projects under construction.

The post We Energies delays retirement of aging Oak Creek coal units to the end of 2027 appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin’s economy, along with the nation’s, is cooling, the state’s labor department reported Thursday, with unemployment up slightly in January and jobs trending down from January a year ago.

The state’s trend tends to match seasonal patterns in Wisconsin, said Scott Hodek, section chief for the Office of Economic Advisors in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, during an online briefing. But it also tracks with the national economic slowdown, he said, although Wisconsin’s experience has been easier.

“The Wisconsin labor market has cooled a bit along with the national economy, but unemployment does remain historically low” in the state, Hodek said.

The state projected 3,032,500 jobs in January 2026 — an increase of 8,000 from December 2025, but a drop of 15,400 from January 2025. “That fits what we know of national trends that we have seen so far in the first quarter,” Hodek said.

Wisconsin’s construction industry has been gaining in the last year, with 10,000 more jobs in January 2026 compared with January 2025, and an increase of 2,400 jobs since December.

Manufacturing, however, lost 2,100 jobs in January 2026 compared with December 2025, and 8,600 jobs from January 2025. That continues “a long-running trend,” Hodek said.

The number of jobs reported each month is a projection made from a federal survey of employers’ payrolls.

The Wisconsin unemployment rate edged up to 3.3% in January — an increase from 3.2% in December 2025, but the same as January 2025, Hodek said. Labor force participation in Wisconsin is 64.3%, higher than the national average of 62.5%, DWD reported.

Labor force participation measures how many people age 16 or older are working or looking for work; it leaves out people in the military or living in institutions including prisons and nursing homes.

The employment and labor force projections are based on a different survey that the federal government conducts of households.

The report released Thursday is one of three to come out in April. Hodek said the January data didn’t come out sooner because the federal government shutdown in October delayed an annual review that adjusts the labor market statistics to new benchmarks. Data for February and March will be released later in April to catch Wisconsin up with the calendar. 

A national report that looks at hiring trends as well as layoffs and firings through February shows that “hires have been down and overall openings have been down, and separations have been pretty stable,” Hodek said.

Those numbers aren’t available yet for Wisconsin, he said, but the December data showed the state had a higher rate of job openings and a lower rate of job separations, he added.

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A Manitowoc County committee is recommending the county board approve an ordinance placing a one-year moratorium on data centers.

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Just like regular gas prices, the price of diesel has skyrocketed over the past month in response to the war in Iran.

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Thanks to developments in genetic selection and feeding, the amount of fat in milk has spiked in recent years after decades of consistency.

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On Monday morning with a couple of strokes of his pen, Gov. Tony Evers signed an increase in Wisconsin’s workers compensation into law and repurposed $250,000 per year in state funds that have been going unused for years.

The second action would not have been possible, however, if there hadn’t been another measure — one that had actually died before reaching him.

Three bills in all were involved in the complex maneuver.

The first is AB 651 — a bill that updates Wisconsin’s workers compensation system. With that legislation, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, workers comp will cover post-traumatic stress syndrome in emergency medical responders, EMS providers and volunteer and part-time firefighters.

The measure had long been sought on behalf of those first responders.

“Community heroes who have given so much of themselves and need healing because of their service deserve our support, and I am excited to see this critical care extended to those to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude,” said Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken), who championed the legislation.

The same bill has a number of other provisions, including an increase in weekly compensation rates for injured workers and an expansion in access to supplemental benefits for workers whose on-the-job injuries have left them permanently and totally disabled.

Previously those supplemental benefits were only available to workers disabled before Jan. 1, 2003. The new measure covers workers disabled between that date and Jan. 1, 2020.

The new law is the product of a longstanding joint labor-management council that advises lawmakers on the state’s workers compensation system

“Today, we’re proving that we’re more committed to that legacy than ever, and I want to thank all the bipartisan partners for their support and advocacy to come to good faith agreements and get this done,” Evers said in a statement.

Partial veto and a bill that died

On the second bill Evers signed, he used his partial veto power to free up $250,000 per year in money that goes to the Department of Workforce Development. 

That was made possible because of the third bill — AB 652, a revision of Wisconsin unemployment insurance law — which his office threatened to veto, and which didn’t even make it out of the Legislature.

Like the workers comp bill, the unemployment insurance bill  was the product of a joint labor-management advisory council.

The bill would have raised the top weekly jobless pay benefit by $25 a week, to $390, the first increase in a decade. 

But that was coupled with a number of provisions that Evers and Democrats opposed, including  a penalty for unemployed workers who receive federal Social Security Disability Income. The penalty would have cut their jobless pay by 50% of the value of their federal disability income.

The bipartisan unity in favor of the workers comp bill contrasted with deep division on the unemployment insurance bill. 

“The workers comp bill came out very clean, we had no issues with it,” state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) said Monday.

But drafts of the unemployment insurance (UI) bill raised alarm among Democrats “weeks before we got the UI bill,” Sinicki said. “We could not support actually reducing payments to those living with disabilities.” 

Rebellion over the jobless pay bill

Since 2013, Wisconsin SSDI recipients have been disqualified from getting unemployment compensation entirely. A federal judge ruled in 2024 that the restriction violated federal laws, and in 2025 ordered DWD to stop enforcing the provision.

Under a court order, DWD has now started paying back SSDI recipients who were denied jobless pay under the 2013 law.

AB 652 not only reduced those benefits, it also contained a number of provisions erecting new barriers to jobless pay, some of which Evers had previously vetoed in bills passed with only Republican support in the state Legislature.

One of those was a requirement for DWD to undertake specific “identity-proofing” measures for jobless pay applicants to prevent fraud.

Unemployment insurance lawyer Victor Forberger wrote in a blog post July 14 that the identity-proofing provision “does nothing” that DWD wasn’t already doing.

Evers’ communications director confirmed the governor’s intention to veto the measure after it passed an Assembly committee on a party-line vote in January.

The unemployment insurance bill passed the full Assembly on a party-line vote Jan. 20. It subsequently failed to make it to the Senate floor and died as a result.

Redirecting funds

That’s where the third bill comes in — AB 650. 

The bill includes funding for the workers comp program administration. Republicans added  funding for the identity-proofing measures that were in the unemployment bill. 

Separating funding for new policies from the bills that lay out those policies has become a regular GOP practice, in order to try to prevent Evers from using his partial veto to change policy. (In Wisconsin the governor can only use his partial veto on spending legislation.) 

But this time, the action gave Evers an opening. 

Because the unemployment bill had failed — but funding for one of its provisions remained in the separate bill — Evers was able to scratch out language allocating funding for the failed policy and repurpose the additional $250,000 per year the Republicans had intended for identify proofing.

To fund the identity-proofing provision, legislators had  proposed a revision in an existing budget appropriation that authorizes $250,000 a year for DWD to pay for substance abuse treatment.

Under a law enacted in 2015, under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, employers can report to DWD if a prospective new hire fails a drug test. The law disqualifies the person who flunks from receiving unemployment compensation — but also states that the individual can remain eligible by entering substance abuse treatment.

DWD is to pay for the treatment using the $250,000 that the Legislature appropriates each year.

Haley McCoy, the DWD communications director, said Monday that the provision is rarely used, and employers haven’t submitted any reports on job applicants who flunked drug tests since 2021.

In AB 650, GOP lawmakers expanded the use of DWD’s annual drug treatment appropriation, allowing the money also to be used for “costs related to identity proofing under s. 108.14 (10m) for which federal funding is unavailable.”

A funding provision with nothing to fund

The funding bill passed both houses of the Legislature unanimously. But by the time it got to Evers, the unemployment insurance bill and its identity proofing provision were dead.

On Monday, Evers pulled out his veto pen and scratched out references to “identity proofing” in the funding bill. He also crossed out additional words, turning the phrase about how the drug treatment money is to be used into “costs for which federal funding is unavailable.”

The rewritten bill became 2025 Act 144.

In Evers’ veto message, he noted that the language applying to “identity proofing” was “a reference to a statute which does not exist” and added that DWD already has tools to verify identity and prevent fraud. The department “conducts a variety of anti-fraud activities,” he wrote.

The partial veto, he wrote, gives DWD “new flexibility to access state funding in an appropriation that purports to improve the unemployment insurance system by drug testing claimants; in fact, this funding has gone unspent for several years, and drug testing only serves to create barriers for claimants to access necessary benefits in times of economic hardship.”

Evers’ veto message said the department will be able to use the “modest amount” of additional money “when the federal government fails to support state unemployment administration sufficiently.”

The veto message didn’t specify how the funds would be deployed, but the press release from the governor’s office announcing his action on the workers comp and the funding bills discussed at length the Evers administration’s project to upgrade Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system — for which the Trump administration has terminated $29 million in previously awarded federal grants.

“He could have just cut that funding out completely,” Sinicki said Monday. “But the way he did it, I thought, was really creative by giving the department some flexibility with it.”

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Wisconsin’s population growth slowed in 2025 after international migration to the state was cut by more than half, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

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Gas prices are climbing again across the United States — with little clarity on where prices are headed next — spurring proposals for state gas tax holidays in the hopes of offering drivers some relief.

The national average hit $3.96 per gallon Monday, up from $3.72 the week before, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A month ago, the average price per gallon was $2.79.

Some analysts warn prices could continue climbing in the coming weeks, potentially pushing the national average above $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022.

Data from AAA, a national travel and motorist organization, shows a similar upward trend for both regular gas and diesel.

While the Energy Information Administration no longer publishes detailed data for every state, regional figures show increases across much of the country. The West Coast, Central Atlantic states and Rocky Mountain region are seeing some of the highest average prices, with California, Colorado and Washington among those experiencing the largest recent increases.

Rising gas prices are putting renewed pressure on household finances, especially for low- and middle-income Americans who have less flexibility to absorb higher transportation costs. The increases can ripple through daily life, influencing how much people drive, where they travel and how they spend money elsewhere.

Still, economists say the most significant factor right now is not just the price itself, but the uncertainty surrounding it. With national policy decisions and geopolitical developments in the Middle East shifting rapidly, there is little consensus on how long prices will remain elevated or how high they could climb.

“Gasoline prices don’t live in isolation,” said Steven Durlauf, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Durlauf also is the director of the university’s Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility. “Reductions in the supply of petroleum, oil-based products affect the entire economy.”

States weigh gas tax holidays

With prices rising, local leaders and state lawmakers in several states — including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Utah — have weighed gas tax holidays as a way to provide relief at the pump.

Georgia lawmakers have already enacted a temporary suspension, while officials in Florida and Maryland have expressed skepticism, citing budget constraints and questions about how much savings would actually reach consumers.

Gas prices have risen across all of these states, with some of the sharpest increases in the South.

Gas tax holidays, which temporarily suspend or reduce state fuel taxes, gained traction in 2022 when gas prices last topped $4 per gallon. Supporters say they can offer immediate, visible relief by lowering the per-gallon cost of fuel.

But researchers and some economists say the benefits are often limited and uneven. A new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning tax policy research group, estimates that the recent rise in gas prices is on pace to cost American drivers an additional $9.4 billion per month.

The researchers found that gas tax holidays may provide only minimal relief to those who need it most. For households earning less than $53,000 a year, a federal gas tax holiday would save about $5 per month on average.

Some research suggests that much of the benefit from such policies may not reach consumers at all. When fuel supply is constrained, a significant share of the savings can be absorbed within the oil and gas supply chain rather than passed on at the pump.

State-level examples reflect similar patterns. In Georgia, analysts from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the state’s newly enacted tax holiday is expected to cost the state about $196 million per month and disproportionately benefit wealthier households: The bottom 60% are expected to receive just 22% of the tax cuts — or roughly $13 per family, according to the ITEP analysis.

Utah lawmakers have spent a year planning for a 15% cut in the state’s gas tax from July through December. But some economists say any savings for consumers might be engulfed by higher prices.

“It’s still unclear the extent people will notice that tax cut,” Phil Dean, chief economist at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, told the Utah News Dispatch.

There are also fiscal trade-offs. Gas taxes are a key source of revenue for transportation infrastructure, and suspending them — even temporarily — can strain state budgets, particularly in places where revenues have fallen in recent years.

Some experts say more targeted approaches, such as direct income rebates or assistance aimed at lower-income households, may be more effective in offsetting rising fuel costs without reducing transportation funding.

“A tax holiday is, I think, something most economists would be uncomfortable with,” said Durlauf, the University of Chicago economist.

If the consumer demand is still there, gasoline prices might still rise, he said. “It’s not obvious to me that the prices will not just adjust to (gas tax holidays) as well.”

Global tensions

Much of the recent volatility stems from the Trump administration’s war in Iran and uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global oil transit route through which a significant share of the world’s oil supply passes. Iran has effectively restricted access to some vessels in the region, raising fears of supply disruptions that can quickly ripple through global markets.

Even the threat of disruption can send oil prices higher, as traders react to the possibility of reduced supply.

Though the United States produces substantial amounts of oil domestically, it remains part of a global market, meaning international developments still directly affect prices at the pump.

“Americans can’t fence themselves off from the impacts of global changes to supply and demand,” said Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a fuel savings and price-tracking company. “Actions have consequences, and consumers are very much feeling that.”

Crude oil remains the single biggest driver of gasoline prices, accounting for about half of the cost of a gallon of regular gas, according to the Energy Information Administration. Refining makes up about 20%, while distribution and marketing account for 11%, and taxes roughly 18%.

Brent crude oil — the international benchmark — has surged in recent weeks, briefly reaching $119 per barrel last week. It settled around $100 per barrel on Monday, and rose again on Tuesday to about $113 per barrel.

Federal forecasts expect prices to remain elevated in the near term before easing later this year.

Seasonal factors are also contributing to the increase. As warmer weather approaches, refineries transition to producing summer-blend gasoline, which is more expensive to manufacture but designed to reduce evaporation and meet environmental standards.

Warmer weather also usually means more drivers will be on the road.

“The oil industry is volatile. It’s a global market, and that’s why we don’t predict what’s going to happen next because it’s impossible to,” said Aixa Diaz, a spokesperson for AAA. “This all coincided at a time when gas would normally be going up anyway for us.”

At its core, gasoline pricing reflects basic supply and demand dynamics. When supply tightens — or is expected to — prices rise. When demand falls, prices tend to drop, sometimes sharply.

“Whenever there’s a perceived shift in either supply or demand, there’s going to be an equal reaction,” De Haan said. “This is just one of the larger reactions, because it’s a larger impact.”

The recent spike has also been fueled by rapidly shifting political signals. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is in talks with Iran to resolve the conflict, helping to briefly push oil prices lower after they surged amid Trump’s threats to target Iran’s energy infrastructure. Iran denied there were ongoing talks.

Such volatility, economists say, adds another layer of uncertainty that can weigh on both consumers and the broader economy.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

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• St. Vincent de Paul-Madison started a microloan program in 2023 and has so far made nearly $100,000 in loans to 50 people.  

• Word spread about the program, and leaders at St. Vincent de Paul-St. Thomas More Conference in Appleton decided to implement a similar initiative. 

• People must meet several criteria to be eligible for a low-interest microloan. 

• The local St. Vincent de Paul chapter financially supports the loan, and borrowers work with a partner bank to establish a bank account, get the funds and go through financial education. 

• However, the effort is not without risk. The Madison organization has had people default on their microloans, though leaders declined to say how many.

Mary T. had a $2,500 balance on her credit card. It came with a 26.9% interest rate.

“I wanted to be responsible and pay off my loan … but it was so hard to get it paid off,” the Madison resident said. 

Then, she heard about St. Vincent de Paul-Madison’s microloan program. If she qualified, the organization would pay the credit card loan and Mary would then pay back St. Vincent de Paul on a loan with a 4.3% interest rate through a local bank.

“It’s July 2027 that I’ll have it paid off,” Mary said. “It was not hard to go through the paperwork, and they were so nice to me throughout the whole process.”

Mary is one of about 50 people helped by St. Vincent de Paul’s microloan program since it started in late 2023. The Madison organization launched its initiative to help people living in poverty manage a one-time bill or pay off high-interest payday loans.

“People get trapped in these loans,” said Julie Bennett, CEO and executive director of St. Vincent de Paul-Madison. “They take out a loan to help with a car repair, for example, and the interest just grows. They then need another loan or need to extend the loan because they can’t pay the interest, and it just spirals.”

Since St. Vincent de Paul-Madison started its microloan program, the organization has made nearly $100,000 in loans, and word has spread. The St. Vincent de Paul-St. Thomas More Conference in Appleton launched its microloan program in February. 

“The first microloan we made was for someone who had an auto title loan with a 305% effective interest rate. He had a $1,500 loan, and we were able to get him down to a 5% interest rate,” Bennett said.

Finding an alternative to payday loans

The Madison organization’s leaders learned about microloan programs offered by St. Vincent de Paul conferences in Columbus, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, after attending national events. Members thought it was a great program they could bring back to Wisconsin, which has some of the highest average payday loan interest rates in the nation. A report from The Pew Charitable Trusts found state residents pay an average of $395 in fees and interest when repaying a $500 loan after four months, for an interest rate of 338%.

As the Madison organization’s leaders worked on the 2019-2022 strategic plan, Bennett said creating a microloan program was included on the to-do list. They looked at other microloan programs and struggled at first to understand the complexity of banking. St. Vincent de Paul-Madison created a task force that included financial representatives who helped them understand how the loan process would work. Representatives from local organizations that work with those living in poverty also joined the task force. 

While St. Vincent de Paul-Madison provides the money for the loans, its leaders must partner with financial institutions to process the loans and help create a positive lending experience for the borrower’s credit report. The Bank of Sun Prairie signed on as the organization’s first banking partner in 2023, with Lake Ridge Bank joining in 2025. 

“We needed a financial partner to take care of all the loan documentation and to make sure the loan was on (the borrower’s) record,” Bennett said. “If they pay off the loan successfully, it looks good on their credit record and gives them something to build on.”

Microloan recipients must meet several requirements to qualify, including being a Dane County resident, having a monthly household income at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, being willing to have a bank account and having a monthly debt-to-income ratio under 47%.

As part of the program, loans range from $400 to $2,500. Borrowers receive low-interest rates between 4% and 8% and set up flexible repayment plans over two years through local banks. 

“We see the microloans as an alternative to payday loans for people who need money but have no other source to go to,” Bennett said. “We also see the microloans as a way to pay off those payday loans, which cause immediate and long-term harm to borrowers since the interest rates keep going up.”

Borrowers also receive financial education and support to help them avoid similar situations in the future. Bennett said St. Vincent de Paul-Madison wanted to provide that education with a sensitive approach. The University of Wisconsin-Extension’s Financial Education program developed training for the microlending team so they could have sensitive, discreet conversations.

“No one likes talking to strangers about their money, and it’s even harder when their financial condition is precarious,” she said.

The microloan program carries some risk for St. Vincent de Paul-Madison. If borrowers default on their loans, the organization is on the hook for paying them off. Unfortunately, that has happened, though Bennett declined to share how many people have defaulted. 

To Mary, being able to get her interest rate to a predictable and manageable number was vital.

“I just know how much I need to pay without the total … going up all the time, with the interest … growing,” she said. “I felt I was never making any progress with the payments. Now, I can see when it’s all going to be paid off, and I know I’m going to get it done.”

An example to others

The Madison team paid their experience forward, and leaders from an Appleton organization took notice.

Karen Rickert, a member of St. Vincent de Paul-St. Thomas More Conference, heard Bennett speak about Madison’s microloan program at an event. In her years as a volunteer, Rickert saw many people caught living paycheck to paycheck. A woman who was hit with a car repair bill and turned to a payday lender stuck with Rickert.

“The repair costs were more than what we could help with. She couldn’t go to work because she didn’t have a working car. She couldn’t take her kids to school because she didn’t have a car. She eventually had to take out one of those terrible payday loans,” Rickert said. “I felt terrible about it, but it sprung me into action.” 

Members from the Appleton organization met with Bennett and learned as much as possible about the Madison group’s microloan program. They put their bylaws and plans together. 

The next step? Raising $20,000 to serve as security for the loans. Thanks to a grant and donations, they nearly doubled their goal.

Nicolet Bank signed on as the financial institution. Rickert said the organization has several volunteers who used to work in finance and banking. They “walk hand-in-hand with our borrowers through the process to help address any issues before they become a problem,” she said. 

For organizations looking to start their own microloan programs, Bennett and Rickert recommended talking to groups with their own initiatives and being prepared to ask a lot of questions. The St. Thomas More Conference learned a lot by talking with the Madison organization and others as they put their microloan program together, Rickert said.

“It was a lot of work and took us a while to get it going, but it was worth it,” she said.

With everything in place, the Appleton organization made its first microloan in February.

“It’s amazing to see this all come together and now we’re able to help people get loans at a reasonable rate and help steer them away from payday loans,” Rickert said. “We’re helping them get a step ahead.”

Learn more: Visit the St. Vincent de Paul-St. Thomas More Conference website at www.svdpappleton.org/other-ways-we-help to request assistance.

Madison microloan program inspires Appleton organization is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Line 5 reroute has generated years of debate, protests, tens of thousands of comments and challenges to state permits that prompted a weekslong contested case hearing. The fight over Line 5 is one front in a larger battle over pipeline projects that often pit energy security and jobs against potential harms to the environment and tribal treaty rights. 

The post Work on Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute underway as legal challenges aim to halt construction appeared first on WPR.

In 1985, Wisconsin was one of the most unionized states in the country. A new study looks at the precipitous decline in union membership after the passage of Act 10, which marks its 15th anniversary this month.

The post Wisconsin saw steepest decline in union membership over 40-year period, report finds appeared first on WPR.

State rainy day funds — money reserved to cover unexpected expenses and patch short-term budget holes — are declining nationally as states face increased costs, lower tax revenue and federal budget cuts, a new analysis found. 

The decline follows a period of strong reserves bolstered by federal pandemic aid and higher-than-expected tax collections, the report said.

Researchers at The Pew Charitable Trusts found that the number of days that state reserves could cover state operations fell in fiscal year 2025 — the first decline since the Great Recession. 

State reserve funds will play a critical role in stabilizing state finances as they confront the most widespread budgetary pressures since at least 2020, the researchers said. Like household savings accounts, state reserves help fund major one-time investments or provide a cushion in times of disrupted tax revenues, including economic downturns. Lower reserves means states could be quicker to cut state services or raise taxes in times of tight budgets.

Examining data from a survey conducted by the National Association of State Budget Officers, Pew researchers concluded that the median state in 2025 could fund its operations on reserve funds for 47.8 days — down from a record 54.5 days in fiscal 2024. 

States last fiscal year held a collective $174 billion in savings, though reserves varied widely. Wyoming, for example, held enough cash on hand to operate for 320 days. But New Jersey’s reserve didn’t hold enough to cover a single day of state operations. The other states with the smallest share of rainy day reserves were Washington, Illinois, Delaware and Rhode Island. 

The Pew analysis found that 26 states in 2025 had less capacity in their rainy day funds — meaning they would cover fewer days of state operations. In 14 of those states, officials drew on reserves, while 10 grew their balances but did so more slowly than they increased state spending. Two states maintained flat reserve levels as expenses grew.

While helpful in the short term, reserves won’t provide a long-term solution for states as many are confronting structural imbalances, meaning revenue streams are not keeping up with government spending. 

“Although reserves exist to provide relief during times of fiscal stress, they are not a sustainable solution for persistent budget shortfalls,” the analysis said. 

Budget pressures are expected to increase as states grapple with major federal policy changes that cut state funding and increase state administrative costs for federal safety net programs including Medicaid and food assistance. 

In its most recent survey of state budgets, the National Association of State Budget Officers found that general fund spending was projected to be “nearly flat” in fiscal year 2026 budgets. More states last year began enacting spending cuts and hiring freezes to balance budgets, the survey found, and slow revenue growth was projected for a fourth consecutive year. 

The survey showed 23 states expected spending to stay flat or decline in 2026, while 14 expected spending to grow by less than 5%. Seven states projected growth between 5% and 10%, while five expected spending to grow by more than 10%. 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Harley-Davidson is announcing a "reduction in force" for employees who work for the company across the globe.

The post Harley-Davidson announces ‘reduction in force’ for global workforce appeared first on WPR.

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Microsoft announced last week it would stop signing nondisclosure agreements that keep its data center proposals secret, a move that received praise from open government advocates.

Less attention was paid to the other party to those NDAs: local governments.

“Hopefully, the industry follows,” said Wisconsin state Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, where the city signed an NDA, then put a proposed data center on hold. Microsoft “just realized that it’s not a successful formula when you come into a community under darkness.”

Moses said a bill he introduced to ban data center NDAs, which stalled in the Legislature, is still needed to prevent local governments from signing the agreements. If local officials sign them, “hopefully voters will remember it and hold them accountable,” he said.

Microsoft did not sign NDAs in the Racine County communities of Mount Pleasant, where a multibillion-dollar data center complex is under construction, or in Caledonia, where it withdrew a data center proposal amid community opposition. But its announcement comes at a time of public backlash against data centers proposed in Wisconsin.

The company said its new position on NDAs is an effort toward transparency “as we continue to build trust with the communities around the world in which we operate” and that it would work with local governments to terminate current NDAs. Microsoft has one in Kenosha, where a data center is proposed.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for further comment.

Its move won qualified praise from data center NDA critics, such as Midwest Environmental Advocates. “Companies typically don’t make announcements about building community trust unless those communities are already pushing back pretty hard,” the group said in a statement.

Sheboygan Falls Mayor Randy Meyer, board president of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said municipalities feel pressure to sign NDAs because they need new development to increase tax revenue. It can be difficult to know when in the planning process a development proposal should be disclosed to the public, he added.

But “if the companies that are building data centers say there’s nothing wrong with them, they don’t hurt the environment, all that stuff, well, then there’s no real reason to be secretive about it,” Meyer said.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, also praised Microsoft’s move, which happened during Sunshine Week, which promotes public access to government meetings and records. 

But Lueders encouraged local government officials to be more transparent.

“There’s nothing the public hates more than the idea that their public officials are doing things behind their back,” he said. “That’s like the most offensive thing that you could do as a public official is hide information that affects the people you represent.”

Wisconsin Watch has reported that at least five Wisconsin communities signed data center NDAs. In one of them, Beaver Dam — where an NDA was signed more than a year before the proposal was announced — a $1 billion Meta data center is under construction.

Meta declined to comment on Microsoft’s announcement.

Vantage Data Centers, which is building a $15 billion data center in Port Washington with Oracle and OpenAI, did not reply to a request for comment.

The push to build data centers nationwide has meant more than $1 billion in business for Wisconsin suppliers, even before any of the hyperscale data centers in Wisconsin begin operation.

The data centers proposed or under construction in Wisconsin typically cost billions of dollars and cover hundreds of acres. 

Some communities that have not signed NDAs have taken other steps to keep data center proposals quiet.

The Madison suburb of DeForest dropped a proposed $12 billion data center in January, the day after Wisconsin Watch reported that village staff worked for at least seven months with Virginia-based QTS Data Centers before the proposal was publicly announced in October. 

Wisconsin Watch also found that in Port Washington, when citizens requested emails about the data center, the city turned over emails but withheld documents that were attached to the emails — something a judge found did not follow the state open records law.

Blaine Halverson, a leading opponent of the proposed data center in Menomonie, said Microsoft’s announcement is a step, but he remains skeptical.

“I think that committing to not doing NDAs does not mean they’re not committed to still being secretive,” he said. 

“What the pledge needs to be (is) that we’re going to not just not use NDAs. We’re going to be up front. We’re going to encourage and allow free communication from the beginning with communities. And we’re going to insist on being available to answer the public’s questions from the front end. That’s what needs to happen.”

Local data center critics praise Microsoft’s pledge to stop using NDAs, but remain skeptical 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.

Abbott Laboratories expects to close Monday on its acquisition of Madison-based biotechnology company Exact Sciences. 

The post Abbott expects to close on acquisition of Madison’s Exact Sciences on Monday appeared first on WPR.