Last week’s record-setting and hazardous wildfire smoke that covered much of the state for days limited several outdoor activities.
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Nurses at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison have petitioned for an election to vote on joining the Service Employees International Union. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
The union election of nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison was certified Wednesday after a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board overruled the objections of the hospital’s parent company, SSM Health.
On June 11, nurses at the hospital voted 89% to form a union. It was the largest representation election in Wisconsin in at least a quarter century. The nursing staff at St. Mary’s previously told the Wisconsin Examiner that they were seeking to form a union over concerns about procedures, staffing and compensation and a lack of responsiveness from hospital management.
The St. Louis-based SSM Health had objected to the election, arguing that charge nurses at the hospital should not be allowed to vote or join the union because they hold a supervisory role. At the nearby Meriter Hospital in Madison, charge nurses are part of the union.
The company had filed its objections about the charge nurses prior to the election but the NLRB had decided to delay ruling on the question and the charges nurses were allowed to vote but their ballots were kept separate.
The hospital system’s objections included claims that the delayed decision affected the election results, that charge nurses engaged in pro-union electioneering, that the union caused disruptions to the hospital’s human resources staff, that a pro-union staffer brought cookies to the voting area and that union supporters tried to enter the voting area.
Jennifer Hadsall, the director of the NLRB region that includes Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and parts of Iowa, wrote in her ruling that for most of the objections, the system did not include proof of the complaint or that the activity affected the election results.
“I have concluded, for the reasons set forth in this decision, that the offer of proof produced by the Employer is not sufficient to meet its burden of showing that the proffered evidence would be grounds for setting aside the election if introduced and credited at a hearing,” Hadsall wrote.
While the election was certified, the board has still not ruled on the question of charge nurses joining the union.
After the ruling, nurses at the hospital celebrated the decision and urged hospital management to stop working to prevent the unionization and instead start bargaining.
“The Labor Board has spoken, our community has spoken, elected leaders have spoken, St. Mary’s nurses have spoken, and we have resoundingly declared that it’s time for SSM to respect our union vote so we can start working on solutions for our patients,” Zach Zahalka, a nurse in the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab, said in a statement. “As nurses, this work is a calling, and our primary role is to be our patients’ advocates. Forming our union is an extension of that patient advocacy, and we urgently have to solve the crisis of understaffing and loss of experienced nurses at St. Mary’s.”
“SSM needs to stop trying to undermine our union,” he added, “and instead focus all their resources on engaging with us productively so that together we can create real solutions for better staffing and retention to provide the best care.”
Lisa Adams, a spokesperson for the hospital, said in a statement that the hospital is reviewing the decision.
“SSM Health respects the federal labor law process. We have received the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) staff decision and are reviewing it,” she said.
Violet LaClair was ready to leave her job.
As a certified nursing assistant at UW Health in Madison, she used the skills she developed while caring for her dying grandmother for nine years. Her co-workers had supported her through her gender transition. She’d even won an award for providing “extraordinary” care.
She loved her workplace, but after four years, she wanted a change.
“I felt like I’d done it all,” LaClair said. “I felt like at some point I needed to challenge myself more.”
She thought about going back to school, but that didn’t seem doable. She was already in her 40s and didn’t have time or money to spend.
Then she learned she could get trained to be a medical assistant for free, while working, through an apprenticeship program UW Health started in 2018. She pays no school costs, and she gets paid for the time she spends in class.
Three days a week, she works at the company’s Union Corners clinic, where she gets patients situated, takes blood pressure, flushes ears and more.
“I can pretty much do anything the doctor asked me to,” LaClair said. Two days a week, she takes classes on pharmacology, laboratory procedures, and law and ethics.
“I think the program is great,” LaClair said. “It’s given me a whole new chapter in my life, and something to be excited about.”
Opportunities like these are novel, but increasingly common. The idea is simple: Maybe the country’s next nurses, surgical technologists and medical assistants are already working in hospitals and clinics. The people who’ve spent years booking appointments or drawing blood might jump at the chance to train for new careers — if their employers will help them do it.
UW Health now offers apprenticeship options for 17 professions, including surgical techs, pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and registered nurses. Apprentices pay nothing for their course work, and they get paid to be in class.
To date, more than 1,000 apprentices have graduated.
Bridgett Willey, who oversaw the launch of those apprenticeships, said they’ve helped fill a critical gap. Wisconsin colleges alone just aren’t graduating enough students to meet the needs of the three major health systems in southern Wisconsin, Willey said.
The popular programs, which attract far more applicants than they can accommodate, have helped the company fill entry-level roles and hold onto existing staff. Before it began offering apprenticeships, as many as 3 in 10 positions for medical assistants, nursing assistants and pharmacy technicians were unfilled, Willey said. Today, it’s around 1 in 10.
“We’ve increased our supply by growing our own and training our own folks,” Willey said.
UW Health isn’t the only health system trying this model. Apprenticeships, once a rarity in health care, have become increasingly common at hospitals and clinics nationwide.
But offering this kind of on-the-job training isn’t always easy. Now, UW Health plans to use what it’s learned to help other states overcome the financial and bureaucratic barriers that can stand in the way. In May, the health system announced it created a separate company called WorkForward to help health systems and state agencies elsewhere set up apprenticeships. Willey, who directs that new project, thinks it’s the first such initiative by a U.S. health care company.
Historically, apprenticeships have been a key on-ramp to technical trades like plumbing and carpentry, allowing trainees to earn as they learn.
Now, apprenticeships are flourishing in U.S. hospitals and clinics, too. In just five years, the number of registered apprentices in the health care field has grown by more than 40%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, as employers have expanded existing programs and others have started new ones.
The boom comes as demand for health care workers has shot up across the country, triggered by the growing needs of an aging population and a wave of longtime health care workers retiring. By 2038, the country will be short about 109,000 registered nurses, 61,000 physical therapists, 33,000 pharmacy technicians and 13,000 respiratory therapists, according to projections by the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis.
Meanwhile, vocational and on-the-job training is becoming increasingly popular across the board, said Susan Skillman, senior principal research scientist at the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies.
“Apprenticeships in general are growing,” Skillman said. “We’re kind of in that place in the nation where the pendulum is moving away from four-year college degrees.”
Some health apprenticeships last months while others last years. At UW Health, apprentices training to become medical assistants finish in 10 months while future registered nurses train for four years.
No matter the length or industry, all apprenticeships involve a combination of on-the-job training and classroom instruction. In the case of Wisconsin’s registered apprentices, who are approved through the state’s Department of Workforce Development, employers must pay apprentices for the time they spend in class. In some cases, the employer pays for the apprentices’ school costs, too.
At UW Health, the employer covers tuition. The health system’s staff also coordinate the apprentices’ work and school schedules to avoid conflicts.
Those were big selling points for Brianna Matheson, 35, who had worked as a medical assistant for 12 years when she learned last spring that UW Health was starting a three-year surgical tech apprenticeship. She’d spent time in the operating room before, and she liked helping with clinical procedures.
“I was just ready for something more,” Matheson said. “I was in clinics for so long, doing the same thing for so long. I wanted to learn again, be a student again, and be a novice.”
When the application opened, she was the first to apply.
“I had kind of given up on the idea of going back to school because I, like so many others, need full-time income, and I didn’t really want to give up all of my free time to work full time and go to school in the evenings and weekends,” said Matheson, who now processes and delivers supplies to the operating room at Madison’s University Hospital.
Not only does she not pay tuition, but the Department of Workforce Development offers a stipend for scrubs, reimburses mileage to and from school, and even covers some daycare costs for apprentices with kids, Matheson said.
The position also let Matheson keep her prior $25 hourly wage, reflecting the raises she’d earned during more than a decade on the job. When Matheson graduates in May 2028, she’ll earn surgical tech wages, which range from around $30 to $44 an hour, according to current UW Health job listings.
“I would not have been going back to school at this point in life to pursue this without the support of specifically the apprenticeship program that UW Health is offering,” Matheson said. “I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”
Offering apprenticeships could help health systems draw entry-level job applicants like 25-year-old DeForest native Alex Lippman.
Lippman trained as a certified nursing assistant in high school, then worked at a skilled nursing facility in Madison. He started college at Arizona State University with plans to become a doctor, but moved back to Wisconsin when his grandmother fell ill in his sophomore year. He wanted to continue his education but figured he’d missed his chance.
Then, in 2023, UW Health announced it was starting the state’s first apprenticeship for registered nurses. That apprenticeship, like all of UW Health’s multiyear apprenticeships that lead to degrees, are open only to employees who’ve worked for the system for at least six months.
“I had a plan of trying to get into this program because going back to school on my own was no longer feasible,” Lippman said. He got a job as a certified nursing assistant and began the apprenticeship the next year.
Today he takes classes at Madison College and works three night shifts a week caring for patients with brain and spine injuries in University Hospital’s neuro intensive care unit. He’s on track to graduate in 2028.
UW Health’s shorter training programs, meanwhile, are open to new applicants as well as current employees. Already, some have finished one and moved onto another, looking to advance their careers, Willey said.
“What we’re seeing is that people come in through one of our entry-level (apprenticeship) programs like medical assistant or nursing assistant, get their feet under them working in that capacity, and then now they’re applying for our degreed registered apprenticeship programs,” Willey said.
This isn’t the first time the company has built its own pipeline of health care workers. In 2013, Willey started a program called Health Occupations and Professions Exploration, or HOPE, where high school students spend a Saturday learning to do CPR, place a breathing tube in a mannequin, and more. The goal, Willey said, is to show students the range of careers available in health care. The program has trained about 6,500 students.
Apprenticeships offer a unique way to address workforce shortages and help employees move up on the job, said Andy MacCracken, who coordinates health workforce planning for North Carolina at the NC Center on the Workforce for Health. That, he said, is one reason the number of apprentices and apprenticeships in the health care field has soared in recent years.
Still, he said, it’s not clear exactly how much of the health worker shortage can be solved through apprenticeships.
“We need to have a realistic view about what we’re actually aiming for when deploying apprenticeships as a solution,” MacCracken said. “I think apprenticeships are a really helpful tool in the toolbox. They’re not the only one.”
One challenge: It’s expensive to pay the clinical staff needed to supervise apprentices, so it can be hard for health system leaders to make the business case to their boards. Even health systems that embrace apprenticeships may not be able to accept as many apprentices as they’d like.
UW Health pays for its apprenticeship program with a mix of its own funds, private donations and public funds, though Willey said the latter is usually only available for starting up a new program.
Still, there are always far more applicants than openings. When the registered nursing apprenticeship launched in 2023, 200 employees applied for 16 slots. Last year, 70 people applied for 40 medical assistant apprenticeships.
Another challenge: Each state has its own laws about what counts as an apprenticeship and what standards an employer must meet when offering one. Likewise, the regulations for each profession may vary from state to state too. And then there are the accrediting agencies that approve educational programs, which are still getting used to the idea that students might get paid for their clinical training hours.
Willey said WorkForward will publish research on apprenticeship approaches that work, lobby for resources to support such programs and help other states identify potential funding sources. The company is a nonprofit, she said, which will apply for private and public grants. It will not receive direct funding from UW Health.
Currently, she said, WorkForward is working in Massachusetts with Tufts Medicine and Mass General Brigham — the state’s largest health care employer — and 12 of the state’s community and technical colleges.
“It would be great if we could take the solutions that we’ve built and spread (them at) scale across the U.S. … Health care continues to be a driver of new jobs for the U.S. economy,” Willey said, “and we have an aging population who needs more care, and so we need to be addressing these things now.”
MacCracken said he hasn’t heard of another health care employer taking on this role, but he thinks it makes sense, as employers may be more willing to listen to other employers.
In North Carolina, he said, he’s already seen how a few model programs can pave the way for others.
“I think because of the successes of some of the early adopters who have put these programs in action, we’re seeing great results, and so that’s helping inspire more action and scalability and replication.” MacCracken said.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
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Prairie Farms Dairy is closing two manufacturing facilities and laying off nearly 100 workers in southwestern Wisconsin.
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The Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture event brings thousands of people — and airplanes — to the Fox Valley each July and generates more than $250 million in estimated economic impact.
The post ‘This puts Oshkosh and Wisconsin on the map’: EAA AirVenture is back appeared first on WPR.
A scam operation targeting Spanish-speaking injured workers is laying traps in Wisconsinites’ email inboxes.
Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development issued an alert this week about a possible “multi-state fraud scheme” that lures targets into fake worker’s compensation hearings to collect fees under false pretenses.
DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy told Wisconsin Watch that 10 Wisconsin workers reported receiving emails instructing them to attend “online workers’ compensation hearing(s)” via video call. The emails’ senders generally use “.org” addresses and bill themselves as government agencies like the “Workers’ Compensation Board.”
Workers who joined the calls via Zoom, WhatsApp, Teams and other video conferencing platforms sat through elaborate staged hearings complete with judges, bailiffs and attorneys, ending in a verdict in the workers’ favor. The fraudsters then told the injured workers that they could collect their compensation payout only after paying a fee to “finalize” the case. In some cases, victims also shared their Social Security numbers.
At least four Wisconsin workers have lost money to the scam since January, McCoy said, paying a combined $30,000 in sham legal fees.
McCoy also emphasized that attorneys involved in Wisconsin worker’s compensation cases must be licensed to practice law in the state. “Any ‘attorney’ not licensed in Wisconsin may be a fraudster,” she wrote in an email on Monday.
The DWD exclusively communicates with injured workers, employers and insurance carriers via mail, and telephone numbers on DWD correspondence will have Wisconsin area codes.
A June alert from the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau cited other examples of the same fraud scheme targeting injured workers — primarily Spanish speakers — in Illinois, Indiana and Oregon.
Neither the bureau nor Wisconsin’s DWD has determined how the scam’s organizers obtained the email addresses of injured workers.
People who believe they’ve been victims of identity theft should contact the agency’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128 or DATCPHotline@wisconsin.gov, the agency said.
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Scammers target injured Wisconsin workers with fake worker’s compensation hearings 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.
Tech giant Oracle Corp. took a hit to its credit rating amid massive spending in the race to build out artificial intelligence as it battles with Wisconsin regulators in court on financial requirements for data center customers.
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While the Democratic primary field has narrowed in recent weeks, Hong has remained the only Democrat who supports a statewide moratorium on new construction for AI data centers.
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A site that represents Madison’s industrial past will get new life as the host of a new research and development facility aimed at helping power the future.
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A major national credit rating agency downgraded Oracle’s rating last week, citing uncertainty about the tech giant’s investments in artificial intelligence. The drop comes just weeks after the company sued Wisconsin’s utility regulator over new credit requirements for data center operators in We Energies territory — a lawsuit spotlighting the company’s financial condition.
S&P Global Ratings, one of the “big three” ratings agencies responsible for assessing the creditworthiness of government and corporate debt, lowered Oracle’s rating from a BBB to a BBB- on July 9. The rating places Oracle on the bottom edge of S&P’s “investment-grade” tier; any additional downgrades will land the company’s credit rating in the “high yield” or “junk” tier.
“Oracle Corp.’s rapidly expanding AI infrastructure business is increasing its overall credit risk,” S&P analysts wrote in an announcement of the downgrade, pointing to high capital spending, “an uncertain path to profitability” and stiff competition as reasons to be “more cautious” in its approach to AI infrastructure businesses.
Still, S&P isn’t wholly pessimistic about Oracle’s finances.
“Despite the stretched leverage and cash-flow profile over the next two years, we expect Oracle to demonstrate consistent improvements toward profitability as capacity comes online and business scales,” the analysts added.
Oracle is co-developing a vast new data center campus in Ozaukee County, and its BBB- credit rating adds a hurdle to its efforts to connect the campus’ servers to the grid.
The reason: new rules for data centers seeking electrical service in We Energies territory. Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved a rate structure for We Energies’ “very large customers” that requires operators like Oracle to pay for the construction of new power plants needed to meet data center energy needs.
But constructing a new plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and any unpaid debts tied to the plants could fall to We Energies’ other customers if a data center operator becomes insolvent.
To shield ratepayers from a potential cost shift, the PSC set a AAA- credit rating threshold for data center operators seeking electric service from We Energies. Companies below the threshold must post steep collateral, either in cash or lines of credit, as a backstop.
For Oracle, that could mean paying $100 million or more a year as a condition of receiving electric service for Port Washington servers.
We Energies asked the PSC in June to reconsider the credit requirements, arguing that the rule unfairly penalizes Oracle based on an overly cautious reading of the company’s financial health.
“In practical terms, tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors or counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s lawyers wrote.
The PSC declined to reconsider the requirements last week.
Oracle sued the commission in Ozaukee County Circuit Court as a backup to the reopener request. The company’s lawsuit asks Judge Sandy Williams to “set aside, reverse, and remand” the credit rating requirements, arguing that they aren’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders.
In a response filed July 9, the commission accused Oracle of trying to dodge regulatory scrutiny. The company seeks “to overturn over one-hundred years of established caselaw and allow it to dictate one-off preferential terms of service with the utility, bypassing Commission oversight altogether,” commission attorneys wrote.
Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and renewable energy advocacy group Clean Wisconsin also weighed in this week to support the credit ratings requirements.
“An investment grade credit rating provides little advance warning of financial difficulties that may worsen rapidly,” CUB attorney Daniel Narvey wrote in a position statement filed Monday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. “If a data center customer suffered financial distress and had not been required to post collateral, (We Energies) and its other customers could be on the hook for billions of dollars of stranded investments.”
Oracle’s stock value has tumbled by more than 25% in the month since it sued the PSC.
Wisconsin isn’t the only state embroiled in a fight over Oracle’s data center operations. In March, Michigan’s Public Service Commission declined to revisit its approval of an electrical service agreement between utility DTE Energy, Oracle and OpenAI. Michigan’s utility regulator approved the contracts in an expedited, uncontested process that drew criticism from ratepayer advocates and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
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Wisconsin’s largest transmission utility is seeking federal intervention months after the Midwest’s regional grid operator awarded a major project to a startup competitor.
The American Transmission Company (ATC), which owns and operates transmission lines across eastern and central Wisconsin, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last month to force the grid operator to either redo its bidding process or reconsider earlier bids.
The request escalates a protracted fight over who profits from billions of dollars in new transmission investments — costs that electricity customers pay through their utility bills — and whether competitive bidding limits those costs. The race to serve energy-hungry data centers has raised the stakes, and ATC’s request is intertwined with plans to connect a massive data center campus in Port Washington to the grid by the end of next year.
Wisconsin’s latest high-capacity transmission buildout began in 2022, when the nonprofit Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) approved $10 billion in upgrades across the Upper Midwest. Another round of approvals in 2024 brought the total projected price tag to roughly $32 billion. The upgrades are a core part of MISO’s effort to improve grid reliability and connect population centers to abundant electricity from renewable sources, especially from wind farms on the Great Plains.
Included in the buildout are a set of transmission lines and substations circling Milwaukee, stretching south to the Illinois border and north to Fond du Lac and Sheboygan. MISO originally expected the projects to enter service by 2033.
Decade-old federal rules require competitive bidding for multistate transmission projects, and utilities and developers from around the country lined up to compete for a share of the Midwest’s buildout. The winners gain a reliable source of revenue via a fixed “return on equity” — profit per dollar invested — approved by regulators and paid for by electricity customers.
Supporters of the bidding requirement, including Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board, say it forces developers to compete on cost, thereby shielding ratepayers from cost overruns and excessive profits.
But investor-owned monopoly utilities have spent years seeking exemptions from competition, contending that the requirement hinders efficient grid development.
Those lobbying efforts have paid dividends elsewhere in the Midwest: Minnesota and Michigan, for instance, enacted right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) laws giving local utilities first dibs on any transmission projects within their territory, including those planned by grid operators like MISO.
Utilities argue ROFR laws ensure projects go to the companies best-equipped to complete them: local monopolies with well-established relationships with local labor and regulators. The companies also argue that claims of cost savings from competitive bidding are overblown.
Wisconsin lawmakers have repeatedly rejected ROFR proposals, including one introduced in 2025 by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.
With no Wisconsin law shielding it from competition, ATC has sought other means to control projects in its territory.
Two months after bidding on the eastern Wisconsin project last July, ATC asked the state Public Service Commission (PSC) for permission to build infrastructure for a planned data center campus in Ozaukee County. Port Washington’s city council approved the campus shortly after MISO signed off on the nearby transmission upgrades.
ATC, which manages the existing local transmission infrastructure, is responsible for ensuring the campus connects to the grid by December 2027. Three of the substations ATC proposed to state regulators would occupy roughly the same locations as MISO’s planned substations, though the data center would require higher-capacity infrastructure on a shorter timeline.
Winning the larger project would allow ATC to meet both needs with one set of substations, but if MISO chose another bidder, the utility said it would still seek state permission to build substations for the data center.
Instead, MISO initially awarded the project to Chicago-based Viridon, a startup owned by private equity firm Blackstone. Viridon’s roughly $350 million bid was the lowest — just over half of MISO’s estimate and more than $100 million below the next-cheapest bid. In its January announcement, MISO acknowledged the budget “may not be achievable” but cited Viridon’s promises to limit cost overruns and profits as reasons to pick the company over its competitors.
ATC pressed the issue. MISO agreed in February to move up the eastern Wisconsin project deadline to 2027. A month later, the operator reassigned the three substations to ATC outright, citing uncertainty over whether Viridon could clear the administrative hurdles in time to meet the new deadline.
Viridon kept only a fraction of the original eastern Wisconsin project, including a set of transmission lines and one substation, all still scheduled for completion by 2033.
As ATC awaits PSC’s final approval of the eastern Wisconsin buildout, the utility has opened a new front in its fight against competition by asking FERC to step in.
In April, a group of utilities calling themselves the “Grid Acceleration Coalition” asked FERC to exempt at least some major grid upgrade projects from the competitive bidding requirement. The coalition argued that “bureaucratic red tape” can tack months onto project timelines and strain the country’s ability to “achieve dominance” in artificial intelligence. ATC is a member of the coalition, as is Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin.
“This complaint is about whether our country will seize, or squander, a generational chance to own the next century,” the utilities wrote, pointing to the tug-of-war over MISO’s eastern Wisconsin project as an example of delays that could stymie AI development.
FERC has been flooded with similar requests as the nationwide data center boom strains grid capacity and spurs utilities to spend billions of dollars on new infrastructure. The fragmented U.S. energy system is poorly equipped to manage the scale of the buildout, and the five-person commission has begun weighing in on questions about speeding grid connections and shielding residential ratepayers from data-center-related costs.
The Grid Acceleration Coalition’s April request specified that it did not seek to “claw back” projects already awarded via competitive bidding.
ATC’s June complaint goes further. The utility asked FERC last month to either “re-bid” or “reevaluate the existing bids” for MISO’s eastern Wisconsin project, arguing the grid operator botched its earlier review. If FERC agrees, Viridon could lose its remaining portions of the project.
Tom Content of the Citizens Utility Board told Wisconsin Watch that CUB will “support a full evaluation of the process and any concerns,” but said the timing of ATC’s request — months after MISO first awarded the project — was a surprise.
ATC said it brought the issue to FERC rather than appealing to MISO because the commission offers a more neutral venue. The company said it does not know when FERC will decide whether to take up the request. It remains unclear whether ATC’s effort to reopen bidding would delay construction of the substations needed to plug in the Port Washington data center to the grid.
Correction: A previous version of the story incorrectly described the remedy American Transmission Company is seeking in its petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
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Fight over who expands Wisconsin’s power grid heads to Washington 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.
On an idyllic evening at the Trempealeau Hotel, the Mississippi River is as much a draw as the musical act that graces its outdoor stage.
If concert-goers gathered on the hotel lawn are lucky — and they often are — they’ll get to see a sorbet sky before the sun tucks behind the bluffs and a train thundering through with a horn-blast hello. The hotel has watched over the river since 1888.
Amy Werner and Jörg Droll, who have owned the hotel since 2012, have seen a surge of interest in their part of the river since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in outdoor recreation opportunities. The village of Trempealeau, Wisconsin, with a population of about 1,900, has leaned into the phenomenon.
Just as the river’s path has changed over time, so have communities along it changed and adapted.
The Mississippi has been a vital resource for Indigenous people, a source of employment for fishermen, trappers, boat captains and builders of the locks and dams, and more recently, the main attraction on the beloved Great River Road, a 3,000-mile drive from northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico that draws millions of Americans every year.
Along this segment of the Mississippi, river communities are exploring different ways to bring people in, now that the days of commercial fishing, trapping and similar river industries have, for the most part, faded. Many are courting tourists, from those driving the length of the River Road to those simply day-tripping from the Twin Cities. Some are emphasizing the ease and nostalgia of small-town life.
They’re all doing so in the face of the headwinds hitting rural areas across the country — declining tax bases, workforce challenges and aging populations. That means it’s essential not just to attract visitors for a moment, but to get those who live there to stay — something that requires serious introspection and vision for the future.
Still, one thing hasn’t changed. The river is the centerpiece. It’s the reason these communities are here, even as they redefine what life on the river means. They’re counting on others to see that too.
“Without the river, the hotel could not exist,” Droll said. “(It’s) part of daily life for us. Every waking minute.”
About halfway between Trempealeau and the Twin Cities is Stockholm, a Wisconsin village of less than 100 people that explodes with visitors on summer Saturdays.
The draw is Stockholm Pie, a charming bakery that started as a weekend gig and has now been named America’s best pie shop, twice. The shop’s head baker begins the day between 1 and 3 a.m., preparing up to 70 pies daily in addition to dozens of other sweet treats baked fresh. Owner Alan Nugent’s slice of choice is the sour cream raisin.
Stockholm “has always been the spot,” said Nugent, who first opened an art gallery in the village in 2004 and has since given over his career to pie. He believes its proximity to the Twin Cities is critical — 80% of customers who come through the shop’s door are from there.
More than a decade ago, Nugent decided it was time to share the wealth and formed the West Coast of Wisconsin, a marketing association for the five communities that sit on Lake Pepin — Bay City, Stockholm, Maiden Rock, Pepin and Nelson.
The goal, loosely based on what communities have done in Door County, the popular Midwest vacation destination on Lake Michigan, is for each village to have its own personality and to support the others at the same time. The association has invested significant energy into making the area a destination, Nugent said.
It’s paying off. The area has become a wedding hot spot that can pull hundreds of people on a single weekend. To serve that need, high-end properties have been converted into luxury vacation rentals, Nugent said.
Being a tourist town comes with its own challenges. So many homes have been turned into rentals, it’s hard for a person to actually move to the area, he said. But the change is inevitable.
“The world has changed dramatically,” Nugent said. “Tourism supports a lot of jobs and brings a whole lot of tax revenue.”
According to Travel Wisconsin’s latest economic impact report, seven of eight counties bordering the river saw an increase in direct visitor spending from 2024 to 2025.
In Cassville, less than an hour upriver from Wisconsin’s border with Illinois, tourism director Tracy Fishnick said the village is focusing on visitors “to help keep our community alive.”
Fishnick said village residents know they need tourists, and the river brings them in. Two summers ago, unexpected flooding brought that to a screeching halt — even the iconic Cassville ferry had to pause, and Fishnick said businesses felt it.
The village is also pitching visitors on becoming permanent residents. It received a grant this spring from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to offer financial incentives for the next two years for out-of-state residents to move to the Cassville area.
“So many people think of small towns and they’re just like, ‘Oh, they don’t have much’ … once you come and spend a weekend or a day here, you grab some food, it’s cheaper,” she said. “You’re going to have a bartender or a waiter that will sit and get to know you.”
Fishnick said public spaces on the riverfront are part of the village’s appeal, in contrast to communities where that area is largely private property.
“We get so many people to just come walk, and sit there and watch the barges,” she said.
In Fountain City, about an hour downriver from Stockholm, what’s old is new again.
Mike Adank moved back to his hometown from New York last fall to take over the Corner Store, an ice cream and soda pop shop with long-standing roots in the community. He whips up sweet concoctions using the building’s 1960s-era soda fountain, which he had painstakingly refurbished.
The shop is full of nostalgic nods: a candy table near the cash register, old newspaper clippings on the walls, Beach Boys over the speakers. Older people are eager to reminisce, Adank said, and young people are glad to have a place besides school to hang out.
“We’ve got all these really cool stories and buildings and history. That was important to me when I came back,” Adank said. “My parents were like, ‘What are you going to call it?’ I was like, ‘It’s the Corner Store.’ That’s what it always was to me, and that’s what it has to be.”
The community has welcomed his venture, he said, signaling another old habit that’s come around: shopping local.
In the 1980s, he recalled, Fountain City lost businesses like a grocer and hardware store as people began to make the 15-minute drive to Winona, Minnesota, for small conveniences.
Now, residents recognize the city flatlines if people don’t invest, Adank said. It’s given them – him included – new momentum to try.
History isn’t always sweet, though. Across the river, that’s something Nicky Buck knows well.
Buck, an enrolled member of the Prairie Island Indian Community, was born and raised on Prairie Island near what is now Red Wing, Minnesota, where her Bdewakantunwan Band of Eastern Dakota ancestors lived long before white settlers arrived. Other tribal nations once came to the Mississippi River valley for its lush abundance of plant medicines, Buck said.
For a long time, the relationship between the tribe and the city of Red Wing was strained due to intolerance of Indigenous people, she said. Her uncle, Art Owen, and his father, Amos, led early efforts to change that, which the community continues today.
In 2022, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to share information and give tribal members a seat at the table. That year, Buck and others began the Honoring Dakota Project, which seeks to bridge cultures and create a unified world rooted in Dakota lifeways. A mural unveiled in 2023 depicts Chief Red Wing and the sacred nearby bluff site He Mni Can.
The Honoring Dakota Project has helped facilitate viewings of the tribe’s bison herd, an Indigenous art market and, in 2024, an inaugural wacipi, or powwow. It has also played a role in critical safety upgrades, like the construction of an overpass that opened in 2025 providing a safe way on and off Prairie Island over one of the state’s most dangerous rail intersections.
The work has been healing for Buck’s community.
“We’re making sure there is a place for the next seven generations,” she said, referencing an Indigenous principle about making decisions today that will benefit multiple generations to come.
The Mississippi River itself is always changing — in some ways, not for the better. Buck worries about high levels of PFAS, pesticides and plastics that could rob her community of their lifeways. Others are concerned that backwaters are disappearing as sediment fills in from upstream.
Still, the river remains a powerful reason for these communities’ existence.
A little over an hour down the road from Fountain City, Mark Clements and his son Conner run Clements Fishing Barge in Genoa.The river has been integral to the family business for 90 years.
Clements’ grandfather fashioned an early version of their raft using leftover construction materials from the creation of the nearby lock and dam in 1936. The aim of the business hasn’t changed — providing an affordable way for people without their own boats to fish the river.
It’s a fishing destination, Clements said, which is good for Genoa, which reaps the benefits of people spending money to stay. On a nice spring weekend, as many as 100 people might be out on the barge. Helping kids connect to the river through fishing is their priority, he said — so much so that he’s never increased the cost for a child to fish for the day.
Fishing outfits like Clements’ are a clear connection between the river’s past and present, one appreciated by longtime “river rats” like Max Bachhuber. Bachhuber ran the Great Alma Fishing Float in Alma, just north of Fountain City, from 1963 through much of the 1980s.
When businesses would close for the day, Bachhuber recalled, people would spill out onto the river to fish for their dinner. Now, it’s mostly for sport, he said, and the population of Alma is largely retirees. But he loves it despite its changes.
“My favorite thing is to be able to look out and see (the Mississippi River) every day,” Bachhuber said. “If you go away, you’re going to come back. You’re going to miss it.”
Whether river communities are shrinking or expanding, have momentum or are struggling to find a vision, are leaning on their history or learning to reconcile it, Bachhuber’s take is one shared by many: Life on the river is unlike anywhere else.
At the Trempealeau Hotel, Werner and Droll feel that singularity when they serve up river catfish at their restaurant, when they watch a sunset, or when a band plays to a sold-out crowd under a full moon.
Through the challenges that may come, they’ll always have this place.
“It’s just pure pleasure,” Werner said.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
The Mississippi River built these towns. Now tourism is helping sustain them. 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 Fox Valley-based company is planning a $65 million expansion of its manufacturing plant there, expected to create more than 100 manufacturing jobs.
The post Oshkosh-based paper plate maker to add 100 manufacturing jobs in Clintonville appeared first on WPR.
A laptop shows Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI. The Trump administration is continuing its pushback against state AI laws that it views as ideologically biased. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline)
The Trump administration is continuing its pushback against state artificial intelligence laws that it views as ideologically biased, proposing a new Federal Trade Commission policy.
The proposed policy statement, which is open for public comment through July 31, would affect how the FTC regulates AI companies. The agency said it’s meant to address concerns that “AI companies that distort their systems’ outputs to achieve undisclosed ideological objectives” could be deceiving consumers in violation of federal law.
“The FTC wants to hear from businesses and consumers about their experiences and concerns regarding the subversion of AI systems for ideological ends,” Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement.
The proposal specifically mentions a first-of-its-kind Colorado law that had banned “algorithmic discrimination,” or AI output that might lead to decisions disfavoring people on jobs, loans or healthcare based on their race, religion, gender and other protected categories. But the Colorado legislature already has repealed that provision. The revamped law instead focuses on regulating technology that results in “consequential decisions” for consumers.
The controversial law prompted a lawsuit from xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which the U.S. Department of Justice supported.
In December 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting state AI laws, including creation of a Department of Justice AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws. His order also directed the FTC to issue a policy statement on regulation of state laws that “require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models.”
Stateline asked the FTC if there were any state and city laws that officials felt were currently in violation of federal laws, but received no response.
Tyler Thompson, a Denver-based lawyer with firm Reed Smith who tracks emerging technology law, said the FTC proposal is important because it raises the possibility that companies could face deceptive-practices claims based on how they tune, weight or steer AI models, which could also prompt state policy on the issue.
“Just the fact that companies could be tweaking their models and that could lead to a deceptive trade practice, I think is huge news,” Thompson said.
Thompson believes the legal battle and the FTC’s focus on restricting similar laws will lead to “a more niche” policy focus on AI – such as deepfakes, nonconsensual sexual content, children’s safety, companion chatbots and data centers — areas where there is bipartisan agreement.
Noah M. Kenney, founder and principal consultant of Digital 520, an AI governance, security and privacy consultancy, who also responded to the FTC’s request for public comment, said the proposed statement carries more political pressure rather than being an enforceable federal regulation.
“The real effect of this statement is signaling and pressure, not legal preemption, especially paired with the December executive order’s AI litigation task force.”
Kenney said there is also an irony in the federal government’s argument.
“A federal effort to dictate what counts as a ‘neutral’ or ‘accurate’ output raises its own First Amendment concerns about compelled speech,” he said.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@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.
This month, thousands of Wisconsin’s estimated 700,000 federal student loan borrowers are seeing significant changes to their repayment plans as part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which will likely have an effect on economic drivers like travel, dining, autos and home buying.
The post Changes to student loan plans likely to have ripple effect on broader Wisconsin economy appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has no plans to reconsider We Energies’ request to loosen credit rating rules for data center developers.
The commission voted in April to require data center developers with below-threshold credit ratings to provide financial guarantees before receiving electric service from We Energies. Ratepayer advocates say the requirement shields other customers from financial risk if a data center operator can’t afford to pay for infrastructure built on its behalf.
That requirement could cost tech giant Oracle, the co-developer of a Port Washington data center campus, over $100 million per year. We Energies asked the PSC to reconsider the rule last month, arguing that the added cost could dissuade other companies from operating in Wisconsin.
The three-member commission has until Friday to act on the request. The commissioners did not include the request on Thursday’s meeting agenda, and, as of Thursday evening, had not scheduled a Friday meeting to consider it. State law requires the commission to notify the public of scheduled meetings at least 24 hours in advance.
The PSC will instead defend the credit rating requirements in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, where Oracle sued the agency last month.
Commissioners approved the credit rating rules as one of several guardrails in We Energies’ new “very large customer” rate structure to prevent cost shifts from data center developers to the utility’s other customers.
The new rate structure requires We Energies to bill data center customers alone for power plants built to serve them. A single power plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars — or, in the case of the proposed Red Oak Ridge plant in the town of Paris, more than a billion dollars. If a data center developer goes bankrupt, We Energies’ other customers could be on the hook for any remaining costs tied to the power plants.
With that worst-case scenario in mind, the PSC set a credit rating threshold for data center developers seeking We Energies electric service. Credit ratings measure a company’s financial health and likelihood of repaying debts on time. Developers with credit ratings below A- must provide financial guarantees to receive service. Those financial guarantees would help cover costs if a developer runs into financial trouble.
Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board and other ratepayer advocacy groups supported the “belt-and-suspender” approach to protecting smaller customers.
Oracle, a Texas-based cloud computing giant, currently holds a BBB credit rating — a tier below the A- threshold but still considered investment-grade by ratings agencies. The company’s aggressive borrowing in support of its artificial intelligence ventures pushed Oracle’s debt-to-equity ratio above 400% as of May, and its stock price has tumbled more than $50 in the past month alone.
The PSC-approved rate structure would require the Oracle subsidiary involved in the Port Washington project to provide more than $100 million a year in cash deposits or letters of credit to receive We Energies service.
“If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” We Energies wrote in its June 10 request that the PSC reconsider the credit rating rules.
The utility urged the commission to exempt companies with “investment-grade” credit ratings, including BBB ratings, and to waive the Oracle subsidiary’s financial backing requirements.
We Energies maintains that concerns about Oracle’s credit-worthiness are misplaced.
“In practical terms, tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors or counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in their petition.
Friday’s deadline is the commission’s last chance to act on the request, but We Energies doesn’t expect any last-minute action.
“We are disappointed the commission chose not to revisit the financial support requirements under our Very Large Customer rate,” We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch on Thursday. “We believe updating the financial support requirements will help ensure the policy meets the goal we all agree on: protecting customers while supporting jobs and economic growth in Wisconsin.
The environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin, on the other hand, applauded the commissioners.
“The Public Service Commission did the right thing when it created this special rate structure for AI data centers, and it’s doing the right thing now by rejecting the petition,” Brett Korte, the nonprofit’s attorney, wrote in a Thursday press release. “This is about protecting We Energies’ other customers — families, small businesses, schools, manufacturers — and shielding them from the risks associated with these enormous energy users.”
Oracle is asking the Ozaukee County Circuit Court to intervene.
In its June 19 lawsuit, the company argues the commission acted outside its authority and without sufficient evidence to justify the rule. Oracle also maintains that the A- threshold isn’t “needed to prevent harm” to We Energies’ other customers or shareholders.
Also absent from the PSC’s agenda this week: a request from Microsoft to “clarify” parts of the data center rate structure.
Microsoft, the developer of the new data center campus in Mt. Pleasant, asked the PSC last month about the impact of potential changes to federal rules dictating how transmission utilities spread the construction costs of new infrastructure.
The five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — not the Wisconsin PSC — has jurisdiction over how utilities allocate transmission costs.
The data center boom will require new transmission infrastructure, and FERC has yet to develop new rules to assign the cost of those projects to data center developers. The American Transmission Company, Wisconsin’s largest transmission utility, signaled this spring that it plans to ask FERC to approve a new cost allocation model.
In the meantime, Wisconsin’s PSC approved what commissioner Christi Nieto called a “temporary stopgap measure.” We Energies passes transmission costs to customers based on their electricity use, and the commission-approved rate structure sets a floor for data centers’ transmission bills based on projected electricity needs.
Microsoft argues that the possible federal rule changes create enough “ambiguity” to merit reconsidering how it will be billed for transmission costs after FERC considers new options.
The PSC also had until Friday to act on Microsoft’s request.
This story was updated July 10 to include information about Microsoft’s We Energies rate structure.
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Wisconsin regulators refuse to loosen data center credit rules, setting up Oracle court fight 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 60-year lease will allow C. Reiss, the owner of the coal piles, to store salt at a former power plant site, while the existing coal piles would deplete over time.
The post Brown County leaders sign lease, paving the way for Green Bay coal pile relocation appeared first on WPR.
Madison's Common Council recently OK'd an agreement, authorizing the city to spend $4.3 million to acquire four parcels of land.
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The finding, part of a new draft report by state utility regulators, means the state will need to build significant infrastructure to meet rising energy needs.
The post Wisconsin energy demand to rise 40 percent by 2032, driven by data centers, draft report finds appeared first on WPR.
A bill allowing year-round sales of E15, a fuel blended with up to 15 percent corn-based ethanol, is being debated in the Senate. While the bill is hailed as a boon for corn growers, there are concerns that it could hurt soybean prices.
The post Efforts to get year-round E15 sales could hurt soybean farmers appeared first on WPR.
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