A union leader representing Forest Service employees in Wisconsin says workers may have to move as part of the Trump administration’s plan to shift its headquarters out west and shutter regional offices.

The post Forest Service workers in Wisconsin may have to move after reorganization, union leader says appeared first on WPR.

About 100 Wisconsinites joined a virtual town hall hosted by Citizen Action of Wisconsin Wednesday evening to share how data center developments across the state are harming local residents through the increased use of energy. 

Over the past year, data centers have become an increasingly potent issue in the state as the number of data center facilities in Wisconsin has risen to about 50. Data center proposals are currently pending in communities including Beaver Dam and Janesville. The Democratic and Republican candidates for governor have frequently been asked about the issue and lawmakers of both parties introduced legislation to manage data center growth — yet both chambers of the Legislature adjourned for the year without the bills being signed into law. 

The Legislature’s lack of action, and the 10 month wait before the body is back in session in January 2027, was a big concern for data center opponents at the event Wednesday who are worried about how many data center projects can be planned and started before then. 

“These are happening fast. A lot of these decisions are being made in the next six to 18 months, which is especially concerning because, as mentioned earlier, the state Legislature went home on a 10 month long vacation without helping us with many of these important decisions,” Kat Klawes, Citizen Action of Wisconsin’s climate policy coordinator, said. “There are data centers and power plants being built 24/7, so there are people out at construction sites across the state, still working late at night. And there’s local projects that are being approved.

“And this is a big issue, because Wisconsin does not have a statewide plan,” Klawes said “These projects are being approved on a case-by-case basis. Local towns are coming up against billion dollar companies and teams of lawyers who are demanding things. There’s no consistent framework for cost, water use, energy demand, community impact or community say. There is none of that. Wisconsin is the wild, wild west.”

Among the biggest concerns shared by attendees were the pressure that data centers’ massive energy use will put on regular Wisconsinites’ energy bills and the effect that increased energy use will have on the climate. 

Keviea Guiden, who works on energy burden issues on Milwaukee’s north side, noted that Wisconsin is two weeks away from the end of the winter moratorium on utilities shutting off people’s power. She said that with so many Wisconsin families already struggling to pay their bills, the state needs to do something to prevent data centers from further increasing the cost of energy. 

“We will be burdened with having to pay for those facilities being built,” she said. “Families are already being forced between if they should pay for health care, day cares, diapers, if they should figure out if the dog could even eat as well.” 

Attendees complained about the large amount of water data centers use to cool their systems and the effect that could have on local water supplies — especially the Great Lakes. But the bigger climate concern is the emissions caused by increasing the amount of electricity Wisconsin’s utility companies generate. Green Bay resident Arden Kozlow connected the fight against data centers to the fight against oil pipelines such as the activism against the Line 5 pipeline across northern Wisconsin. 

“We’re just fast tracking a process that is already happening with absolutely no regulation and no care for how it’s happening, and that, frankly, this only adds to the problem that we’ve already had with oil pipelines,” Kozlow said. “So it’s all just sort of feeding into itself and creating a bigger and bigger problem.”

Attendees still suggested a number of statewide solutions for managing the effects of data centers. 

One proposal is capping the state’s utility rates at 2% of household income, which advocates said would encourage the state’s utilities to invest in lower cost renewable energy. Attendees also supported legislation proposed by Democratic lawmakers that would put a moratorium on data center construction until many of the questions about their impacts can be answered.

State Rep. Angelito Tenorio (D-West Allis) joined the town hall to tout his proposed legislation that would require Wisconsin get 100% of its energy from carbon free sources by 2050. 

“We have a moral imperative to move towards clean energy, renewable energy,” he said, noting that Wisconsin lags behind its neighbors in Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota on the issue. 

With the Legislature out for the year, local government approvals will remain the only lever Wisconsin residents have to push back against data center developments.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and County Board President Marcelia Nicholson-Bovell signed legislation Wednesday afternoon reaffirming the county’s commitment to adhering to the goals of the 2016 Paris Climate agreement. 

“In Milwaukee County, we know that the climate crisis is a real, pressing threat to our environment, our economy, our health, and our quality of life,” Crowley said at the gathering beside other officials at the Urban Ecology Center of Washington Park. 

The international agreement called on nations to adopt policies to keep average global temperatures from increasing more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The United States joined nearly 200 global nations and states in signing onto the agreement under President Barack Obama. President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement after he was sworn into office in 2017 and, after President Joe Biden rejoined the agreement, again in 2025.  Trump has called the agreement “unfair,” “one-sided,” and a “rip-off.” Since the Trump administration exited the agreement, state and local governments across the country have signaled their aims to stick with the agreement’s aims. 

Milwaukee County first signed onto the Paris Climate Accords in 2017. The county’s goal is to reach net-zero operational emissions by 2050. The event Wednesday was held on the first day of Earth Month.

Crowley praised Milwaukee’s efforts towards reducing carbon emissions and climate resiliency despite being in a time “when federal climate leadership is stepping back.” He said at the event that the county has reduced its emissions by nearly 50% since 2005. 

Nicholson-Bovell echoed the sentiment.

“Milwaukee County continues leading the way in the march toward a more environmentally sustainable community,” she said. “Our legislation recommits Milwaukee County to the Paris Agreement and Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, because our children’s future depends on how we combat the climate crisis and build the equitable future we all deserve.” 

Crowley and Nicholson-Bovell were joined by Milwaukee County Supervisors Felesia Martin, Anne O’Connor and Sky Capriolo.

The Urban Ecology Center itself is an example of the steps Milwaukee County has taken towards reaching net-zero. The Washington Park center was recently renovated, becoming the first all-electric non-residential building in Milwaukee County, the center’s executive director, Jen Hense, explained. 

Now the building creates zero emissions and, with the planned installation of 100 new solar panels next week, is set to reduce its energy consumption by about one-third.

When the building was renovated, about 60% of its original structure was re-used. Some of the wood used in the renovations was also reclaimed from trees felled by Milwaukee County to combat the emerald ash borer insect. Bird-safe glass had also been installed, so far decreasing the number of collisions the building is responsible for. Surrounding the ecology center are ponds where people often fish, and the center works to re-introduce native plants to assist local ecosystems.

Hense stressed the importance of the Urban Ecology Center’s work. There are over 35,000 young people who attend outdoor and science programs at the county’s three Urban Ecology Centers, and more than 600,000 people visit the green spaces the center stewards in Riverside Park, Washington Park, and Menomonee Valley. 

“We know that these natural spaces, and hundreds more across the county — that are loved and cared for by amazing individuals and incredible environmental organizations — are important to our community, and are essential to protect for generations to come,” said Hense. “We know that combatting the global climate crisis can start right here in the county, and that this work is truly an act of environmental justice.” 

Nicholson-Bovell recalled growing up in a Milwaukee neighborhood where the nearest park didn’t have grass. She said that she was born premature with under-developed lungs, a condition worsened by the air pollution in her community. Studies have shown that increasing the number of urban trees would help improve polluted air conditions. 

“The environment that I grew up in had been ripped apart by the building of a freeway,” said Nicholson-Bovell. “And it was little kids like me who struggled to breathe in our communities. We didn’t have access to clean air, we didn’t have access to green space. And when I became a Milwaukee County supervisor, I promised that no child that I could help support would ever have to experience that again.”

Crowley said visiting the county’s parks reminds him “of just how lucky we are to have accessible access to beautiful green spaces like the one that we are in today.” He stressed that having this “in our backyard” should never be “taken for granted” while highlighting the success the county has already achieved at reducing its climate impact. “And it is because, and through, our office of sustainability that we remain focused on building green infrastructure, creating local sustainability jobs, and making sure that every single neighborhood is part of our climate solution,” said Crowley. 

Crowley said that partnership and collaboration with higher levels of government will be needed to fully accomplish the county’s climate goals. Yet that assistance is unlikely to come from the current federal government. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a hoax. Under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency also repealed the 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health. During both Trump Administrations, climate data and even the words “climate change” have been purged from federal websites. Climate policies at the state level have also been blocked or frustrated by Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature. 

Grant Helle, director of the Milwaukee County Office of Sustainability, said that “while federal climate leadership declines, Milwaukee County is taking action.” Helle said that local action is “not optional, but essential.” Helle noted that the new Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center will have on-site solar which will off-set over 11% of that facility’s energy use. The county is also re-thinking how building design could impact climate change, an issue which Helle said residents are concerned about. 

A stream of extreme weather events in recent months and years have likely fueled those concerns. Just weeks ago, people in parts of Wisconsin endured a historic blizzard, receiving so much snow that plow services needed to be shut down. Some Milwaukee communities still haven’t fully recovered from record-breaking amounts of rain and flooding that swept through the city in August. The Trump Administration has denied multiple requests for assistance and flood relief made by Wisconsin communities. 

Extreme heat gripped areas of the state in 2023, coinciding with increased wildfire activity within the state, while smoke from fires in Canada worsened air quality. Severe storms also hit Milwaukee and other Wisconsin communities in 2022 and 2021. O’Connor recalled the floods of 2010, where people were “literally canoeing down the street where I live in my district.” 

Crowley said that the August floods should be an indication that the midwest is not safe from climate change. 

“That tells us how do we build infrastructure that is resilient, and how do we think long term making sure that this planet is continuously livable for our young people and for many generations moving forward,” he said. 

Nicholson-Bovell said that the floods were devastating, but that climate change is a national issue. “My husband I met in St. Louis,” she said. “They had a historic tornado rip through the inner-city of St. Louis and they’re still scrambling to try and find housing for individuals.” 

Helle said that increased flooding, harsher heatwaves, and worse air quality are climate hazards Milwaukeeans are already experiencing. “It’s really unfortunate,” said Helle. “But what it does is go to show that we need to continue to make efforts here in Milwaukee County right now where we can to lower the impact on those residents that we ultimately serve.” 

 

Wisconsin is part of a coalition of 21 states and local governments suing the Environmental Protection Agency for weakening standards on coal-fired power plants tied to emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants.

The post Wisconsin and groups sue Trump EPA for rollback of mercury standards appeared first on WPR.

Traditional diets can be ineffective. But as a UW-Madison researcher recently told Larry Meiller that an eco-friendly diet can bring about long-lasting benefits for both individual and planetary health.

The post How to sustain an eco-friendly diet appeared first on WPR.

Republican state lawmakers say Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul sidestepped state law in order to bring on several attorneys whose pay was bankrolled by private foundations. Kaul and other Democrats call the accusation a "partisan stunt."

The post Republicans OK report criticizing attorney general over privately funded legal fellows appeared first on WPR.

A coalition of 21 state and local governments filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of a 2024 rule that established limits for toxic air pollutants.

The regulation, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, limits emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants. It covers pollutants including mercury, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals, as well as acid gases.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency updated the rule in 2024, which proponents of the rule said followed significant upgrades in pollution control technologies. But President Donald Trump’s administration repealed that updated standard last month. 

EPA said in a statement last month that it was repealing the rule “to ensure affordable, dependable energy for American families” and that it expected $670 million in regulatory compliance costs savings from lower costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming and manufacturing, and more reliable energy. 

The coalition of states and local governments argues that the rollback is unlawful, saying the federal agency has failed to provide a reasoned basis for it or consider the new technologies. 

The states taking part in the lawsuit are Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago and Harris County, Texas, also joined.

“Here, we have the Trump Administration once again acting recklessly and without good reason in rolling back important emissions standards that help mitigate the potentially disastrous health effects of toxic air pollutants associated with power plants like mercury and arsenic,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat, said in a statement. 

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Wisconsin’s Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program, the state’s primary way of preserving green space and wetlands from development, is set to expire June 30 — but only after the Republican-controlled Legislature failed to form a consensus after months of negotiations and potential amendments to the initial bill. 

Internal drafting documents obtained by Wisconsin Watch show that the Republican reauthorization bill — authored by Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point — went through at least 10 drafts between fall 2024 and when the bill was released in June 2025.

Despite the contentious negotiations over the program’s future, environmental advocates say there is still widespread popularity for Knowles-Nelson in Wisconsin. 

“There is no controversy about the program outside of Capitol politics,” said Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives at Gathering Waters, Wisconsin’s Alliance for Land Trusts. “That kind of stunning gap between what the conversation about the program is inside the Capitol and what the conversation about the program is across the rest of the state is really startling.”

Kurtz and Testin did not respond to a request for comment. 

A program built on compromise, now caught in a political fight

Knowles-Nelson was signed into law in 1989 by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and has survived both Republican and Democratic administrations, consistently drawing support from both parties. It funds everything from land acquisition by the DNR to grants for nonprofit conservation organizations and local governments.

“Knowles-Nelson is how we conserve land to protect environmentally sensitive areas. It’s how we provide access for hunters and anglers and silent sports recreationists,” Carlin said.

In the latest budget cycle, the bipartisan support unraveled after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a mechanism that had allowed members of the Joint Finance Committee to anonymously block individual DNR land purchases. 

Conservation advocates cheered the ruling, but Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, who has tried to push for a compromise to save the program, warned advocates “they should be careful what they wish for.”

“I thought there was a good chance that that would be the end of the program,” Kitchens said. “So, you know, here we are.”

Why did the bill fall apart?

The Kurtz-Testin bill introduced in June 2024 would have funded the program at $28.25 million per year through 2030.

After failing to take action on Knowles-Nelson through the state budget process, Republicans in the Assembly passed an amended version of that bill funding the program until 2028 hoping to maintain existing land, not fund new projects. 

Cody Kamrowski, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, said that his organization supported the initial version of the bill, even though it wasn’t an ideal starting place.

“And then some additional amendments were made. Some more amendments were made, and then it morphed into something that wasn’t Knowles-Nelson,” Kamrowski said. “I mean, Knowles-Nelson stewardship is a land acquisition program, and with all those amendments that were put in, it wasn’t a land acquisition program.” 

The Kurtz-Testin bill would have required the full Legislature to specifically authorize any DNR land purchase with a grant award of $1 million or more — effectively meaning every significant land deal would need to pass as its own bill before any money could move.

Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, the author of a competing reauthorization bill, said the timeline alone makes that unworkable. “There is no real estate acquisition in history that could last over two years,” she said. “They’re very time-sensitive.”

Kamrowski emphasized that land acquisition opportunities don’t wait for political windows to reopen. “A lot of times it’s a once-in-a-generation or once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase a key piece of property,” he said.

The Republican bill would also have funded the program at roughly $28 million per year — less than the $33 million it had been receiving since 2021, and far below the $72 million Habush Sinykin proposed or the $100 million in Gov. Tony Evers’ version of the budget. 

Funding for Knowles-Nelson has fallen significantly since its peak in 2011. Program spending in 2018 was about a quarter of what it was in 2007, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

The Kurtz-Testin bill never came to a vote. In February 2026, Senate Republican leaders pulled the bill from the floor schedule without explanation. When Habush Sinykin introduced an amendment to simply extend the program for one more year at its existing $33 million funding level, it got struck down along party lines.

“All it would have done was give the program one more year at $33.25 million, the exact same level since the 2021 budget,” Habush Sinykin said. “But it was rejected.”

Before the bill was introduced, internal drafting notes show that when Kurtz’s office took over the bill in February 2025, one of the listed priorities was to “shift focus from north to south, green space in urban areas” — removing a restriction that had prevented the program from funding parcels smaller than 10 acres. 

Kitchens said the bill has been historically controversial in the northern parts of the state because the high proportion of publicly owned lands don’t contribute to the tax base. 

“It’s a program that is viewed very differently in different parts of the state,” he said. “In the Northwoods, where they have less of a tax base, they really don’t like seeing property coming off the tax rolls. There’s always been more of a geographical split than it is really liberal, conservative.”

If the funding expires June 30, the program itself does not disappear from the statute books, but the program will no longer be funded, Carlin said. However, the practical consequences of this mean the planning landscape will be scrambled for land trusts.

The expiration also lands on top of an already strained conservation system. Carlin noted that Wisconsin has accumulated more than $1 billion in deferred maintenance at state properties and faces tens of millions of dollars in habitat management shortfalls. Letting Knowles-Nelson lapse, he said, doesn’t solve those problems.

“I think this is going to have to be a central conversation in the next state budget that can be as simple as appropriating money to the stewardship program in the short term,” Carlin said. “And then there’s a much broader conversation to be had about, how do we again get serious about taking care of our land and water so that our kids and grandkids inherit a better Wisconsin than we do.”

Evers’ office said he remains optimistic that Republicans and Democrats can reach a deal as legislative leadership and the governor’s office negotiate a potential K-12 funding increase from the projected $2.37 billion state surplus. 

“The governor has been clear that he expects the Legislature to stay in session until they’ve finished the people’s work,” spokesperson Britt Cudaback said.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the top Republican running for governor in November, said his focus would be “on maintaining the lands we already own for future generations, while being fiscally responsible with the more than $500 million in outstanding debt taxpayers still owe.”

He also said that the stewardship program has helped protect some of our most special places. “Wisconsin’s outdoor traditions are part of who we are,” Tiffany said.

Habush Sinykin, meanwhile, said Democrats are looking to flip enough Senate seats to break the Republican supermajority on the Joint Finance Committee — turning the current 12-4 split to 8-8. 

“That’ll make a big difference to allow us to reauthorize the program,” she said.

Funding for Wisconsin’s largest land conservation program could expire in three months. Here’s how we got here. 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.

Along Highway 45 and County Road E, 191 acres is being added to the Upper Wisconsin River Legacy Forest, established in 2015 with 1,042 acres of forestland southeast of Land O’Lakes along the Wisconsin River.

The post Upper Wisconsin River Legacy Forest expands in Vilas County appeared first on WPR.

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency goals call for an all-time high volume of biofuels to be blended into gasoline and diesel, the agency said in a Friday news release following President Donald Trump’s announcement at the White House.

The EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard for 2026 and 2027 will set the volume of biofuels at the highest level in the program’s 20 years, the agency said in a statement released shortly after Trump touted the move in a speech to farmers gathered at the White House South Lawn.

The president framed the new standards as a move away from regulations based on radical environmentalism.

“What they’ve done to you — and the country, what they’ve done to the country — is just incredible,” he told the farmers. “The environmentalists, I mean, they are terrorists. They were terrorists.”

Trump added that the standards will generate over $10 billion of rural economic benefit in rural areas and create an estimated 100,000 jobs. Biofuels are primarily produced from corn and soybean crops, with corn-derived ethanol by far the most common biofuel in the country.

Trump and top administration officials said the new standards would help provide more domestic energy sources. The standards would reduce the demand for foreign oil by approximately 300,000 barrels per day, the EPA release said.

“For 20 years, this program has diversified our nation’s energy supply and advanced American energy independence,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the release. “EPA is proud to deliver on this mission and to do so at historic levels.”

The standards will require a roughly 60% increase in biofuel and renewable diesel production over 2025 levels, the EPA estimated. That production would translate directly to a major economic boost for farmers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

“With President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s leadership, these historically high volumes are expected to create a $3 to $4 billion dollar increase in net farm income,” she said in the EPA release. 

While biofuels groups commended the new standards, the Fueling American Jobs Coalition, an advocacy group that represents independent oil refiners, said the goals were “too aggressive” and did not reflect what could realistically be blended into transportation fuels.

“Unfortunately, with today’s announcement, it’s clear that our efforts to advocate for achievable volumes were ignored, and this will now likely result in even higher prices at the pump for consumers,” the group said.

Air pollution from two proposed natural gas plants in southeast Wisconsin could contribute to more than 100 premature deaths over the projects’ estimated 30-year lifespan and lead to higher air pollution exposure across the Upper Midwest.

The post Report: Planned southeast Wisconsin gas plants could lead to premature deaths, air pollution appeared first on WPR.

The secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said the agency is preparing to set up grant programs to address PFAS contamination with some work beginning this summer or fall.

The post DNR Secretary says work ongoing to set up programs to address PFAS in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

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.

University of Illinois researchers analyzed traces of DNA in rivers and streams to learn how strips of trees near water — called riparian buffers — impact land species.

The post This conservation practice boosts wildlife species on farmland, new research finds appeared first on WPR.

Cleanup is ongoing after a Jefferson County egg farm spilled thousands of gallons of wastewater amid an outbreak of bird flu.

The post Cleanup of spill ongoing at Jefferson County egg farm amid bird flu outbreak appeared first on WPR.

The U.S. government will pay a French energy firm nearly $1 billion to cancel its plans to build a pair of wind farms off the East Coast, the Trump administration announced Monday in its latest move to stymie offshore wind. 

The French firm TotalEnergies will forfeit its leases for projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, with the United States paying $928 million to reimburse what the company initially spent on the leases.

Under the deal, TotalEnergies will reinvest that money into oil and gas projects, including a liquefied natural gas export facility in Texas. 

President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to block the development of offshore wind projects, which many East Coast states have been counting on to meet their energy needs in the coming years. The projects canceled under the deal announced Monday would have provided power to more than 1 million homes. 

Late last year, the Trump administration invoked classified national security threats to stop work on five wind farms that were under construction, but courts have ruled that the projects can proceed. But for dozens of other projects still in the planning and permitting stages, industry experts expect little progress while Trump remains in office. 

The administration claimed in a statement that the projects were “unreliable and costly.” But New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, condemned the agreement.

“Using a pay-not-to-play scheme to pressure a company to not build offshore wind is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Hochul said in a statement to The New York Times.

Environmental groups also blasted the deal, with some noting that it comes as Trump’s war with Iran has caused chaos for global oil markets.

“This deal is an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from having clean, affordable power exactly when they need it most,” Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for U.S. clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. 

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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.

Conservation groups say Wisconsin will lose out on opportunities to set aside public lands and struggle to find funds to pursue that work as the state’s land purchase program is likely to expire in June.

The post Stewardship program likely to expire after Wisconsin Senate fails to take up bills appeared first on WPR.

In an unprecedented use of federal authority, President Donald Trump’s administration has invoked emergency powers to force a series of retiring coal plants to stay open.

Utilities, states and grid operators have said the aging plants are expensive, in bad repair and no longer needed to meet regional energy needs. But Trump’s efforts to save the dwindling coal industry have forced plant operators to continue investing in the facilities — a move that some consumer advocates fear could mean billions of dollars in added costs for customers in dozens of states.

Trump has long positioned himself as a champion of coal, making it a centerpiece of his “energy dominance” agenda. The emergency orders issued by his administration claim that the grid is at risk of energy shortfalls, and the coal plants are needed to ensure a reliable power supply.

But state officials in many places affected by the orders say that’s not true.

“Rather than allowing the realities on the ground, the regulators and the utilities to make rational decisions about how to meet energy needs, we have the Trump administration trying to do Soviet-style central planning to push an ideological agenda that will drive costs to customers,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office.

Under Trump, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued emergency orders to block the retirements of coal plants in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan and Washington state. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has claimed that the power demands in various regions require the plants to stay operational.

Observers expect similar orders to be issued for most, if not all, of the dozens of coal-fired units slated for retirement during the remainder of Trump’s term. Utilities subject to the orders have said they will increase costs for ratepayers, and argue those costs should be borne by the multistate region to which they provide power, rather than just their local customers.

Despite their costs, three of the five plants being blocked from retirement haven’t produced electricity since the emergency orders went into effect, either because they need extensive repairs or because power demands have been met without them.

Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act gives the secretary broad authority to take temporary control of the U.S. electricity system during emergency situations. Until now, that authority had only been invoked during wartime or natural disasters. All of the Trump administration’s orders were issued before the war with Iran. Consumer advocates say Trump’s use of the act to overturn long-planned facility retirements is unprecedented, and likely illegal.

State officials, utilities and environmental groups have challenged all of the orders.

While such emergency orders can be issued only for 90-day periods, Wright has repeatedly renewed the orders before they expire.

The Department of Energy did not respond to a Stateline interview request.

Keeping coal online

Last May, Wright issued the first emergency order to prevent the shutdown of the J.H. Campbell Generating Plant in Michigan, just days before it was scheduled to retire. The plant has remained open since then, accruing $135 million in net costs through December. Consumers Energy, the utility operating the plant, is seeking to charge ratepayers in 11 states to recoup those costs.

Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel has appealed the order, while a coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn it, arguing that the feds have failed to demonstrate a true emergency. That case is currently in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals awaiting oral arguments, which may take place in May.

State leaders in Colorado have appealed an order to keep a plant there open, while Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, has sued the federal agency. Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the order in Indiana. Energy analysts say the Michigan case will likely be resolved first, and is expected to have major implications for the emergency orders elsewhere.

Douglas Jester, a former state energy official in Michigan, noted that Consumers Energy has had to pay extra to bring back staff, establish new delivery contracts for coal and catch up on maintenance. Jester now serves as managing partner at 5 Lakes Energy, a clean energy consulting group.

In his emergency order, Wright said the plant was needed to ensure energy reliability and reduce the risk of blackouts. His agency, in a statement issued last month, said the coal plants kept open by the emergency orders helped keep the power system online during Winter Storm Fern.

Coal industry leaders have made a similar argument, saying that growing energy demands require more baseload power, as opposed to intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

The emergency orders are “very much needed,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group, “so that we can continue to have the energy just for our day-to-day lives,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group. “Coal plants, baseload plants, are critical to the well-being of our grid. Coal is needed at critical moments for energy.”

Some labor unions have also praised the orders as beneficial to their workforce.

But state leaders and consumer advocates argue that utilities and regulators have already completed detailed plans to replace the power the aging coal plants provided, through a mix of renewables, natural gas plants and battery storage.

“If you were to believe the Department of Energy, you would believe that more than half the country is experiencing an emergency around the clock,” said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental group that is suing the Trump administration to overturn the orders. “It costs a lot of money to make sure that an old, decrepit coal plant is available to operate.”

Lenoff and other environmental advocates have said the coal plants ran during the winter storm because the government forced them to, not because the grid needed them to meet power demands.

Even as his administration has declared an energy shortage emergency, Trump has tried to block new renewable projects from being built, including several offshore wind farms that East Coast states are relying on to meet their power demands.

Meanwhile, the administration has also authorized power generators to export electricity to Mexico and Canada, which may happen only when regulators have determined the U.S. has sufficient energy supply to meet its own needs.

“How can you authorize the export of energy to Canada from a Western market that you just declared is in an emergency status with shortages?” said Tyson Slocum, energy program director at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “It’s complete incoherence.”

Aging plants

Three of the five plants being blocked from retirement have yet to even produce electricity since the emergency orders went into effect.

The plant in Colorado suffered a failure in a steam valve that was not repaired because it was on the verge of retiring. The federal order has forced the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to invest in repairing the plant, and the costs to keep the plant operational could reach $80 million a year even if it never produces power, said Toor, with the Colorado Energy Office.

“It’s very unlikely to actually operate even with this order,” he said.

Tri-State and the other utilities that own the plant have requested a rehearing of the emergency order, saying that keeping the plant open will be costly for their ratepayers.

In Indiana, one of the two plants targeted by the feds has suffered mechanical failures that would require extensive repairs.

“(The order) doesn’t even make sense because it’s not even really open,” said Ben Inskeep, program director at the Citizens Action Coalition, an Indiana-based consumer advocacy group. “You don’t want to throw good money after a plant you’re about to retire.”

Unlike the Democratic-led states subject to the other orders, Indiana’s leaders have welcomed the federal intervention. Republican Gov. Mike Braun issued his own executive order soon after the Department of Energy announcement directing state officials to evaluate ways to extend the life of the state’s remaining coal plants.

Meanwhile, the TransAlta Centralia coal plant in Washington state, while remaining in operational mode, has not supplied power to the grid since January, as the state’s energy needs have been met by more affordable sources elsewhere.

Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias sponsored a bill, signed into law earlier this month, that rolls back tax and regulatory exemptions that were granted to TransAlta under a 2011 agreement to gradually phase out the plant. The compliance burden will make it economically infeasible for the plant to operate again, he said.

“It’s crystal clear to the market that we’re not going backwards, we’re slamming the door and nailing it shut,” Liias said.

Consumer costs

While some states have pushed to close coal plants due to climate goals and pollution concerns, market forces have largely driven the coal industry’s decline. According to a 2025 analysis by the financial advisory firm Lazard, electricity from coal-fired power plants costs an average of $122 per megawatt-hour. That same amount of power can be produced for $78 from natural gas plants, $61 from onshore wind and $58 from utility-scale solar.

Some energy analysts say Trump’s efforts to keep fossil fuel-powered plants open could become very costly to ratepayers. A report published by Grid Strategies LLC, a consulting firm, found that as many as 90 aging plants could be subject to similar emergency orders during the remainder of Trump’s term. The analysis found that keeping those plants open could cost ratepayers anywhere from $3 billion to $6 billion a year.

“What the Department of Energy is doing is picking losers, the uneconomical plants that the utilities, the regulators, everybody involved agreed need to retire and be replaced with something cheaper and more efficient,” said Michael Goggin, who authored the report, which was commissioned on behalf of Earthjustice and other environmental groups.

Meanwhile, some consumer advocates say the orders have created chaos for utilities and energy planners. The operators of plants scheduled for retirement in the coming years no longer know if it’s safe to cancel their coal contracts, transition their workforce or defer maintenance on their facilities. And financiers may be wary of investing in new, cheaper energy projects that could be sidelined by orders to keep coal online.

“The administration has made clear that they’re not going to allow a coal-fired power plant to retire, regardless of whether or not it’s absurdly expensive to operate, whether it’s contaminating soil, air and water in that community, they literally don’t care,” said Slocum, of Public Citizen.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

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