Fred Strand, member of the Bayfield County Board of Supervisors, spoke with WPR’s Robin Washington on “Morning Edition” about efforts on the statewide level to reel in the adverse effects of wake boating.
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Water withdrawals for irrigating crops in Wisconsin reached their highest level ever reported in 2023 as a flash drought prompted growers to pump more water from high capacity wells, according to a state report.
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State and local fire officials explained their process for fighting a 750-acre wildfire in south central Wisconsin, and they also shared what more to expect during the spring.
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Consumer batteries at Redwood’s facility prepared for recycling. (Photo courtesy of Redwood Materials)
This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom
Rows of dead batteries stretch across some 30 acres of high desert, organized in piles and boxes that are covered to shield them from the western Nevada sun. This vast field is where Redwood Materials stores the batteries it harvests from electric vehicles, laptops, toothbrushes, and the litany of other gadgets powered by lithium-ion technology. They now await recycling at what is the largest such facility in the country.
Redwood was founded in 2017 by former Tesla executive JB Straubel and says it processes about three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries recycled in the United States. It is among a growing number of operations that shred the packs that power modern life into what is called “black mass,” then recoup upwards of 95% of the lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other minerals they contain. Every ounce they recover is an ounce that doesn’t need to be dug from the ground.
Recycling could significantly reduce the need to extract virgin material, a process that is riddled with human rights and environmental concerns, such as the reliance on open pit mines in developing countries. Even beyond those worries, the Earth contains a finite source of minerals, and skyrocketing demand will squeeze supplies. The world currently extracts about 180,000 metric tons of lithium each year — and demand is expected to hit nearly 10 times that by 2050, as adoption of electric vehicles, battery storage, and other technology needed for a green transition surges. At those levels, there are only enough known reserves to last about 15 years. The projected runway for cobalt is even shorter.
Before hitting these theoretical limits, though, demand for the metals is likely to outstrip the world’s ability to economically and ethically mine them, said Beatrice Browning, an expert on battery recycling at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which tracks the industry. “Recycling is going to plug that gap,” she told Grist.
Given these trends, the most remarkable thing about Redwood isn’t that it exists, but that it didn’t exist sooner. As the United States belatedly embraces the economic, national security, and environmental benefits that domestic battery recycling offers, it is trying to claw back market share from countries like South Korea, Japan, and especially China, which has a decades-long head start.
“There is this race in terms of EV recycling that people are trying to capitalize on,” said Brian Cunningham, program manager for battery research and development at the Department of Energy. “Everybody understands that, in the long term, developing these robust supply chains is going to be incredibly reliant on battery recycling.”
Straubel’s recycling journey began while he was still the chief technology officer at Tesla, which he co-founded with Elon Musk, and three others, in 2003. One of his roles was establishing the company’s first domestic battery manufacturing facility, Gigafactory Nevada. Material for Tesla’s batteries came from mines around the world, and Straubel understood that the trend would accelerate alongside demand for EVs, which has quintupled in number in the U.S. since 2020. He also knew that, in the years ahead, a growing number of electric vehicles would reach the end of their lives. According to consulting firm Circular Energy Storage, the world’s supply of retired batteries is expected to grow tenfold by 2030.
“[We] need to be planning ahead and really keeping an eye toward what that future looks like, to be ready to recycle every one of those batteries,” Straubel said in 2023. “The worst thing we could do is go to all this destruction and trouble to mine it, refine it, build the product and then throw it away.”
Last year, Redwood says it recycled 20 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion batteries, or the equivalent of about a quarter-million EVs, generating $200 million in revenue. In addition to its headquarters in Carson City, Nevada, Redwood is building a campus in South Carolina. It isn’t alone in looking to expand. Ascend Elements, Cirba Solutions, Blue Whale Materials, and Li-Cycle are among a number of recyclers operating, or planning to operate, facilities in at least nine states across the country. More than 50 startups worldwide have attracted billions in investment in recent years. (Much of this outlay was driven by Biden-era legislation that Republicans are considering repealing, though it remains unclear just what such action might mean for spending already planned or underway.)
Despite the boom, the reuse revolution won’t come quickly.
Benchmark projects that recycled lithium and cobalt will account for a bit more than one-quarter of the global supply of those metals by 2040. A closed system in which battery manufacturers use only recycled material is considerably further off, because any increase in the number of old packs available to recycle will be outstripped by the need for new ones.
Global demand for EV batteries, for example, is growing by about 24% per year and won’t level off until sometime after 2040 — the point at which Benchmark’s forecast ends and growth is still forecast at 6% per year. The battery powering an EV can last well over a decade or more, so there will be a lag before the supply of recycled material catches up to demand.
Even today, the world’s recycling capacity outpaces the supply of batteries available to recycle, leaving everyone clambering to find more. That has meant waiting for EV batteries to reach the end of their lives, and attempting to recycle the small batteries in everyday gadgets that are often trashed. The dearth of material available for recycling is often attributed to the idea that only 5% of lithium batteries make it to companies like Redwood Materials. But the provenance of that number, cited everywhere from the Department of Energy and Ames National Laboratory to The New York Times and Grist, is murky.
“If you ever ask, ‘Where did that 5% number come from?’ no one can really track back to the data,” said Bryant Polzin, a process engineer at Argonne National Laboratory. Like other Department of Energy employees or affiliates quoted in this story, he spoke to Grist before President Trump was inaugurated. “I think it was just kind of a game of telephone.”
Argonne’s research pegs the recycling rate for all lithium-ion batteries originating in the U.S. at 54% — 10% domestically and 44% in China — though it notes that data reliability remains an issue. Even that number, though, falls considerably short of what’s possible: 99% of lead acid batteries, like those used to start cars, in the United States are recycled, according to the Battery Council International trade association.
Redwood works with many automakers, including Toyota, BMW and Volkswagen, to gather EV batteries, and goes into the field to collect others from automotive repair shops, salvage yards, and the like. Policy tweaks could help recyclers acquire more. In California, for example, a state working group recommended more clearly delineating when various entities in the supply chain — from the battery supplier and auto manufacturer to a dismantler or refurbisher — are responsible for ensuring a battery is recovered, reused, or recycled. This, the report said, could reduce the risk of “stranded” resources.
So far, though, this seems to be a rare occurrence. The much bigger hindrance to EV recycling in the U.S. is simply that there aren’t enough old batteries to meet the demand for new ones. As that waiting game unfolds, recycling those often discarded as household waste could help bridge the gap.
Small lithium-ion batteries power everything from phones and electric toothbrushes to toys. By Benchmark’s estimate, about 5% of virgin lithium is used in consumer devices, but when they die, many of them are squirreled away in a drawer or trashed.
“A lot of household stuff does get chucked in the waste, and they’re not getting recycled,” said Andy Latham, the founder of Salvage Wire, a consulting firm focused on automotive battery recycling. Beyond being wasteful, dropping old batteries in the trash can be dangerous; scores of garbage trucks in cities from New York to Oregon have caught fire in recent years due to improperly disposed e-waste.
Data on just how much lithium is simply thrown away or hoarded remains elusive. But Latham says, in the short-term, batteries in portable electronics are “probably just as much, if not more of a factor” as those in EVs when it comes to advancing recycling. Redwood Materials, for one, is hoovering up as many as it can. It works with nonprofits and others to funnel them to its Nevada campus and hopes to establish drop-off locations at big-box retailers, similar to can and bottle collection in some states.
“Collection is definitely the biggest challenge,” said Alexis Georgeson, Redwood Materials’ vice president of government relations and policy. “It’s really a problem of how you get consumers to clean out their junk drawers.”
Until more people do that, recyclers count on a somewhat ironic source of material: Scraps from factories that make new batteries. One of Redwood’s primary feedstocks are the bits and pieces left over during the manufacturing process in places like Tesla’s Gigafactory, Georgeson said. Benchmark estimates that such leftovers represent about 84% of the material all battery recyclers use today.
The authors of the Argonne paper underscored how vital this material is: “If no scrap was available,” they wrote, “the development of the U.S. recycling industry might be significantly delayed.”
As more EVs hit the end of the road, consumer electronics are collected in greater numbers, and battery manufacturing yields less scrap as it grows more efficient, the composition of the material will adjust. New battery technologies could also have an impact, with emerging solid-state batteries, for example, expected to create more production waste in the short term but less in the long term. But few doubt recycling will be a thriving business that could help the country cut carbon emissions and decrease its dependency on places like China, Chile, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for increasingly vital minerals. It’s a future that American policymakers are trying to shape, hasten, and prepare for.
Although under threat from President Donald Trump’s administration, both the Biden-era bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, explicitly aim to bring battery manufacturing to the United States. They provided billions of dollars in grants and tax credits to incentivize building out domestic capacity (often in Republican congressional districts). The consumer-facing EV tax credit also requires that manufacturers source a minimum amount of both minerals and components locally. The government has been investing hundreds of millions of dollars in battery recycling as well, including Department of Energy support for everything from collection systems for small electronics to research into improving recycling technology.
“The work that we are funding is to really make those processes more efficient and economical,” said Jake Herb, technology development manager at the agency’s Vehicle Technologies Office. One success story is Ascend Elements, which Department of Energy funding helped grow from a Worcester Polytechnic Institute startup into a major player in the domestic industry. The department offered to loan Redwood Materials $2 billion to expand its factory, though the company declined the additional investment and says it has not accepted any federal funding. A robust domestic industry ensures that“we’re able to reclaim more materials [and] keep more of those materials domestic in the U.S.,” Herb said.
Several challenges remain as the country sprints toward that goal.
One hurdle is figuring out when recycling is the best option. Argonne National Laboratory’s “battery material use hierarchy” puts recycling near the bottom of its list of possible outcomes. It’s better to find alternate uses for batteries, especially those from EVs, like refurbishing them for use in another car or directing them to less intensive applications, such as for energy storage.
“It would provide a much more economical solution to consumers,” said Vince Edivan, executive director of the Automotive Recyclers Association.
Still, this so-called “second life” market remains nascent in the U.S. Edivan says automakers could boost it by making it easier for salvage yards to assess a battery’s condition to determine whether it can be reused or should be recycled. They often consider that information proprietary, he said. “We’re shredding perfectly good batteries because we don’t know the state of health.”
Battery recycling comes with another danger as well: fire. Dismantling and recovering batteries involves highly volatile processes. Last fall, a recycling plant in Missouri sparked a blaze that led many residents to evacuate. Thousands of dead fish washed up downstream of the plant.
It’s somewhat hazy who is supposed to regulate this rapidly growing industry. The Environmental Protection Agency considers lithium-ion batteries hazardous waste, which dictates how they should and shouldn’t be disposed of, but doesn’t directly address recycling. In 2021, Argonne signed on to help develop lithium recycling standards, though the status of that effort remains unclear. The task will likely fall to a patchwork of federal, state, and local authorities, which must keep the public both safe and confident in a process that will be critical to the country’s — and the climate’s — future.
Perhaps the biggest challenge to creating a full-cycle loop in the United States is that before any reclaimed material can be used in a battery, it must be refined into an intermediary product, such as cathode, which makes up approximately 40% of a battery’s value. “You can’t send lithium to a Gigafactory,” said Georgeson. “It is like sending sand to a computer factory.”
At the moment, no one is making cathode in the U.S. at scale — manufacturers are buying it from Asia. Redwood, Ascend Elements, and others are ramping up cathode facilities that should be online in the coming years (Panasonic plans to use Redwood cathode at its new battery plant in Kansas). But, for now, they are frequently selling their raw material abroad.
Georgeson sees federal policy as key to helping, or hindering, efforts to plug the cathode hole in the supply chain. One impediment has been a Treasury Department ruling that allows cathode sourced from allied countries to also qualify for the EV tax credit. That, she said, has pushed billions in business and investments to countries like South Korea instead of the United States.
It remains unclear exactly how the new administration will impact the industry, but President Trump could certainly upend it. If Congress rolls back the IRA’s investment and production tax credits, it could significantly handicap America’s burgeoning recycling buildout. On the other hand, tariffs, particularly aimed at China, could tip the economic scales toward American producers and recyclers by making imported batteries and their components more expensive.
Redwood, for one, is optimistic that its goal of onshoring both battery recycling and cathode production aligns with Trump’s goals of putting “America first.” Straubel has said that the Trump administration could do a lot to encourage a more robust domestic supply chain, including making the battery origin requirements of the EV tax credit more stringent — rather than scrapping the incentive entirely.
Getting the policy wrong, the company argues, will put the U.S. at the mercy of others in a future where battery recycling will only become more critical.
Blanca Begert contributed reporting to this story. This story is part of the Grist series Unearthed: The Mining Issue, which examines the global race to extract critical minerals for the clean energy transition.
How to get rid of your e-waste
Lithium-ion batteries can be found in laptops, phones, toothbrushes, Bluetooth speakers, and power tools, just to name a few things. But many people aren’t sure what to do with these gadgets once they die. Instead of tossing them in the trash, which can be dangerous, experts say to recycle them. Here’s how.
The nonprofit Call2Recycle operates some 16,000 sites nationwide where people can drop off their devices at no cost — at libraries, garbage dumps, and big box stores like Staples. The organization collected 5.4 million pounds of rechargeable batteries in 2023, and provides an online map to find a recycling location near you. Earth 911, Green Gadgets, and GreenCitizen also have locators.
Some cities offer curbside pickup, making recycling even easier. Call2Recycle, Electronic Recycling International, and others will take them by mail, usually for a fee. “Batteries sitting in a junk drawer or a box in the basement can accidentally cause a fire,”said Mia Roethlein, an environmental analyst at the Department of Environmental Conservation in Vermont, a national recycling leader. “Bring them to one of the free battery collection locations as soon as they are no longer usable.”
Enbridge said its investigation of valves at sites along the company's Line 6 pipeline revealed no active leaks after a valve failure caused an oil spill in Jefferson County last year.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced late Tuesday it will release previously authorized grant funds to farmers and small rural business owners to build renewable energy projects — but only if they rewrite applications to comply with President Donald Trump’s energy priorities.
The move has left some farmers perplexed — and doubtful that they’ll ever get the grant money they were promised, given the Trump administration’s emphasis on fossil fuels and hostility toward renewable energy.
Some of the roughly 6,000 grant applicants have already completed the solar, wind or other energy projects and are awaiting promised repayment from the government. Others say they can’t afford to take on the projects they’d been planning unless the grant money comes through.
A Floodlight analysis shows the overwhelming majority of the intended recipients of this money reside in Trump country — congressional districts represented by Republicans.
After hearing of the USDA’s latest announcement Wednesday, Minnesota strawberry farmer Andy Petran said he suspects many previously approved projects won’t be funded. He’d been approved for a $39,625 grant to install solar panels on his farm. But like many other farmers nationally, Petran got word from the USDA earlier this year that his grant money had been put on hold.
“It’s not like any small farmer who is looking to put solar panels on their farms will be able to put a natural gas refinery or a coal refinery on the farm,” Petran said. “I don’t know what they expect me to switch to.”
Petran was counting on the benefits that solar power would bring to his farm.
After getting word in September that the USDA had approved his grant application, he expected the solar panels would not only reduce his electricity bill but allow him to sell power back to the grid. He and his wife figured the extra income would help expand their Twin Cities Berry Co. and pay down their debt more quickly.
Petran’s optimism was soon extinguished. A USDA representative told him earlier this year that the grant had been frozen.
His 15-acre farm about 40 miles north of Minneapolis operates on a razor-thin margin, Petran said, so without the grant money, he can’t afford to build the $80,000 solar project.
“Winning these grants was a contract between us and the government,” he said. “There was a level of trust there. That trust has been broken.”
In its announcement, issued Tuesday night, the USDA said grant recipients will have 30 days to review and revise their project plans to align with President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order, which prioritizes fossil fuel production and cuts federal support for renewable energy projects.
“This process gives rural electric providers and small businesses the opportunity to refocus their projects on expanding American energy production while eliminating Biden-era DEIA and climate mandates embedded in previous proposals,” the USDA news release said. “… This updated guidance reflects a broader shift away from the Green New Deal.”
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in the release that the new directive will give rural energy providers and small businesses a chance to “realign their projects” with Trump’s priorities.
It’s unclear what this will mean for grant recipients who’ve already spent money on renewable energy projects — or those whose planned projects have been stalled by the administration’s funding freeze.
The USDA didn’t directly answer those questions. In an email to Floodlight on Wednesday, a department spokesperson said the agency must approve any proposed changes to plans — but offered no specific guidance on what or whether changes should be made.
“Awardees that do not respond via the website will be considered as not wishing to make changes to their proposals, and disbursements and other actions will resume after 30 days,” the email said. “For awardees who respond via the website to confirm no changes, processing on their projects will resume immediately.”
The grant funding was put on hold after an executive order issued by President Trump on his first day in office. It froze hundreds of billions of dollars for renewable energy under President Joe Biden’s massive climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The law added more than $1 billion to the USDA’s 17-year-old Rural Energy for America (REAP) program.
About 6,000 REAP grants funded with IRA money have been paused and are being reviewed for compliance with Trump’s executive order, according to a March 5 email from the USDA’s rural development office to the office of U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland.
A lawsuit filed earlier this month challenges the legality of the freeze on IRA funding for REAP projects.
Earthjustice lawyer Hana Vizcarra, one of the attorneys who filed the suit, called the latest USDA announcement a “disingenuous stunt.”
“President Trump and Secretary Rollins can’t change the rules of the game well into the second half,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “This is the definition of an arbitrary and capricious catch-22.”
Under the REAP grant program, farmers pay for renewable and lower carbon energy projects, then submit proof of the completed work to the USDA for reimbursement. The grants were intended to fund solar panels, wind turbines, grain dryers, irrigation upgrades and other projects, USDA data shows.
At a press conference in Atlanta on March 12, Rollins said, “If our farmers and ranchers, especially, have already spent money under a commitment that was made, the goal is to make sure they are made whole.”
But some contend the administration is unfairly making farmers jump through more hoops.
“This isn’t cutting red tape; it’s adding more,” said Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Midwest-based environmental advocacy group. “The USDA claims to deliver on commitments, but these new rules could result in awarded grants being permanently frozen.”
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a longtime farmer and Maine Democrat who sits on the House agriculture committee, said she thinks it’s illegal and unconstitutional for the administration to withhold grant money allocated by Congress. Beyond that, she said, it has hurt cash-strapped farmers.
“This is about farmers making ends meet,” she told Floodlight. “It’s not some ideological issue for us.”
Using USDA data, Floodlight identified the top 10 congressional districts that received the most grants. They’re all represented by Republicans who have said little publicly about the funding freezes affecting thousands of their constituents. It’s impossible to tell from the USDA data which REAP grants will get paid out.
The congressional district that received the most REAP grants was Iowa’s 2nd District, in the northeastern part of the state. Farmers and business owners there got more than 300 grants from 2023 through 2025. The district is represented by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has previously voiced support for “alternative energy strategies.”
“More than half of the energy produced in Iowa is from renewable sources, and that is something for Iowans to be very proud of,” she told the House Appropriations Committee in June 2022.
Hinson’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the matter.
The No. 2 spot for REAP grants: Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad. In that district, which spans southern Minnesota, more than 260 farmers and rural businesses were approved for REAP grants.
Finstad’s office did not return multiple emails and calls requesting comment. His constituents have been complaining about his silence on funding freezes. They’ve staged at least two demonstrations at his offices in Minnesota. Finstad said he held a Feb. 26 telephone town hall joined by 3,000 people in his district.
In a Feb. 28 letter to a constituent, Finstad said Rollins has announced that the USDA will honor contracts already signed with farmers and that he looks forward to working with the administration “to support the needs of farm country.”
Finstad is no stranger to the REAP program. Before becoming a congressman, he was the USDA’s state director of rural development for Minnesota. In that role, he was a renewable booster.
“By reducing energy costs, renewable energy helps to create opportunities for improvement elsewhere, like creating jobs,” Finstad said in a 2021 USDA press release. That has since been deleted from the agency’s website.
Rollins, meanwhile, called herself “a massive defender of fossil fuels” at her confirmation hearing, and she has expressed skepticism about the findings of climate scientists. “We know the research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid,” Rollins said at the Heartland Institute’s 2018 conference on energy.
She has also said that she welcomes the efforts of Elon Musk and his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency team at the USDA.
Jake Rabe, a solar installer in Blairstown, Iowa, said he has put up more than 100,000 solar modules in the state since getting into the business in 2015. More than 30 of his customers have completed their installation but are awaiting frozen grant funding, he said. At least 10 more have signed the paperwork but are hesitant to begin construction. Millions of dollars worth of business is frozen, he said.
On top of that, Rabe said, the state’s net metering policies — in which solar users get credits for any excess power they send back to the grid — are set to expire in 2026.
“I kind of feel like it may be the beginning of the end for the solar industry in Iowa with what’s going on,” said Rabe, who owns Rabe Hardware.
Despite it all, he remains a Trump supporter.
“Under the current administration, I think we’re doing things that are necessary for the betterment of the entire United States,” he said.
On March 13, Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law group, filed a federal lawsuit against the USDA on behalf of five farmers and three nonprofits. They’re seeking a court order to compel the Trump administration to honor the government’s grant commitments, saying it violated the Constitution by refusing to disburse funds allocated by Congress.
Vizcarra, the Earthjustice lawyer, said she is disturbed by the lack of concern from Congress, whose powers appear to have been usurped by the administration.
She added, “These are real people, real farmers and real organizations whose projects have impacts on communities who are left with this horrible situation with no idea of when it will end.”
One of the plaintiffs, Laura Beth Resnick, grows dahlias, zinnias and other cut flowers on a small farm about 30 miles north of Baltimore.
Florists are her customers, and demand for her flowers blooms during cold-weather holidays like Thanksgiving. Each of her three greenhouses is half the length of a football field, and heating them during those months isn’t cheap, Resnick said. The power bill for Butterbee Farm often exceeds $500 a month.
So a year ago, Resnick applied for a USDA renewable energy grant, hoping to put solar panels on her barn roof — a move that she estimated would save about $5,000 a year. In August, the USDA sent word that her farm had been awarded a grant for $36,450.
The cost of installing solar panels was $72,000, she said. So she paid a solar contractor $36,000 upfront, expecting that she’d pay the rest in January when the federal grant money came in. The solar panels were installed in December.
But the federal government’s check never arrived. A Feb. 4 email from a USDA representative said her request for reimbursement was rejected due to the Trump administration’s recent executive orders.
Resnick said she sought help from her elected representatives but got “pretty much nowhere.”
After hearing about the USDA’s announcement Wednesday, Resnick said that based on the response she’s previously gotten from the USDA, she’s not confident she will get her grant money.
“I’ve lost my trust in the USDA at this point,” she said. “Our project is complete, so we can’t change the scope of it.”
Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat, said he supports the legal fight against the funding freeze.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are scamming our farmers,” Van Hollen said in a statement to Floodlight. “By illegally withholding these reimbursements for work done under federal grants, they’re breaking a promise to farmers and small businesses in Maryland and across the country.”
Since 2023, when IRA funding became available, the USDA has given or loaned about $21.3 billion through programs to support renewable energy in rural areas, according to a Floodlight analysis of agency data, including the REAP program.
Those grant payments were processed until Jan. 20, when the Trump administration announced its freeze.
Trump’s decision was in line with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint crafted by the Heritage Foundation aimed at reshaping the U.S. government. That document called for repealing the IRA and rescinding “all funds not already spent by these programs.”
Environmental groups have sharply criticized the administration’s move, and several lawsuits are challenging the legality of the freeze of IRA funding.
At a recent public roundtable, Maggie Bruns, CEO of the Prairie Rivers Network, which supports Illinois communities’ transition to clean energy, listed REAP grants that have been held up in Illinois, where her multifaceted environmental nonprofit is based. A $390,000 grant for a solar array at the grocery store in Carlinville; $27,000 for solar panels at an auto body shop in Staunton; $51,000 for a solar array for a golf course in Alton.
Since 2023, farmers and businesses in Illinois have been approved for more than 590 REAP grants, making the state the third highest in number of recipients in the United States, Floodlight’s analysis shows. In an interview with Barn Raiser, Bruns said the decision to freeze such grants has caused unneeded stress for farmers. Before the executive order, USDA’s rural development team had worked hard to bring dollars for renewable energy projects to Illinois farmers, she said.
“That’s the thing we should be celebrating right now,” Bruns said, “and instead we have to fight to make sure that money actually does land into the pockets of the people who have gone ahead, jumped through all these hoops and are attempting to do the right thing for their businesses and their farms.”
In January, Dan Batson’s nursery in Mississippi was approved for a $400,367 REAP grant — money that he planned to use to install four solar arrays. He intended to use that solar energy to power the pumps that irrigate more than 1 million trees, a move that would have saved the company about $25,000 a year in electricity costs.
Seated in a wooded area about 30 miles north of Biloxi, his 42-year-old GreenForest nursery ships potted magnolias, hollies, crepe myrtles and other trees to southern states. Until a couple of months ago, Batson had been excited about what the grant money would mean for the business.
But when he saw news about the funding being held up earlier this year, he called a local USDA representative who confirmed the funds had been frozen. Batson had already sent the solar contractor $240,000. Now, his plans are on hold.
“I just can’t do the project if I don’t get the money,” he said.
Tuesday’s announcement from the USDA makes him no more confident he’ll get the money, he said.
Batson said he’s a fiscal conservative so he understands the effort to cut costs. “But,” he said, “the way they’ve gone about it has disrupted a lot of business owners’ lives.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
Barn Raiser is a nonprofit newsroom covering rural and small town America.
Farmers in Trump country were counting on clean energy grants. Then the government moved the goalposts. 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.
Recent moves at the Environmental Protection Agency to remove dozens of regulations and cut staff by 65 percent are raising concerns from advocates about impacts to the Great Lakes.
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The Raptor Resource Project monitors birds across the Midwest. Viewers can watch and learn about the once nearly extinct species through a free webcam and see the hatchings of Wisconsin’s “Mrs. and Mr. T” bald eagles.
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U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and a group of six other Democratic senators representing Great Lakes states sent a letter this week to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) pressing for more information about how staff cuts at the agency will affect programs on the lakes.
The letter, addressed to NOAA Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, asked her to detail the number of people fired at NOAA since she became the agency’s acting administrator, the number of people fired at each Great Lakes-focused NOAA program, the services that will be terminated and her plan to preserve those services.
Baldwin was joined in sending the letter by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Gary Peters (D-MI).
“We write to express our deep concern over the firing of probationary staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the potential impact these firings will have on the Great Lakes,” the senators wrote. “The Great Lakes are among the United States’ greatest natural treasures, strengthening our economy and attracting millions of visitors each year. The Lakes provide drinking water to over 30 million people, generate clean hydropower, and generate $3.1 trillion in gross domestic product. National and regional NOAA programs help protect these lakes and support our constituents who call the Great Lakes home.”
Among the NOAA programs that the group is seeking information about are the National Weather Service, National Estuarine Research Reserve System, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research and Midwestern Regional Climate Center.
In Wisconsin, Lakes Michigan and Superior support 50,000 jobs and provide nearly $3 billion to the state’s gross domestic product, according to a 2024 NOAA report. Last month, Baldwin told the Wisconsin Examiner she’d fight to protect the Great Lakes.
“Wisconsin communities, farmers, and businesses rely on our Great Lakes, and I’ll stand up to any efforts that will hurt them and their way of life,” she said.
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Bayfield County Administrator Mark Abeles-Allison spoke with WPR’s Robin Washington on “Morning Edition” about efforts by the counties to increase aid provided from the state to offset untaxed county forest lands that hasn’t kept up with inflation.
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A large wildfire in Green Lake County has been contained. An earlier wildfire in Waushara County covered about 830 acres. (Wisconsin DNR photo)
A 720-acre wildfire that erupted Monday in the White River Marsh State Wildlife Area of Green Lake County has been contained, according to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The so-called Big Island Fire has caused at least two residences to be evacuated, with six structures threatened by the fire, but not lost to it, according to the DNR.
Six DNR engines, air patrol, and low ground units from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are assisting along with other local agencies. The cause of the fire is under investigation, and the fire is burning on state and private lands. Six homes were saved as well as other buildings, and no structures were lost, nor were there injuries reported, according to the DNR. Although the fire has been put out, smoke is still lingering in the area, and an investigations of the cause of the fire cause is ongoing.
The White River Marsh State Wildlife Area is a 12,000-acre property containing open marsh, swamp hardwoods, wet meadows, upland prairie, oak savanna and shrub carr. The area is favored by hunters for the small game and birds. The marsh was studied by Aldo Leopold in the 1940s and later recommended for conservation purposes.
Wisconsin is already having an active wildfire season, which the DNR has called unusual and early. More than 223 wildfires have burned nearly 1,400 acres in Wisconsin already this year. In late February, a wildfire in Jefferson County burned about 95 acres, including 6.4 acres in the southern unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. The fire was worsened by dry conditions and high winds, but firefighters were able to contain the blaze.
The larger fire in Green Lake County comes as much of the Midwest experiences extreme weather. At least 40 people died this week after tornados ripped through communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Storms have also devastated towns and cities in the southern U.S.
Climate scientists have long warned that more frequent and intense extreme weather will occur if carbon emissions aren’t lowered. In 2025, the world is expected to exceed the 1.5 degrees celsius limit researchers warned would cause the effects of climate change to worsen.
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Breanne Klockzien is coordinator of the Beaver Creek Reserve Citizen Scientists program, which trains volunteers to use echolocation equipment to track and monitor bats. She spoke with WPR’s Robin Washington on “Morning Edition” before running a training session for this year’s participants, who will spend the next three months tracking the eight species of bats native to Wisconsin.
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After the death of a tiger, Irvine Park Zoo in Chippewa Falls considers ending large animal exhibits in favor of showcasing North American species, a decision zoos around the country are considering.
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President Trump is pushing federal agencies to expand timber harvests. He issued an executive order March 1 ordering the secretary of the Department of the Interior, the agriculture secretary and the chief of the United States Forest Service to come up with plans to increase logging, citing a goal to protect “national and economic security.” Trump also increased timber sales during his first term.
The U.S. Forest Service is already set to increase the number of trees it harvests to one of the highest levels since 2019, a result of Biden-era policies.
But advocates argue that we need trees now more than ever and that this increase in timber harvest doesn’t make sense. The Forest Service is facing a lawsuit challenging the timber target policies that they say put the climate at risk.
Advocates say the agency should protect mature forests with trees such as red oaks, which play a crucial role in storing and sequestering carbon. A single tree can store as much as 28,000 pounds of CO2 in its lifetime, the equivalent of annual emissions from generating electricity for one to two American homes.
The Forest Service routinely logs in national forests – it’s part of its standard management plan. In a 2022 report to Congress, the agency said it would increase logging in the east, south and Pacific Northwest. The eastern and southern regions, covering all national forests from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic, have historically been logged the most.
The pandemic disrupted the agency’s plan to increase timber harvests. The agency is increasing its harvest to 4 billion board feet in 2026, said Spencer Scheidt, staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. That’s “enough lumber to circle the globe more than 30 times,” according to the law firm.
National Forest Service spokesperson Wade Muehlhof said in an email that the service has stepped up its forest management efforts over the last 15 years. But the volume sold on the private market has fluctuated.
Muehlhof said reducing wildfire risk has contributed to the increase in the number of acres logged, but a decrease in volume sold. Other factors causing the timber targets to decrease recently included “increased operating costs, litigation, wildfire, flat budgets, and reduced capacity.”
The Forest Service was established by Congress to provide timber for the nation’s benefit and was later directed to broaden its management scope to include additional multiple uses and benefits.
Each year, the Forest Service’s Washington office assigns timber targets to its nine regional offices. It's then handed down to individual national forest units, which then develop projects to meet those goals. The national forests then set up timber sales to private companies.
But as the world warms, and the impacts of climate change worsen, advocates say the Forest Service has never “accounted for the aggregate carbon effects of actions taken to fulfill its timber targets,” according to the complaint in the lawsuit.
Muehlhof confirmed the agency “does not account for the aggregate carbon effects of actions when setting its timber targets because it upholds a carbon stewardship posture and does not manage for carbon.”
Advocates pointed out that the Forest Service has a legal obligation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to assess the environmental impacts of its projects. NEPA has twin aims, requiring agencies to consider the environmental impacts of proposed actions and inform the public of how those impacts factored into their decisions.
But many Forest Service projects receive exclusions, allowing certain projects to skip the more in-depth environmental reviews because they’re considered to have little or no impact on the environment.
Three Forest Service projects named in the lawsuit, including national forests in the east and south, have gone through environmental assessment per NEPA, which requires assessing carbon effects of proposed projects. But advocates said the Forest Service failed to comply with the federal regulation because it underestimated the carbon effects of these projects when setting timber targets.
Trees are an incredibly effective carbon sink, removing CO2 from the air and sequestering it for generations, if left alone. Hardwood trees – such as oak and hickory, commonly found in many states east of the Mississippi River – typically store more carbon than softwoods, like pine.
Recent research shows that aging forests in the region have great potential for carbon storage, which can increase even further as they mature.
Most forests in the Central Hardwoods Region, which stretches from Missouri to West Virginia, are second-growth, having been logged at least once over the past two centuries. Only a handful of these forests are truly old-growth, with trees older than 150 years and minimal human disturbance over the last several decades.
During westward expansion, the Midwest experienced significant deforestation as settlers, farmers and logging companies cleared forestlands over several decades. This clearance was driven by the need for agricultural land, timber resources and urban development, leading to profound changes in the region’s landscape.
“Even the large, mature forests you see today in the Ozarks are not the original forests that existed 200 years ago,” said Michael Bill, Missouri’s state forester.
Older forests capture CO2 more slowly, but are crucial for carbon storage and continue to play a significant role in locking up carbon as they grow.
Advocates are concerned that old-growth forests will be at risk if timber targets increase. Josh Kelly, resilient forests director for MountainTrue, an environmental organization based in North Carolina and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Forest Service, explained that the targets are measured by volume rather than acres and could effectively encourage cutting older, bigger trees, which store the most carbon.
The Biden administration proposed amending all forest land management plans in 2024 to protect old-growth forests across the entire National Forest System, which spans 43 states. The proposed plan, called the National Old-Growth Amendment, aimed to prohibit commercial logging on nearly 25 million acres of old growth. But ProPublica found it has allowed the Bureau of Land Management to cut old-growth trees at a faster rate than the previous decade.
The Forest Service withdrew from the plan in January, and environmentalists see an opportunity to protect old forests but remain cautious, given the likelihood that the Trump administration will continue to increase timber sales. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in a statement that the agency has gained “important insights that can help to guide our future stewardship of these special forests.”
Ryan Talbott, conservation advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said increased timber targets contradict the plan to protect old-growth forests. “On the one hand, you’re telling the public we’re going to protect and recruit old growth, and then on the other, you’re telling … the regions we need to increase logging,” he said.
“This is a really easy way to actually combat the climate crisis if we just allow trees to grow and continue to grow and not cut them,” Talbott added.
About two-thirds of the carbon storage in forests happens underground, not in the trees, research shows. But when trees are cut down, the carbon gradually reenters the atmosphere.
MountainTrue advocate Kelly said the Forest Service puts too much emphasis on cutting timber. The main problem is that “it’s elevated above other goals, and it’s something that forest leadership is evaluated on in their performance reviews annually,” he said, adding he believes some of the organization's records requests to the Forest Service support this. The Forest Service did not respond to this claim.
MountainTrue’s goal isn’t to stop timber harvest, but to ensure a “balance” between logging and the risk of exacerbating climate change, Kelly said.
He said the lawsuit only applies to the east and south regions under the Forest Service, adding that “some of the timber harvests happening out west (are) legitimate and needed to reduce wildfire risk.” In the complaint, the plaintiffs asked the court to stop the Forest Service from offering any more timber sales for fiscal year 2024 in the eastern and southern regions “excluding harvests necessary to mitigate wildfire risks.”
In a response to the lawsuit in May, the Forest Service didn’t address the concerns about carbon storage and sequestration; instead, it claimed that the legal challenges didn’t target any specific, final decisions made by the government that the court can review.
Caroline Pufalt, with the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club, said excessive logging can greatly affect wildlife habitats because it changes how much sunlight an area is exposed to and how quickly water flows through the land. Trees act as natural water regulators. Their roots help to absorb and retain water, allowing it to slowly seep into the ground rather than running off immediately.
“If you were an amphibian … standing around on the forest floor and knew where your little wet areas were likely to be, they would not be there again for … a good number of years,” she said.
Eventually, Pufalt said National Forests should “forget about the timber target” and focus on managing forests based on ecological principles. While timber production would still occur, it would be balanced with ecological considerations, potentially resulting in reduced timber yields but healthier, more resilient forests.
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 network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
The Forest Service is cutting down more trees despite their ability to capture carbon 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.
Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner
Just three months into 2025, at least 151 wildfires have burned nearly 430 acres across Wisconsin, at the time of this writing. A lack of late-winter snow cover, drought conditions throughout the state, and high winds have created the perfect conditions for fires, which can quickly spread out of control.
One of those fires, contained in late February by firefighters in Jefferson County, burned approximately 95 acres, including an estimated 6.4 acres in the southern unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. Palmyra Fire Rescue was dispatched after reports of a large fire in the woods, near a cemetery, the fire department said in a press release. When firefighters arrived, about 20 acres of a grass field was on fire.
Due to winds that reached 20 miles per hour with wind gusts of 35 miles per hour, the fire spread rapidly. Backup support came from Sullivan, Kettle Moraine, Rome, Western Lakes, Ixonia, Jefferson, Johnson Creek, LaGrange, Vernon, Fort Atkinson, and 14 other jurisdictions as well as the Salvation Army Rehab Unit to contain the blaze. The Palmyra Fire Rescue press release states that ATV’s and bush trucks were deployed, and a command post was established to help coordinate the effort. No injuries were reported.
Although the cause of the fire is still under investigation, a Palmyra Fire Rescue spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner that the cause may never be known. Often with these types of fires there’s not enough physical evidence to establish a cause, the spokesperson wrote in an email. However, a wildfire management dashboard maintained by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reports most of the wildfires this year have been traced back to debris burning.
Catherine Koele, a veteran wildfire prevention specialist with the DNR, said in an email message that the wildfire “is rather unusual for this time of year.” In Wisconsin, “our traditional wildfire season is in March after the snow melts and prior to vegetation fully greens up,” Koele said. “But, anytime the ground is not completely snow-covered, we are prone to wildfires when vegetation is cured.”
Brian Lemke, a property supervisor for the Kettle Moraine’s southern unit, said via email that the burned portions of state forest were “all part of a pine stand close to our horse trails and across the road from our horse campground.” However, Lemeke said the fire did not affect trails or enter the campground.
“The pine area has been marked and sold as part of a forestry thinning,” Lemke said, with the harvest designated for paper mills. “Generally fire-scarred trees are not suitable for paper mills, but I haven’t heard from our forester if the timber contract will be amended yet.”
This year trends are continuing that contributed to fires in the past. Jan. 3, 2025, was the driest January day in Wisconsin since 1895, and 3.3 million Wisconsinites now live in drought areas, according to a U.S. government drought monitor. No Wisconsin counties have received drought disaster designations from the federal government, however.
Wildfires have become more frequent in recent years in Wisconsin, and across the country. In 2023, an 830-acre wildfire attacked structures and debris in Waushara County, burning an area of pine and mixed hardwoods. Gusty winds and drought conditions also contributed to that fire, as well as the erratic behavior of the fire itself. At the time, the DNR reported that although the number of fires that year were comparable to previous years, fires were burning larger swaths of land.
Massive wildfires in Canada, which caused thousands of Canadians to evacuate. also caused clouded skies in Wisconsin and sharp dips in air quality that year.
Much of the wildfire activity in 2023 was attributed to climate change. With carbon dioxide levels at their highest in history – carbon emission levels in 2025 are expected to exceed the 1.5 degrees celsius limit — climate scientists have warned the effects of climate change are likely to worsen.
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We Energies has invested in renewable energy such as this solar farm, yet it continues to push for new gas-powered plants. Columnist John Imes argues that these proposals would set Wisconsin back, delaying progress toward a smarter, clean energy future. (WEC Energy Group photo)
Wisconsin stands at a critical energy crossroads. We Energies’ plan to build massive new methane gas plants is a costly misstep that threatens to lock in high energy costs, undermine clean energy goals, and leave ratepayers footing the bill for outdated infrastructure.
At a time when clean energy and storage solutions are proving to be more reliable and cost-effective, doubling down on fossil fuel dependency is a financial and environmental mistake Wisconsin simply can’t afford.
We Energies has publicly committed to reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Yet, its proposed gas plants move in the opposite direction — locking in long-term fossil fuel reliance when cleaner, cheaper alternatives are available.
One of the key justifications for these plants is the anticipated electricity demand from data centers. However, rapid advancements in AI-driven efficiency — such as DeepSeek — could dramatically cut data center energy consumption. If We Energies locks in billions for gas plants just as these efficiency gains accelerate, Wisconsin ratepayers could be left footing the bill for infrastructure that is no longer needed. Instead of overbuilding based on outdated projections, Wisconsin should prioritize flexible, adaptive energy solutions that can evolve with technology.
If Wisconsin continues to lag in clean energy, it risks losing business investment. Major corporations like Microsoft, Google, and Meta have committed to 100% carbon-free energy by 2030. We Energies’ push for new gas plants directly contradicts these corporate sustainability goals, which could drive investment out of the state.
Rather than doubling down on fossil fuels, Wisconsin should implement on-site demand response incentives for large energy users—reducing peak demand without costly new gas infrastructure.
We Energies’ push for new gas plants isn’t just unnecessary — it’s an economic gamble that could burden ratepayers for decades. Natural gas prices remain volatile due to global market instability, making long-term reliance on gas a risky bet for Wisconsin’s energy future.
Meanwhile, states across the Midwest are rejecting new gas plants in favor of renewables, battery storage and energy efficiency. If Wisconsin fails to follow suit, residents and businesses could face skyrocketing energy costs and stranded fossil fuel assets that quickly become obsolete.
Rather than allowing utilities to dictate energy policy, Wisconsin must take a more strategic approach. Other states have already adopted comprehensive energy transition plans that prioritize renewables, storage and grid modernization. Without a coordinated strategy, Wisconsin risks falling behind — leaving businesses and consumers to bear unnecessary costs.
The recent GreenBiz 25 conference, where more than 2,500 sustainability professionals gathered, underscored a key reality: Businesses are proving they can “do well by doing good.” Companies are cutting energy use, reducing emissions and making strategic clean energy investments that align with both business and environmental goals.
Despite political resistance, responsible businesses are stepping up. But they can’t do it alone — Wisconsin policymakers must work with business leaders to create a regulatory environment that supports clean energy innovation rather than hindering it.
The outdated notion that natural gas is the only way to meet peak demand is being disproven across the country. Texas, California and even Alaska are deploying large-scale battery storage systems to replace gas-fired peaker plants. Battery storage costs have fallen 90% over the last decade, making it the clear economic winner over new fossil fuel generation.
Before committing billions to new gas plants, Wisconsin should first maximize cost-effective battery storage—proven technology that reduces emissions while keeping electricity rates stable.
Instead of building expensive new gas infrastructure, Wisconsin should follow the lead of other states that are repurposing existing fossil fuel plants into clean energy hubs. By investing in solar, wind, and battery storage at existing power plant sites, Wisconsin can leverage existing grid connections and transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy system.
This “clean repowering” strategy allows for a smoother transition while maintaining grid stability—without saddling ratepayers with the cost of unnecessary new gas plants.
Wisconsin has a historic opportunity to lead the Midwest in clean energy innovation. But We Energies’ gas expansion plan is a step in the wrong direction.
Investing in clean energy solutions creates jobs, lowers costs and aligns with corporate sustainability goals. Locking in new gas plants while battery storage and renewables continue to outpace fossil fuels is an expensive mistake Wisconsin can’t afford.
The choice is clear: Do we cling to outdated, expensive fossil fuel infrastructure, or do we embrace a smarter, more resilient clean energy future?
The answer should be obvious—for our economy, our environment and the future of Wisconsin.
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Since the late 1990s, the lake whitefish population has declined as much as 80 percent in parts of the Great Lakes. The culprit is a tiny invasive species called the quagga mussel.
The post Quadrillions of invasive mussels are damaging the Great Lakes, documentary shows appeared first on WPR.
Two early-career scientists from Wisconsin were terminated from the Midwest Climate Hub as part of the Trump administration's massive cuts to the federal workforce, leaving them — and their research — in the lurch.
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Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers continue to dig in their heels during a yearslong tug-of-war over how regulators should hold property owners liable for contamination caused by “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
They are pushing competing proposals to protect so-called innocent landowners — those who didn’t knowingly cause their PFAS pollution — from liability under Wisconsin’s decades-old environmental cleanup law.
Evers’ two-year budget proposal, introduced last week, exempts some owners of residential and agricultural land. The proposal would also fund testing and cleanups of affected properties.
His budget takes a narrower tack than the approach spearheaded by a Republican who has long sought to protect innocent landowners.
During the previous legislative session, Sen. Eric Wimberger of Oconto co-authored an innocent landowner bill that lawmakers passed along party lines before an Evers veto.
The governor accused Republicans of using farmers as “scapegoats” to constrain state authority. His staff warned that if Republicans present the same proposal this session, Evers might veto it again.
Wimberger says Evers’ staff has failed to respond to his requests for an outline of innocent landowner exemptions Evers would support. Wimberger is now circulating two draft bills co-authored with state Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, that contain provisions virtually identical to the vetoed legislation. Those include grants for municipalities and owners of PFAS-contaminated properties.
The proposals also would limit the Department of Natural Resources’ power to require property owners to pay for cleanups and extend liability exemptions to certain businesses and municipalities.
“The governor needlessly vetoed the plan over protections for innocent landowners,” Wimberger said in a statement. “Now, after delaying this relief for a year, he says he wants to protect innocent landowners. While it’s encouraging to see him change his mind, he is no champion for pollution victims.”
Wisconsin’s spills law requires reporting and cleanup by parties that pollute air, soil or water or if they discover contamination from a past owner. That is because, in part, allowing pollution to remain on the landscape could be more dangerous to human health than the initial spill.
The DNR has held parties liable for PFAS contamination they didn’t cause but also has exercised discretion by seeking remediation from past spillers instead of current property owners.
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a family of more than 12,000 compounds commonly found in consumer products like food wrappers, nonstick pans and raincoats along with firefighting foam used to smother hot blazes. Some are toxic.
The chemicals pass through the waste stream and into sewage treatment plants, which commonly contract with farmers to accept processed sludge as fertilizer.
Testing is now unearthing PFAS on cropland from Maine to Texas. Several hot spots are located in Wisconsin too, among the more than 100 PFAS-contaminated case files the DNR currently monitors.
The agency maintains it has never, and has no plans to, enforce the spills law against a property owner who unknowingly received PFAS-contaminated fertilizer. But Republican lawmakers don’t trust those promises.
Evers’ bill would exempt only residential and agricultural properties polluted with PFAS-contaminated sludge. Affected landowners would have to provide the DNR access to their property for cleanup and not worsen the contamination.
Evers’ innocent landowner exemption would sunset by 2036.
Meanwhile, the Republican draft bills would prevent the DNR from enforcing the spills law when the responsible party qualifies as an innocent landowner and allow the department to clean up its property at its own expense.
The first bill focuses on innocent landowner provisions, while the second, larger proposal adds grant programs without specifying appropriations. Wimberger explained introducing two bills would “ensure the victims of PFAS pollution get the debate they deserve” and prevent Democrats from “playing politics” with PFAS funding and policy.
Unlike Evers’ budget proposal, the draft bills don’t release $125 million in aid to PFAS-affected communities that has sat in a trust fund for 18 months.
The Legislature allocated the funds in the previous two-year budget, but its GOP-controlled finance committee hasn’t transferred the cash to the DNR.
Lawmakers in both parties have bristled over the languishing money, with Democrats contending the committee could transfer it without passing a new law. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council says lawmakers would be on “relatively firm legal footing” if they did so.
Republicans, meanwhile, say transferring the dollars without limiting DNR enforcement powers would not effectively help impacted landowners. They say the DNR could treat a landowner’s request for state assistance as an invitation for punishment.
The previous, vetoed bill garnered support from all three Wisconsin local government associations, but environmental groups, the DNR and Evers said it shifted PFAS cleanup costs to taxpayers.
Environmental groups also feared Republicans on the finance committee would continue withholding the $125 million even if the legislation had advanced — protracting the stalemate while weakening the DNR.
Nor would risking “unintended consequences” of weakening the spills law be worth $125 million, which would scratch the surface of remediation costs, environmental critics said.
Expenses in Marinette County alone, which is coping with PFAS contamination linked to a firefighter training site owned by Johnson Controls International, already exceed that amount.
The Milwaukee Business Journal reported the company upped its reserves by $255 million to finance the cleanup. With the increase, the company has recorded charges of about $400 million since 2019.
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Who pays for PFAS? Governor, GOP lawmakers wrestle over cleanup liability 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 Wisconsin Natural Resources Board unanimously passed regulations that would allow deer management based on habitat rather than county lines in the forests of central and northern Wisconsin.
The post DNR board signs off on revised boundaries for managing deer appeared first on WPR.
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