The finding from a new report by the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health highlights fire departments' struggle to ensure they have enough volunteers and funding to operate.
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The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine received federal tax credits for installing solar panels. Labor and environmental advocates are attacking the Congressional Republicans' tax cut megabill for rolling back clean energy programs enacted in the Biden administration. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
The tax cut megabill in Congress with a historic rollback on Medicaid also includes provisions reversing U.S. clean energy policies, advocates warned Wednesday, harming not only the environment but the economy.
“This legislation will kill economic growth and jobs, raise energy prices, and cede clean energy technology manufacturing to other countries,” said Carly Ebben Eaton, Wisconsin Policy Manager for the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups.
Eaton took part in two online news conferences Wednesday to draw attention to the federal budget reconciliation bill and its repeal of key portions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The budget bill has been the top priority of the Republican majority in Congress as well as the administration of President Donald Trump. It was drawn up to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 during Trump’s first term that will expire at the end of 2025.
The package returned to the U.S. House for final action after a tied vote in the U.S. Senate that required Vice President JD Vance to pass the measure on Tuesday.
Steep cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition programs have drawn the most attention during debate on the bill, along with the Congressional Budget Office finding that the wealthiest taxpayers will benefit most from its tax cuts.
The bill also includes measures that would undo several provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one of the signature pieces of legislation enacted during President Joe Biden’s four years in office. After its passage the act was lauded by environmental advocates for provisions to address climate change by encouraging clean energy through tax credits as well as federal investments.
The House version of the GOP bill “already dealt a serious blow to clean energy tax credits and investments,” Eaton said Wednesday, “but the Senate took it even further, doubling down on cuts that will cost jobs, stall progress and raise energy costs.”
The IRA’s tax breaks were designed to encourage consumers to move to energy-efficient and clean energy appliances and vehicles and encourage utilities and other businesses to increase their use of renewable resources such as solar energy and wind power.
Eaton said Wednesday that clean energy tax credits are supporting more than $8.6 billion in private investments in Wisconsin.
Garrik Harwick, assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union Local 890 in Janesville, said that over the past three years more than 300 members have worked on solar projects in Southern Wisconsin. He spoke at a news conference with Eaton and several other union leaders.
The IRA tax breaks have encouraged those developments, Harwick said, and the investments have included increased apprenticeship slots, bringing in new trainees.
“These investments don’t just deliver clean energy,” Harwick added. “They create good paying union jobs that strengthen our local communities.”
He warned that repealing the tax credit will likely reduce the use of clean energy technologies and increase energy costs by 6% for homeowners and more than 9% for business customers.
The IRA’s provisions that encouraged apprenticeships helped “open doors that many didn’t even know existed,” said Andy Buck, government affairs director for the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan district of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
He said the union has added a number of jobs, including apprentices, installing energy-efficient glass in buildings on projects that were facilitated by the Inflation Reduction Act.
“When someone enters a registered apprenticeship program, they aren’t just learning a trade,” Buck said. “They’re building a career, gaining self-respect, and finding a path to a better life.”
Another provision of the 2022 law opened up tax credits for renewable energy to nonprofit organizations and government agencies, allowing them to receive direct payments to the federal government comparable to the value they’d receive from the tax credit if they paid taxes.
A new middle school being built in Menasha will include solar panels and energy storage, said Matt VanderPuy, a business agent for the Sheet Metal workers union in Sheboygan. The direct pay program will reimburse the district $3 million, he said, while the energy savings is projected at $190,000 per year.
“This is money that they can reinvest into the students, the teachers and the school district,” while saving on property taxes, VanderPuy said.
At another news conference, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes observed that more than 90% of the jobs that IRA incentives helped create are in Republican congressional districts — although no Republicans in the state delegation voted for the bill. Barnes leads Forward Wisconsin, a nonprofit established during Biden’s term in the White House to inform people about the Biden administration’s infrastructure and climate investments and to defend them.
But business uncertainty this year, which Barnes blamed on GOP positions including Trump’s tariff executive orders, has led nationally to the cancellation of projects worth $15.5 billion, he said.
“The so-called big beautiful bill is going to have some very ugly impacts in Wisconsin, ripping away tax incentives for wind and solar farms, for rooftop solar, for farm sustainability programs, for clean cars and school buses,” said Amy Barrilleaux, communications director for Clean Wisconsin, at the event with Barnes. “And giving more tax breaks to big oil and gas companies does absolutely nothing to create jobs here or any opportunities here — it’s a gift to big oil at the expense of Wisconsin families and at the expense of our environment.”
Heather Allen, policy director for Elevate, an energy efficiency nonprofit, said as many as 11,000 clean energy and manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin could be at risk.
Plans for a $2.5 billion network of electric vehicle charging stations in the state have stalled, Allen said, and Wisconsin manufacturers that would have supplied components “are going to lose that opportunity now.”
“This legislation is going to strangle our solar businesses with red tape,” Allen said. “What you have here is an attack on small businesses that are delivering clean energy solutions to help families save money on their energy bills. And that includes solar installers, but it also includes other home energy contractors, other construction jobs.”
In four recent polls, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the Republicans’ megabill — making it “more unpopular than any piece of major legislation that’s been passed since at least 1990,” Barnes said.
At the labor news conference, Emily Pritzkow, the Wisconsin Building Trades Council executive director, said advocates are urging people to contact their members of Congress.
“The polling on this is abysmal, and as long as people continue to call and deliver that message , that is what we need to do right now,” Pritzkow said. “Now is the time to weigh in, not once it’s coming to your front door, impacting you, your community, and people you care about.”
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Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner
The U.S. Senate is currently working on its version of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—a deeply misleading attempt to dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and derail America’s clean energy future.
Let’s be clear: This isn’t just political posturing. This bill, backed by fossil fuel interests and already passed in the House, would strip away the very tools Wisconsin families, businesses, farmers and communities are using to lower energy costs, create jobs and build a more resilient future. The damage to our state would be both immediate and long-term.
In Wisconsin alone, 82 clean energy projects are currently in the pipeline. These projects represent not just thousands of jobs and billions in investment — they’re the backbone of a 21st-century economy. From wind turbine manufacturing in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley to solar installations in rural communities, Wisconsinites are hard at work powering our future.
If the “Big, Broken Bill” becomes law, it threatens to cancel or delay many of these efforts. Clean energy tax credits would vanish. The Solar for All program and clean manufacturing investments would be eliminated. Tax incentives for electric vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, and sustainable agriculture would be repealed. These aren’t just policy tools — they’re direct investments in our people, places and potential. Many Wisconsin communities have used these credits to launch local projects that reduce taxpayer dollars through direct pay for solar, geothermal and clean vehicles.
And we can’t afford to go backward. Energy demand is skyrocketing — especially with the rapid expansion of AI and data centers. Experts warn electricity bills could jump by 70% in the next five years if we don’t act. Clean, renewable energy remains the cheapest and fastest option to deploy. Gutting these investments would lead to higher prices, more power interruptions and less energy reliability — leaving Wisconsin families and businesses to bear the cost.
Without these programs, household energy costs could rise by up to $400 a year. That’s a hidden tax hike on working families — piled on top of rising costs from tariffs and supply chain disruptions already straining our economy.
Even worse, the bill guts EPA pollution standards and allows major polluters to sidestep environmental compliance. It’s a taxpayer-funded giveaway to fossil fuel interests, trading our health, air and water for short-term corporate profits.
Let’s not forget Wisconsin’s farmers, who were just beginning to benefit from billions in IRA investments for conservation, renewable energy and carbon-smart agriculture. With grant contracts abruptly canceled, many family farms are left holding the bag, having made plans in good faith only to be blindsided.
We can do better. Wisconsin has the talent, tools and environmental leadership tradition to lead the clean energy economy. Clean energy already supports more than 71,000 jobs in our state. With the right investments, we could add 34,000 more and grow our economy by $21 billion by 2050.
We’re also home to over 350 clean energy supply chain companies. With support from IRA tax credits and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), we can expand local manufacturing of batteries, solar panels, wind components, EV systems and smart grid technology — positioning Wisconsin as a national clean energy hub.
This is the kind of forward-thinking, common-sense investment we need. It creates good jobs, lowers energy bills, strengthens supply chains and revitalizes communities.
The Senate still has time to act. Let’s urge our lawmakers, regardless of party, to reject this harmful bill and stand with the workers, innovators and families building a cleaner, stronger Wisconsin. Our policies should reflect our shared values of fairness, innovation, resilience and stewardship — not special treatment for polluters.
This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about economic survival, energy independence and the future we want to leave our children.
It’s time to move forward, not backward, with a smarter stronger, and more sustainable Wisconsin.
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Rick Zimmerman has witnessed dozens of renewable energy projects completed over the course of his career, and in recent years he’s seen about a gigawatt (GW) of solar energy projects in Wisconsin as Alliant Energy’s Manager of Resource Development.
His career in renewables started in the early 2000s and was driven by his knowledge of and appreciation for renewables, as well as a small amount of happenstance. His career path gave him the opportunity to work on projects from Vermont all the way to Hawaii, but lately, he’s been happy to keep his focus on Wisconsin with occasional visits to Minnesota or Iowa.
By staying in one area, he’s able to spend more time with his wife and kids and he’s also found himself with time to work on home projects, such as building out his basement during the COVID-19 pandemic or his latest woodworking project.
“I’m a, I’d say a DIYer,” Zimmerman said. “Working either on the house outside or inside the house.”
As a graduate of UW-Madison’s engineering program and an Eagle Scout, he’s been able to apply his knowledge from school and desire to spend time outdoors not only to home projects but also to his work.
He first got a taste for working on renewables while working at an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, M.A. Mortenson. Not only does the large company work across multiple industries, but it also offered plenty of opportunities to get outside for wind turbine projects
M.A. Mortenson had a department specifically for wind projects, but Zimmerman said, “It was a rather small department, as they didn’t want to do layoffs and then huge hires.”
Instead, to manage the ebb and flow of workload in the industry, they had a core staff that managed the department, and then they would gather workers from different offices for projects.
“And then (for a new project) the call went out to the different offices, said hey we need three engineers from your group, what can you do to loan us those engineers?” Zimmerman said. “I was an engineer on loan.”
Through happenstance, he was available when the call went out and became one of the volunteer engineers who would play a role in building out wind energy in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, the first hotbed of midwest construction.
“This was the first renewables from an energy perspective in the area where I lived and worked that I could be a part of,” Zimmerman said. “That was my first taste, I liked it.”
Though his time at M.A. Mortenson wasn’t solely focused on renewables, he didn’t stray far from the industry. By 2012 he would find himself much more directly involved in the energy world working at Alliant Energy.
He got his start at Alliant in the construction department. After some success in that role, he was promoted to project manager, and thanks to some good timing, he found himself working on wind projects once again.
“I got tapped to help with that wind program,” Zimmerman said. “Partly it was coincidentally luck, a couple of my projects had ended and I had some capacity. I had the wind background already from my EPC world so that obviously fit in really well and then I temporarily joined the development department and we didn’t stop.”
From 2018 to about 2020, Zimmerman oversaw the development of a GW of wind energy installed in Iowa. Once that was completed, Alliant turned its attention to Wisconsin to install an additional GW of clean energy, only this time it was solar.
After successfully implementing a GW of solar over 12 projects, he was promoted from project manager to manager of resource development, overseeing a team of 12.
Regardless of his position, Zimmerman says, “It’s an exciting time to be in the utility industry.”
“For the foreseeable future, everyone is going to need power, and as we’re seeing now, everyone is needing more power,” he said.
From increased need at the residential level to new data centers, Zimmerman said utilities are more regularly being seen as critical infrastructure for the economy to grow.
To meet the demands of the future, Wisconsin will need to continue increasing its clean energy portfolio. To meet our goals, utilities and advocacy groups alike will need to continue working with various communities where these projects are built.
Zimmerman has seen a full spectrum of responses to clean energy projects during his time in the industry. He’s found that particularly in Wisconsin, some love the projects, some hate them, and some even prefer wind turbines over solar panels.
With the variety of challenges faced in Wisconsin, Zimmerman said that at Alliant, “We just thread the needle as best we can. There are pros and cons to every decision we make, we try to make those decisions that give us more pros than cons.”
What it ultimately comes down to is clear and constant communication. Like RENEW, Zimmerman has come across plenty of disinformation on the internet that can be convincing. To learn more about projects and how communities can share their input, Zimmerman recommends going to reliable third-party sources that focus on sharing the facts.
The post Clean Energy Works: Rick Zimmerman, manager of resource development, Alliant Energy appeared first on RENEW Wisconsin.
For the past eight years, Joey Cheng has worked for ATC, a Wisconsin-based, regulated utility that moves energy along the electric power grid in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois. In her position, Cheng and her team assess the present and future needs of the electrical grid. They use electrical system models to analyze grid performance, develop network solutions, and determine the best value plan for interconnecting load and generation to ATC’s system.
Cheng has spent over 20 years working in the power industry. She has held various roles at ATC, including transmission planning engineer and team lead of substation services. She is currently the manager of system planning. Before starting her career in the power industry, Cheng studied at the National Taiwan Ocean University, earning a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. She continued her studies and earned a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science in management from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
“When I started my career, the electric industry was still heavily reliant on fossil fuels as the main electrical generation resource. But for the last several years, we’ve seen a transition to more renewable energy sources due to public policy changes and concerns over climate change. We are also seeing economic growth in our region that will require more energy and increase the load on our system.”
The electric power you use every day flows through a three-part system – generation, transmission, and distribution. Power plants, solar fields, wind farms, and other sources generate electricity that flows through high-voltage transmission power lines over long distances to substations where the voltage is lowered. The power then flows over smaller, local wires known as distribution lines to homes and businesses. The high-voltage power lines are like interstate highways and are a cornerstone of our nation’s electric power system.
Cheng explains that the transition from traditional generation sources (like coal) to renewable energy generation (like solar and wind) brings new needs and challenges to grid planning. She views this with excitement — a new challenge means a new opportunity. How the grid is built today helps ensure reliable energy for tomorrow.
“It’s like a puzzle, and because the issues are new, sometimes we don’t have all the pieces yet,” Cheng said, “But it’s the collaboration of other colleagues, our utility customers, and others in the industry that make it possible for us to interconnect new load and generation sources and strengthen the grid during this time. We can’t rely on just one person; it’s everybody having to contribute and collaborate.” Cheng shared that the collaborative culture at ATC is one of the reasons her team can keep up with the industry demand and remain flexible while planning.
Work like Cheng’s can help Wisconsin to better utilize current renewable energy resources by reducing electric grid constraints and keeping the power flowing. Currently, wind farms in eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin are not fully utilized. With more renewable energy projects coming online over the next decade, this challenge may continue unless electric grid infrastructure is expanded in the Upper Midwest, something that is necessary to support RENEW’s mission to advance renewable energy in Wisconsin.
And although electric grid system planning may not have the same public visibility as the release of a new cell phone, ATC’s behind-the-scenes work supports everyday life and is critical to society. While a phone connects us to the world around us, the electric grid powers our communities and keeps lights on in Wisconsin homes and businesses. Each ATC office is also involved in their local community. Cheng has been active in her community by participating in the De Pere Chamber of Commerce’s Art in the Park and cleanup of the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Green Bay.
When Cheng thinks about system planning for the electric grid, she feels very motivated, explaining that ATC has provided her with various leadership and engineering opportunities to learn and grow alongside the industry. She says the technical work is challenging and intriguing at the same time, and the support and collaboration with her colleagues make the experience rewarding.
“Because the industry is changing, the environment is evolving. It’s important to keep up with the latest standards, the latest technology, and the latest trends in the industry. That’s what we’re trying to do at ATC in order to provide a safe and reliable pathway for power.”
When she isn’t working, Cheng loves reading, exercising, and traveling with her family. To her, work-life balance is essential.
“We all have very challenging work that requires a lot of focus and energy. As a manager, I make it a point to lead by example and take time to relax and recharge. I encourage my team to do the same. Work is important, but so is having a fulfilling life outside of work.”
The post Clean Energy Works: Joey Cheng, manager of system planning, ATC appeared first on RENEW Wisconsin.
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