Tuesday’s lawsuit argues the issue with the map is that it's an "anti-competitive gerrymander that artificially suppresses electoral competition in most of the plan’s districts."
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The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
In a 4-3 decision, Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state’s 1849 law banning abortion had been “impliedly repealed” by the Legislature when it passed laws over the past half century “regulating in detail the ‘who, what, where, when, and how’” of abortion.
The Court’s majority opinion, authored by Justice Rebecca Dallet and joined by Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Jill Karofsky and Janet Protasiewicz, finds that the Legislature could not have passed laws regulating abortion access if the 1849 statute was believed to remain in effect.
“This case is about giving effect to 50 years’ worth of laws passed by the Legislature about virtually every aspect of abortion including where, when, and how health-care providers may lawfully perform abortions,” Dallet wrote. “The Legislature, as the peoples’ representatives, remains free to change the laws with respect to abortion in the future. But the only way to give effect to what the Legislature has actually done over the last 50 years is to conclude that it impliedly repealed the 19th century near-total ban on abortion, and that [the statute] therefore does not prohibit abortion in the State of Wisconsin.”
Dallet wrote that when the Legislature passed laws restricting abortion under narrower circumstances, guiding “where, when and how” health care providers could perform an abortion and outlining how public money could fund abortion providers, it was repealing the 1849 law.
The ruling comes three years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark Court ruling that found there was a constitutional right to abortion access and marks the conclusion of a legal dispute that helped Protasiewicz win election to the Court in 2023 and Susan Crawford win election this April.
In response, the Court’s three conservative justices filed dissents, accusing the majority of “propaganda,” “smoke-and-mirrors legalese” and “pure policymaking.”
“The majority’s smoke-and-mirrors legalese is nothing more than ‘painting a mule to resemble a zebra, and then going zebra hunting. But paint does not change the mule into a zebra,’” Justice Annette Ziegler wrote. “Those in the majority know better, but they do so anyway because they like the result and promised to deliver it.”
In his dissent, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote that the majority failed to show when the law was presumably repealed by the Legislature, saying that the opinion doesn’t properly address the Legislature’s actions in 2011 and 2015 amending the 1849 law.
“The majority does not say when over those 40 years the Legislature once and for all repealed [the statute],” he wrote. “Was it when the Legislature passed a postviability ban? A partial-birth abortion ban? A twenty-week ban? A waiting period? A physician licensing requirement? The majority fails to say.”
Following the ruling’s release, the state’s Democratic elected officials and abortion access activists celebrated the decision as a “win” for reproductive health care in the state.
“Thanks to our lawsuit, today’s decision affirms that access to reproductive healthcare will continue to be available, helping ensure Wisconsin women today are not forced to face firsthand what it’s like to live in a state that bans nearly all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “Today is a win for women and families, a win for healthcare professionals who want to provide medically accurate care to their patients, and a win for basic freedoms in Wisconsin, but our work is not over. I will continue to fight any effort that takes away Wisconsinites’ reproductive freedom or makes reproductive healthcare, whether birth control, abortion, IVF, or fertility treatments, any less accessible in Wisconsin than it is today. That is a promise.”
Attorney General Josh Kaul, who brought the lawsuit against the law, said at a Wednesday morning news conference that the decision was an important step toward ensuring all Wisconsinites have the freedom to access abortion care, but that the Legislature should step up and further clarify the law.
“I thought we were right on the law. The arguments we made have now been vindicated,” Kaul said. “But at a time when the rights of Wisconsinites and Americans are under threat, this case is a stark reminder of how important it is that we fight for our rights, that we advocate for what is in the best interest of the people of our state, and that we stand on the side of freedom. Here today, we were able to achieve a significant victory for the freedom of Wisconsinites.”
Wisconsin’s state and federal Democratic lawmakers responded to the ruling by saying it wasn’t enough, promising to continue working to codify abortion access in law.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said she will continue to work to enact her proposal to ensure women across the country have access to abortion care.
“Today’s ruling tells women across Wisconsin that we will not go back,” Baldwin said. “Today’s ruling tells women that our government trusts you to make decisions about your own body and your future. Today’s ruling tells women in our state that they are not second-class citizens. But, this fight is not over. Every woman, in every zip code, in every state deserves the same rights and freedoms. I will not stop fighting until we make that a reality and pass my bill to restore the right to abortion nationwide and allow women to make their own health care decisions without interference from judges or politicians.”
State Sen. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) said the Legislature must now pass a bill guaranteeing the right to an abortion.
“Now that the courts have made it clear that Wisconsin does not have a total abortion ban, we must go further,” Subeck said. “It’s time to protect reproductive rights not just in practice, but in law. We must pass the Abortion Rights Restoration Act to guarantee the right to abortion and eliminate the medically unjustified, politically motivated restrictions that still exist in our state statutes. The people of Wisconsin deserve nothing less than full access to safe and legal reproductive health care without unnecessary barriers and free from judgement.”
In a concurring opinion, Karofsky wrote that interpreting the 1849 law as banning abortion gives the state the authority to “exert total control” over women and “strips women and pregnant people of the dignity and authority to make intimate and personal choices by exposing medical professionals who perform abortions to 15-year prison terms.”
In her opinion, Karofsky details the history of abortion access in the U.S. and highlights four women who died because of restrictive abortion bans, including the recent deaths of two Black women in Georgia and a Honduran immigrant in Texas as well as the death of her own great-grandmother in Boston in 1929.
“I tell the stories of Amber, Candi, Josseli, and my great-grandmother Julia to remind us that severe abortion restrictions operate like death warrants,” Karofsky wrote. “Under such restrictions women, children, and pregnant people are denied life-saving medical care while medical professionals are forced to sit idly at their bedsides, unable to do their jobs. Extreme abortion restrictions revive a time in our history driven by misogyny and racism, divorced from medical science; it is a world that must be left behind.”
In her dissent, Justice Rebecca Bradley accused Karofsky of rewriting history to achieve a desired outcome in the case.
“Not content with effacing the law, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky rewrites history, erases and insults women by referring to mothers as ‘pregnant people,’ slanders proponents of the pro-life perspective, and broadcasts dangerously false narratives about laws restricting abortion,” Bradley wrote. “Laden with emotion, steeped in myth, and light on the law, the concurrence reads as a parody of progressive politics rather than the opinion of a jurist.”
Last month, the Wisconsin town of Hazelhurst postponed discussion of a proposed ordinance due to a typo. The meeting agenda had incorrectly listed “wake board” instead of the intended “wake boat.” Said town chairman Ted Cushing, “I’m not going to violate the Open Meetings Law.”
It was the right call, one that affirms my belief that public officials in Wisconsin are, by and large, intent on complying with the state’s openness laws. But, sadly, this is not always the case.
Recent weeks have brought forth two of the most egregious violations of the public’s right to know that I have seen in more than three decades of tracking openness issues on the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.
The first happened in the village of St. Francis, south of Milwaukee, on June 2. Megan Lee, a reporter for television station TMJ4, and photographer Dan Selan tried to attend a meeting of the St. Francis school board. The district superintendent, Deb Kerr, confronted Lee, in an exchange that Selan captured on video.
“You are not allowed to come to our meetings because you did not give us any notice or tell us why you were here,” declared Kerr, saying she had just spoken with the district’s lawyer. “Like you said, it’s an open board meeting, but you’re not filming.”
When Lee pressed for an explanation, Kerr replied, “I’m going to ask you to leave now, and if you don’t leave, I’ve already told you, I will call the police.” Thankfully, this did not occur.
For the record, no one is required to give advance notice before attending a public meeting. And the state’s Open Meetings Law, at 19.90, expressly directs all public bodies to “make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting,” so long as it is not disruptive.
Kerr, a one-time candidate for state school superintendent, did apologize, sort of, saying “I wish I had handled it differently.” TMJ4 has filed a verified complaint against the school district with Milwaukee County’s corporation counsel, the first step toward possible legal action.
The second transgression involves Steven H. Gibbs, a circuit court judge in Chippewa County. Gibbs recently issued an order that not only barred the media from recording witness testimony at pretrial evidentiary hearings but also instructed that they “may not directly quote the testimony of the witnesses, and may only summarize the content of the testimony,” or else face contempt proceedings.
“Wow, this is quite the court order,” said Robert Drechsel, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication and expert on media law and the First Amendment, when I asked for his thoughts. He cited a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, which limited judges’ ability to impose constraints on media, requiring that they consider less restrictive alternatives and ponder whether the order would be effective.
That was not done here. And, in fact, requiring summation over quotation “would be more likely to introduce a risk of error and possible prejudice,” Drechsel said. “So no, I do not think the judge can prohibit the media from directly quoting what they hear during an open court proceeding. And I don’t think it’s a close call.”
Judge Gibbs, asked under what authority he was forbidding direct quotation, cited a Wisconsin Supreme Court rule that allows judges to “control the conduct of proceedings” before them. Gibbs said he believes in the First Amendment and freedom of the press but “my concern is a fair jury pool in this matter not tainted by any media reports” about evidence that may or may not be introduced. He did not explain how threatening the media for trying to be as accurate as possible would achieve this end. (Here are links to Gibbs’ and Drechsel’s full responses.)
The truth is that public officials, even if they’re well intentioned, sometimes broadly overstep. Let’s just be grateful that this is the exception and not the rule. You can quote me on that.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.
Your Right to Know: When transparency is disregarded 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.
Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Thune of South Dakota, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lindsey Graham of South Dakota speak to reporters after passage of their sweeping tax break and spending cut bill on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved their signature tax break and spending cuts package Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President JD Vance, following days of tense, closed-door negotiations that went until the few last minutes of a marathon amendment voting session.
The 51-50 mostly party-line vote sends the legislation back to the House, where GOP leaders hope to clear the bill for President Donald Trump’s signature this week. But frustrations throughout the conference over changes made in the Senate could delay or even block final approval.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted against approving the legislation over concerns it would not benefit the country’s finances or Republican voters.
Changes made in final negotiations were not immediately clear or publicly available.
Majority Leader John Thune said the passage marked “a historic day.”
“We’re very excited to be a part of something that is going to make America stronger, safer and more prosperous, and it really starts with the agenda that President Trump laid out when he was running last year.
“He talked about modernizing our military, securing our borders, restoring energy dominance in this country, bringing tax relief to working families and low income taxpayers in this country, and doing something about the runaway, spiraling spending and debt,” the South Dakota Republican said minutes after the vote.
“So this was an incredible victory for the American people, and we as a team are delighted to be a part of it.”
The bill now heads back to the House. The chamber’s Committee on Rules is expected to meet Tuesday afternoon, which will be the final stop for the bill before it reaches the House floor.
Thune said he believes Senate Republicans have given the House “a really strong product.”
“I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it. And so I’m hopeful that now, when it gets sent over there, as they deliberate about how they want to handle it, we’ll find the votes that are necessary to pass it and want to put it on the president’s desk,” he said.
Trump praised the Senate’s passage on his Truth Social media platform, saying “Almost all of our Great Republicans in the United States Senate have passed our ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”
He added: “We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional “GRANDSTANDERS” (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk. We are on schedule — Let’s keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4th vacation.”
Several House conservatives have railed against the Senate version, including Reps. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and others.
House Speaker Mike Johnson issued a joint statement with House Republican leaders saying the chamber “will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump’s full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay.”
“Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first,” the Louisiana Republican said in the statement that included House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and conference chair Lisa McClain of Michigan.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski , whose support had been unclear until the vote, and Majority Whip John Barrasso, of Wyoming, left the chamber to catch an elevator together just after 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
Asked if the bill was in the hands of the parliamentarian, Murkowski quipped, “I think it’s in the hands of the people that operate the coffee machine.”
Barrasso said “Yes” when asked if it would pass this morning.
Flooded by reporters after the vote, Murkowski said “we do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination.”
“My hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet, and I would hope that we would be able to actually do what we used to do around here, which is work back and forth in the two bodies to get a measure that’s gonna be better for the people in this country and more particularly, for the people in Alaska,” she said.
“This is probably the most difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period that I have encountered, and I’ve been here quite a while, and you all know I’ve got a few battle scars underneath me,” Murkowski added. “But I think I held my head up and made sure that the people of Alaska are not forgotten in this, but I think that there is more that needs to be done, and I’m not done.”
“I am gonna take a nap, though,” she said.
When asked about Murkowski’s decision to vote for the bill, Thune said, “She, as you know, is a very independent thinker and somebody who studies the issues really, really hard and well. And I’m just grateful that at the end of the day, she included what the rest of us did, or at least most of the rest of us did, and that is that this was the right direction for the future of our country.”
Senate Democrats walking off the floor seemed somber, a sentiment that Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said also extended to Republicans after the bill’s passage.
“On the Republican side, when the bill passed, there was a bit of somberness that I don’t think was expected, and that’s because they knew deep in their hearts how bad this bill is for them, their states and the Republican Party,” Schumer said.
“When people start losing their Medicaid, when they start losing their jobs, when their electric bills go up, when their premiums go up, when kids and parents lose SNAP funding, the people of America will remember this vote,” the New York Democrat continued.
Criticism poured in from others as well, including the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which likened the Senate’s bill passage to jumping “off a budget cliff.”
“The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing. These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card,” the organization’s president Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.
CRFB estimates the Senate version of the bill would add $600 billion to the national deficit just in 2027.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a calculation Sunday showing the bill would add $3.25 trillion to deficits over 10 years.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning before leaving for a Florida visit to the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention site that “it’s very complicated stuff” when asked about Senate Republicans’ debate over spending cuts.
“We’re going to have to see the final version. I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts. I don’t like cuts. There are certain things that have been cut, which is good. I think we’re doing well,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to see, it’s some very complicated stuff. Great enthusiasm as you know. And I think in the end we’re going to have it.”
The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.
The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.
And it slashes spending on the Medicaid program for low-income people and some people with disabilities as well as shifting significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time. It also overhauls federal education aid.
It would also bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, including line items for the “golden dome” missile defense system and additional barriers along the southern border.
The measure would provide a substantial funding increase for federal immigration enforcement for detention and removal of people without permanent legal status, aiding the president in carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations.
The Senate version of the bill also would revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act fund, a bipartisan measure championed by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. The fund provides money to victims of certain types of cancer and surviving family members in several states affected by the United States atomic bomb testing program and radioactive waste left behind.
Uranium miners would also be eligible under the measure. While reviving the fund has received wide bipartisan approval in the Senate, the House has not shown the same support.
The Senate bill would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion, a figure designed to get Congress past next year’s midterm elections before the country would once again bump up against the borrowing limit.
House approval is far from guaranteed.
Johnson can only lose four Republicans if all lawmakers in that chamber attend the vote. Several GOP members have voiced frustration with how the Senate has reworked the legislation, signaling an uphill climb for the bill.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith said as he left the Senate cloakroom just after 9:20 a.m. Eastern that lawmakers are “getting closer to a bill signing on July Fourth.”
“If you followed this journey over the last six months, over and over, people said that we could not accomplish a budget (reconciliation bill). We did. They said we would never pass it out of the House. We did. The Senate is going to pass it. The House is going to pass it, and the president’s going to sign it into law,” the Missouri Republican said.
The Senate had adopted three amendments to the bill following an all-night amendment voting session, known as a vote-a-rama.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn was able to remove language from the package that would have blocked state and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for five years if they wanted access to a $500 million fund. That vote was 99-1 with only North Carolina’s Tillis voting to keep the language in the package.
Blackburn said the change was necessary because lawmakers in Congress have “proven that they cannot legislate on emerging technology.”
Senators approved an amendment from Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by voice vote that would disqualify “anyone making a million dollars or more from being eligible for unemployment income support.”
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was able to get an amendment adopted by a voice vote that would move up the date when Medicaid administrators must begin checking the Social Security Administration’s death master file to determine if a new enrollee is alive before adding them to the health program. It was set to begin on Jan. 1, 2028, but will now begin one year earlier.
Senators rejected dozens of amendments offered by both Democrats and Republicans, some of which deadlocked on 50-50 votes. Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski broke with their party several times to vote with Democrats.
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono tried to eliminate a sweeping private school voucher program that’s baked into the reconciliation package, but that vote failed 50-50. Collins, Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and Murkowski voted in support.
The original proposal called for $4 billion a year in tax credits beginning in 2027 for people donating to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.
But the parliamentarian last week deemed the program to not comply with the “Byrd Bath,” a Senate process named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, forcing senators to rework the program.
Details on the finalized version of the program remain unknown as the final bill text has not been released.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner tried to add language to the bill that would have increased safety funding for airports near Washington, D.C., and established a memorial for the victims who died in a crash this January. The vote failed on a tied 50-50 vote, with Collins, Kansas GOP Sen. Jerry Moran and Murkowski voting with Democrats in support.
“Colleagues, we all know that on January 29 of this year, 67 individuals lost their lives when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan National Airport. This tragedy underscores the need for more safety improvements at National Airport,” Warner said. “The reconciliation bill increases, actually doubles, the amount of rent that National and Dulles pay the government but doesn’t use any of that money to make those airports and the people who use them any safer.”
He argued there was “no good rationale for increasing those rents and not using them for aviation safety.”
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz spoke against Warner’s amendment, saying the rents for the two airports in Virginia near the nation’s capital haven’t been updated in decades.
“The federal government originally calculated the rent in 1987 at $7.5 million dollars, massively below market rates,” Cruz said. “This bill increases that to $15 million, still dramatically below market rates.”
Cruz — chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — said the legislation includes $12.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration to “transform the air traffic control system” and said his panel is looking into the collision in order to prevent something similar from happening again.
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also got within one vote of having an amendment adopted when he tried to remove a section from the bill that would increase funding for the White House budget office by $100 million.
“This is at a time when (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grants to many of our states have been canceled, grants for law enforcement have been frozen, grants for victims of crimes are on hold,” Van Hollen said. “That is not efficiency. That is creating chaos and uncertainty. And I ask my colleagues, why in the world would we want to send another $100 million to OMB?”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson opposed the efforts, saying “the Office of Management and Budget needs to identify budgeting and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch. They need the resources to do it.”
The amendment was not added to the bill following another tied 50-50 vote with Collins, Murkowski and Paul voting with Democrats in favor.
Had GOP leadership wanted either of those proposals added to the package, they could have had Vance break the tie, but they did not.
Maine’s Collins tried to get an amendment added to the legislation that would have increased “funding for the rural health care provider fund to $50 billion dollars and expand the list of eligible providers to include not only rural hospitals but also community health centers, nursing homes, ambulance services, skilled nursing facilities and others.”
Collins said the additional $25 billion in funding for the fund would be paid for by “a modest increase in the top marginal tax rate, equal to the pre-2017 rate for individuals with income above $25 million and married couples with income above $50 million.”
Collins’ amendment was subject to a Senate procedural limit known as a budget point of order. She was unable to get the votes needed to waive that on a 22-78 vote.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against Collins’ proposal, calling it “flawed,” and introduced the budget point of order against her amendment.
“The danger Senate Republicans are causing for rural hospitals is so great, Republicans have had to create a rural hospital relief fund so they can look like they are fixing the problem they are causing,” Wyden said. “It is a Band-Aid on an amputation. It provides just a tiny fraction of the nearly $1 trillion in cuts the bill makes to Medicaid. It would be much more logical to simply not cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the first place.”
Collins received a mix of support from Republicans, including West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Utah’s John Curtis, Nebraska’s Fischer, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Ohio’s Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, Louisiana’s Kennedy, Kansans Roger Marshall and Moran, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Alaskans Dan Sullivan and Murkowski and Indiana’s Todd Young.
Also voting to waive the point of order and move forward with the amendment were Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Virginia’s Warner, all Democrats, and independent Maine Sen. Angus King.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., walks back onto the Senate floor after speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol Building on June 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans were closing in Monday on passing their version of the “big beautiful” tax break and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump wants to make law by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
But the chamber’s Democrats first kicked off a marathon of amendment votes, forcing their GOP colleagues to go on the record on tough issues, including cuts to health and food safety net programs. As of early evening, Democrats had not prevailed on any votes.
The tactic is used by the opposition party during massive budget reconciliation fights to draw attention to specific issues even as their amendments are likely to fail.
Democrats decried numerous measures in the mega-bill, including new work reporting requirements for Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and people with disabilities.
Loud opposition has also swelled as legislative proposals shift significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time.
“I say to our colleagues, ‘Vote for families over billionaires,’” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said on the Senate floor.
The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.
The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.
The tax cuts are estimated to cost nearly $4.5 trillion over 10 years, and a provision in the bill raises the nation’s borrowing limit to $5 trillion as the United States faces record levels of debt.
Overall, the Senate bill is projected to add $3.25 trillion to deficits during the next decade, according to the latest calculation from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Here are some key votes so far:
Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray tried to remove language from the bill that would block Medicaid payments from going to Planned Parenthood for one year unless the organization stops performing abortions.
Federal law already bars funding from going toward abortions, with limited exceptions, but GOP lawmakers have proposed blocking any other funding from going to the organization, effectively blocking Medicaid patients from going to Planned Parenthood for other types of health care.
Murray said the proposal would have a detrimental impact on health care for lower-income women and called it a “long-sought goal of anti-choice extremists.”
“Republicans’ bill will cut millions of women off from birth control, cancer screenings, essential preventive health care — care that they will not be able to afford anywhere else,” Murray said. “And it will shutter some 200 health care clinics in our country.”
Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith opposed efforts to remove the policy change and raised a budget point of order, which was not waived following a 49-51 vote. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski voted with Democrats.
“There was a time when protecting American tax dollars from supporting the abortion industry was an uncontroversial, nonpartisan effort that we could all get behind,” Hyde-Smith said.
Senators from both political parties crossed the aisle over whether the federal government should reduce how much a state is given for its Medicaid program if that state uses its own taxpayer dollars to enroll immigrants living in the country without proper documentation.
The provision was included in an earlier version of the bill, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled it didn’t comply with the complex rules for moving a budget reconciliation bill.
The vote was 56-44, but since it was on waiving a budget point of order, at least 60 senators had to agree to set aside the rules and move forward with the amendment, so the vote failed.
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia voted with GOP senators. Maine’s Collins voted with most of the chamber’s Democrats against moving forward.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn asked for the vote, saying he believes the policy change would reduce undocumented immigration.
“Border patrol talks about push and pull factors,” Cornyn said. “One of the pull factors for illegal immigration is the knowledge that people will be able to receive various benefits once they make it into the country.”
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., opposed Cornyn’s attempt to get the language back in the bill, saying the policy change would financially harm states that expanded Medicaid under the 2010 health care law for simple mistakes.
“What this amendment says is that if one person, despite state law, through a bureaucratic mistake, is receiving funds, then the whole state pays the price and has their rate on expanded Medicaid changed from 90% to 80%,” Merkley said, referring to the percentage paid by the federal government.
An amendment to stop a nearly 50% reduction in funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was blocked by Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who championed the CFPB after the 2008 financial collapse, attempted to bring the amendment to the floor saying the agency “is the financial watchdog to keep people from getting cheated on credit cards and mortgages and Venmo and payday loans and a zillion other transactions.”
“When this financial cop can’t do its job there is no one else in the federal government to pick up the slack,” Warren said.
Scott blocked her using a budget point of order, saying the reduction still provides “ample funding” for the agency. Democrats tried to waive that procedural tactic, but failed following a 47-53 vote.
An original provision to completely zero out the budget for the CFPB was not included because it did not meet the reconciliation process’ parameters.
Senators voted 48-52 to reject Delaware Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s proposals to send the legislation back to committee to remove language cutting certain funding for Medicaid, which she said would negatively impact “vital hospital services, especially labor and delivery rooms.”
“Today, Medicaid is the single largest payer of maternity care in the United States, covering 40% of births nationwide and nearly half of the births in our rural communities,” Blunt Rochester said. “Obstetric units, particularly in rural hospitals, are closing at alarming rates, actually creating maternity deserts.”
No Republicans spoke in opposition to the proposal, though Maine’s Collins voted in support.
New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján offered a motion to commit the bill back to committee in order to remove all changes related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. It was rejected following a 49-51 vote, though Alaska Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Murkowski voted in favor.
“I’m offering my colleagues the opportunity to step away from these devastating cuts, to show our fellow Americans that in this country we care for our friends, family and neighbors who need support,” Luján said.
Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., opposed the proposals, saying that SNAP is “on an unsustainable path wrought with mismanagement and waste.”
“This program has devolved into viewing success as enrolling more individuals to be dependent on government assistance,” Boozman said. “SNAP is long overdue for change.”
Senators voted 48-52 to reject a proposal from Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons that would have sent the bill back to committee to remove language requiring Medicaid enrollees to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month. Alaska’s Murkowski was the only member of her party to vote in favor of the effort.
Democrats have expressed concern for weeks that some people would lose access to Medicaid if they forgot to complete paperwork proving that time commitment or didn’t understand how to show the government they met the new requirement.
“It is cruel and dishonest to bury patients, kids and seniors in paperwork and then blame them when they lose their health care, all to further rig our tax code for the very wealthiest,” Coons said.
Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall urged opposition to the proposal, saying that working helps people.
“My question is, don’t you think a job brings value, that it brings dignity?” Marshall said. “Do you not think it brings purpose and meaning to life?”
Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski both voted for a proposal from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey that would have removed parts of the bill changing Medicaid.
But even with some bipartisan support, the changes were rejected on a 49-51 vote that would have technically sent the bill back to committee for three days to implement the changes.
“My Republican colleagues’ so-called Medicaid cuts replacement fund is like giving aspirin to a cancer patient,” Markey said. “It is not enough. It is pathetically inadequate to deal with the health care crisis Republicans are creating here today on the Senate floor. No billionaire tax break or Donald Trump pat-on-the-back is worth the risk of people’s lives.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, spoke out against the proposal, saying that rural hospitals have long had financial challenges and that it was clearly “intended to derail this very bill.”
“Unfortunately for far too long some rural hospitals have struggled to achieve financial stability, even with a wide-range of targeted payment enhances,” Crapo said. “These issues pre-date the consideration of the reforms that we are including in the legislation today.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters as returns to his office from the Senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol Building on June 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate launched a marathon amendment voting session Monday during which lawmakers will debate dozens of proposals from Republicans and Democrats that could significantly reshape the “big, beautiful bill” even as a final vote nears.
The vote-a-rama is expected to last throughout Monday and potentially into Tuesday, challenging senators who aren’t accustomed to having to stay on the floor for all hours of the day and night. At the end, the Senate will vote on final passage and if the tax and spending cut bill is successful it will be taken up next in the House, possibly as soon as Wednesday morning.
The first big debate and vote Monday centered around Republicans’ decision to use current policy instead of current law to determine the bill’s fiscal impacts.
Congress has long used current law to determine how much legislation will add or subtract from annual deficits, especially when it comes to the budget reconciliation process that is being used for this bill.
But since Republicans’ 2017 tax law was set to expire at the end of the year, using the current law baseline showed significantly higher deficits than using current policy — which could prove to be a political problem.
The debate, wonky even for the Senate, could have ripple effects in the future, especially if Democrats ever get unified control of government and use the change in process that GOP lawmakers set this time around for their own policy goals.
Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during brief debate before the vote that using current policy would allow the GOP to make many of the tax levels in the 2017 law permanent, instead of having to sunset them to comply with reconciliation rules.
“What I’m trying to do, and I’m very happy about it, is to make sure the tax cuts don’t expire 10 years from now,” Graham said.
Reconciliation bills cannot increase the deficit after the 10-year budget window ends.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York spoke out against using current policy over current law, rebuking his Republican colleagues, though his arguments were ultimately unsuccessful.
“Republicans are doing something the Senate has never done before — deploying fake math, accounting gimmicks to hide the true cost of the bill,” Schumer said. “Look, Republicans can use whatever budgetary gimmicks they want to try to make the math work on paper but you can’t paper over the real-life economic consequences of adding tens of trillions to the debt.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its current law score of the bill on Sunday, showing the legislation would add $3.253 trillion to deficits during the next decade.
Senators voted 53-47 along party lines against overruling Graham’s decision to use current policy.
Senators spent the next few hours debating Democratic changes to the bill that would have addressed Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But no Democratic proposals had been adopted as of Monday afternoon and Republicans had yet to start voting on their own amendments.
Once both sides exhaust themselves, the Senate will move on to a final passage vote. With a narrow 53-seat majority, GOP leaders can only afford to lose three members and still have the bill pass with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.
Two Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky — already indicated they’ll oppose the bill when they voted against advancing it late Saturday night. Altering the bill could cause issues for other senators, making the entire process a headache for GOP leadership.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a floor speech that the core of the sweeping package is focused on avoiding a cliff created when Republicans approved lower tax rates during President Donald Trump’s first term.
“This is about extending that tax relief so the same people that benefited from it back in 2017 and for the last eight years don’t end up having a colossal, massive tax increase hitting them in the face come January 1,” Thune said.
Schumer sharply criticized the policy changes and spending cuts in the mega-bill, saying they would lead to fewer people being able to access safety-net programs, like Medicaid, which provides health insurance coverage for low-income people and some people with disabilities, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food assistance for low-income people.
“How can any senator go home and tell their constituents, ‘I’m sorry, I took away your health care because I wanted to give tax breaks to billionaires?’” Schumer said. “And yet Republicans are dead set on walking off a cliff by passing a bill they know will be ruinous to their own constituents.”
Depending on how popular an amendment is and exactly what aspects of the legislation it seeks to change, it could increase or decrease the number of GOP senators willing to vote for the final version of the bill.
Republican leaders will want to fend off all Democratic amendments, though if some do get added, Thune can use a procedural tactic called a “wraparound amendment” at the end to cut any problematic changes by wiping out Democratic amendments with a majority vote.
In addition to providing an opportunity for senators to debate nitty gritty policy details, the vote-a-rama serves a political purpose for Democrats, who will try to get at-risk senators to take votes that can then be used during the midterm elections to try to sway voters.
Those amendments will mostly focus on Maine’s Susan Collins after North Carolina’s Tillis announced his retirement Sunday.
While Democrats have more incentive for so-called “gotcha amendments” since they’re trying to flip the Senate from red to blue, GOP leaders may also bring up amendments challenging vulnerable Democratic senators, like Georgia’s Jon Ossoff.
And since the opportunity to put up as many amendments as a senator pleases is rare, both Democrats and Republicans may have an eye on purple-state lawmakers up for reelection in 2028.
The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
In a 5-2 ruling on Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) authority to regulate polluters who produce hazardous substances such as PFAS through the state’s toxic spills law.
The court’s ruling reverses the decisions of the circuit and appeals courts that could have threatened the DNR’s ability to force polluters to pay for the environmental damage they cause. For more than 40 years, the spills law has allowed the DNR to bring civil charges and enforce remediation measures against parties responsible for spills of “harmful substances.”
The lawsuit was brought by an Oconomowoc dry cleaner and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s largest business lobby, after the owner of the dry cleaner, Leather Rich Inc., found PFAS on her property.
In preparation to sell the business, Leather Rich had been participating in a voluntary DNR program to remediate contamination on its property in exchange for a certificate of liability protection from the department. During that process, the DNR determined that PFAS should be considered a “hazardous substance” under the spills law and communicated that on its website.
If PFAS were present on a site, the DNR stated, participants in the voluntary program would only be eligible for partial liability protection.
While conducting a site investigation through the program, Leather Rich determined three of four wells on the property exceeded Department of Health Services standards for PFAS concentration in surface or drinking water. The DNR requested that future reports from Leather Rich to the department include the amount of PFAS found on the property. Leather Rich responded by withdrawing from the program and filing suit.
At the circuit and appeals courts, Leather Rich was successful, with judges at each level finding that the decision by the DNR to start considering PFAS a “hazardous substance” under the spills law constituted an “unpromulgated rule” and therefore was against the law. That interpretation would have required the DNR to undergo the complicated and often yearslong process of creating an administrative rule each time it determines that a substance is harmful to people or the environment.
In the majority opinion, authored by Justice Janet Protasiewicz and joined by the Court’s three other liberal leaning justices and conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, the Court found that the DNR spent nearly 50 years administering the spills law responding “to about 1,000 spills each year, without promulgating rules listing substances, quantities, and concentrations that it deems ‘hazardous substances.’”
Protasiewicz wrote that when the Legislature wrote the spills law, it left the definition of “hazardous substance” intentionally open-ended but required a potentially harmful substance to meet certain criteria if it would apply under the law.
“The definition of ‘hazardous substance’ is broad and open-ended in that it potentially applies to ‘any substance or combination of substances,’” Protasiewicz wrote. “But the definition is limited in that the substance or combination of substances must satisfy one of two fact-specific criteria.”
She wrote that the law considers “a substance or combination of substances is ‘hazardous’ if,” its quantity, concentration or characteristics may cause or contribute to an increase in mortality or serious illness or may pose a potential hazard to human health or the environment
Leather Rich and WMC had argued that the Legislature’s failure to include chemical thresholds in the statutory text left while including the use of terms like “significantly,” “serious,” and “substantial,” meant that the law was ambiguous and therefore any DNR determinations of what counts as hazardous must be delineated in an administrative rule. They argued that under this interpretation of statute, spilling milk or beer on the ground could constitute a toxic spill.
Protasiewicz wrote if that were the case, “then scores of Wisconsin statutes on a wide range of subjects would be called into doubt,” and that their hypotheticals are undermined by the text of the statute.
“It is possible for an everyday substance like milk or beer to qualify as a ‘hazardous substance,’ but only if it first satisfies [the statute’s] fact specific criteria,” she wrote. “A mug of beer or a gallon of milk spilled into Lake Michigan may not ‘pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment,’ but a 500-gallon tank of beer or milk discharged into a trout stream might well pose a substantial present hazard to the stream’s fish and environment.”
The majority opinion also found that communications the DNR made on its website and in letters to Leather Rich counted as “guidance documents” not as rules.
Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley, who once gave a speech to WMC in which she declared to the business lobby that “I am your public servant,” wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Annette Ziegler that the majority’s interpretation of the spills law left the state vulnerable to a “tyrannical” government that could both create the rules and enforce them.
“This case is about whether the People are entitled to know what the law requires of them before the government can subject them to the regulatory wringer,” she wrote. “The majority leaves the People at the mercy of unelected bureaucrats empowered not only to enforce the rules, but to make them. Americans have lived under this unconstitutional arrangement for decades, but now, the majority says, the bureaucrats can impose rules and penalties on the governed without advance notice, oversight, or deliberation. In doing so, the majority violates three first principles fundamental to preserving the rule of law — and liberty.”
After the decision’s release, Democrats and environmental groups celebrated its findings as an important step to protecting Wisconsin’s residents from the harmful effects of pollution.
“This is a historic victory for the people of Wisconsin and my administration’s fight against PFAS and other harmful contaminants that are affecting families and communities across our state,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s decision today means that polluters will not have free rein to discharge harmful contaminants like PFAS into our land, water, and air without reporting it or taking responsibility for helping clean up those contaminants. It’s a great day for Wisconsinites and the work to protect and preserve our state’s valuable natural resources for future generations.”
But WMC said the Court’s interpretation leaves businesses guessing what substances count as hazardous under the law.
“The DNR refuses to tell the regulated community which substances must be reported under the Spills Law, yet threatens severe penalties for getting it wrong,” Scott Manley, WMC’s Executive Vice President of Government Relations, said in a statement. “Businesses and homeowners are left to guess what’s hazardous, and if they’re wrong, they face crushing fines and endless, costly litigation. This ruling blesses a regulatory approach that is fundamentally unfair, unworkable, and impossible to comply with.”
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People protest on June 24, 2022, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the release of the ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned Roe v Wade case and erased a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Two years ago Megan Kling and her husband were eagerly looking forward to the birth of their third child. Then at 20 weeks they got devastating news from their doctor.
The infant, upon being born, would have no chance of surviving. He lacked critical internal organs and his brain and heart were both abnormal.
“Our baby would die, either in utero or within hours after birth,” Kling told reporters Monday morning. “We were in a situation with no good outcome.”
To carry him for another four months, knowing that he would not live, “seemed inhumane,” Kling said.
The diagnosis was confirmed at 22 weeks — and by then, Kling said, her doctors were unable to help her because of an 1849 Wisconsin law that at the time was still being interpreted as a near-blanket ban on abortion.
Kling and her husband, residents of western Wisconsin, traveled to neighboring Minnesota. There, doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester confirmed that, if born, their baby would not be viable. At her request, the medical team induced labor at 23 weeks. Kling gave birth and the couple’s son died in their arms an hour later.
Kling told her story Monday at a news conference held by advocates to draw attention to next week’s third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending a national right to abortion.
Dr. Nike Mourikes of the Committee to Protect Health Care said from the moment the ruling was issued, “I realized how this cruel decision would cause harm to so many lives and undermine the ability of physicians and other health care providers to care for their patients.”
Abortion was a legal right throughout her medical training and practice until the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mourikes said.
The Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the first 20 weeks while placing some limits on the procedure later in pregnancy. Although Mourikes had heard “the horror stories” of what women had experienced before that decision, she said, “I never imagined that we would ever, ever go back to those days again.”
As a physician, she has cared for many women who sought abortion to end a pregnancy. “Each woman had her own unique history, her own unique reasons and circumstances that led her to make this complex decision,” Mourikes said. “But that choice was her choice, not the government’s, not a politician’s. It was her body and it was her right.”
The 2022 ruling effectively reinstated Wisconsin’s 1849 law, which at the time was widely seen as a near-blanket abortion ban.
A September 2023 Dane County Circuit Court ruling reversed that assumption, with the judge holding that the law applied to feticide, but not to elective abortions. A decision on that ruling is now pending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, the law “casts a shadow over our state,” Morikes said. Republican lawmakers have been unwilling to repeal the law, and even when Roe v Wade was still in effect, enacted laws “that force doctors to practice medicine not for the good of their patients, but to satisfy anti-abortion politicians.”
Those include a requirement for “an invasive, sometimes painful and medically unnecessary ultrasound” before an abortion, she said, as well as “a medically unnecessary 24-hour waiting period” that requires women to visit a health provider two days in a row before having an abortion.
Sydney Andersen, a government relations specialist for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said Planned Parenthood has succeeded in returning abortion services to Wisconsin since the Dane County ruling.
But the organization faces new challenges, she said. Those include the budget reconciliation bill that passed the U.S. House last month and is now in the Senate. A provision in the bill prevents Planned Parenthood from accepting Medicaid coverage for low-income patients.
Planned Parenthood at risk of closing hundreds of clinics, drastically limiting abortion access
If the U.S. Senate enacts the provision and it becomes law, “more than 1 million patients across the United States could lose their access to birth control, wellness exams, vaccines, STI [sexually transmitted infection] testing, and cancer screenings, including over 50,000 patients in Wisconsin alone,” Andersen said. Black women, other people of color, rural residents and other low-income families would experience “the most significant impact,” she said.
Kling, who is 34 and described herself as a working mother, said she was telling the story of her third pregnancy to make the point that “abortion restrictions can impact anyone who can become pregnant.”
In an interview, Kling told the Wisconsin Examiner that she had not been politically engaged before the experience.
“I was always pro-choice, but after going through this experience I wanted to utilize my story to help people understand that this can impact anyone,” she said.
Despite the current circuit court ruling, the current state of Wisconsin law is such that hospitals “will always create policy that is more restrictive than what the law allows,” Kling said. “There’s a lot of gray area in our law right now with the politics.”
In the news conference, Kling described the emotions that washed over the couple in the hour that she and her husband held their dying infant.
“Our son only knew love,” she said. “But as parents, those were the most helpless and traumatic moments that we have ever had to endure.”
Kling said she tried to contact her Republican state lawmakers in hopes of raising their awareness about the effect of the current state of abortion restrictions. Her state representative has not responded to her calls or email messages, and her state senator’s aide said he was “too busy to schedule a 10-minute meeting to hear my story,” she said.
“Are they unwilling to understand what real women are going through or do they simply not care?” Kling said. “Is this the reality you want the women of Wisconsin to face? Forcing us to flee our state for care?”
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A Wisconsin dairy farmer backed by a conservative law firm is suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over program incentives offered to people of color and women.
The post Wisconsin farmer sues USDA over help for women farmers, people of color appeared first on WPR.
From left to right, Chase Christie, development director for Alaska Solar LLC, Josh Craft, managing partner of Wasilla, Alaska-based Crafty Energy LLC, and Josh Shipley, owner of Alternative Power Enterprises in Ridgeway, Colorado, at the Holiday Inn Express on C Street SW in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, after meeting with staff of U.S. senators about preserving clean energy tax credits in the Republican budget reconciliation bill. (Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Small business owners and community leaders from rural regions in Western states including Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah pressed lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week to preserve clean energy tax credits on the chopping block in the Republicans’ “one big beautiful” mega-bill, now in the Senate.
The suite of investment, production and residential tax credits enacted and expanded under the Democrats’ own big budget reconciliation bill in 2022, titled the “Inflation Reduction Act,” incentivized homeowners, car buyers, energy producers and manufacturers to invest in types of energy beyond fossil fuels, with the aim of reducing the effects of climate change.
The credits have spurred hundreds of billions in investment dollars in advanced manufacturing and production since 2022, and contributed to job creation, largely in states that elected President Donald Trump to a second term.
Small business operators and community leaders from rural and mountainous areas of the United States that have benefited from the boom in alternative energy sources say the campaign to end the tax credits will also cause job losses and cut options for consumers.
Chase Christie, director of development for Alaska Solar LLC, said his company installs four to five large-scale solar projects per year in remote Alaskan villages and also fits and services smaller residential solar installations.
“They take a lot of planning, a lot of logistics,” Christie told States Newsroom in an interview Wednesday.
“For going into a remote village where there’s tundra, we might need to go there in the dead of winter so we can work on frozen ground,” he added. “Other places we won’t go until summer. So we have these large gaps in between these larger projects, and a company like ours absolutely relies on the residential installations to keep our workforce going.”
Christie, who met Tuesday with staffers for Alaska’s Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, said in January he let a handful of workers go and paused most new hiring.
“Our workforce is roughly half of what it usually is just because we’re not sure which direction things are going to go,” he said.
Christie was among a dozen small energy business owners, municipal government officials and nonprofit employees focused on energy options for low-income households who States Newsroom spoke to Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Sullivan said in a statement: “Senator Sullivan supports energy projects that lower costs for Alaska. The Senator and his team have been meeting with a number of Alaskans about energy tax credits. As we wait for text from the Senate Finance Committee, the Senator is working with his colleagues to ensure that the bill strikes the right balance between promoting stable and predictable tax policy, advancing projects that benefit Alaska, and addressing the need to reduce the federal deficit.”
Murkowski’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senators are hashing out language for the massive Republican agenda bill that will extend and expand the 2017 tax law, costing roughly $3.8 trillion, and cut spending in other areas to offset the price tag.
A contingent of House Republicans, who have dubbed the tax credits the “green new scam,” won on accelerating the expiration of the energy tax credits and tightening restrictions on eligibility as a way to pay for individual and corporate tax cuts that Trump campaigned on.
The language in a section of the House bill, passed 215-214 on May 22, titled “Working Families Over Elites,” terminates the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Tax Credit, worth up to $3,200 for homeowners who make energy upgrades to their property.
Among the slate of other affected IRA tax credits, the House bill also speeds up the expiration of the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit, a credit dating back decades that was updated in 2022.
The credit is available to taxpayers who invest in “energy property,” including solar installations to provide electricity and heat, fuel cells, small wind turbines, geothermal pumps, and other electricity-producing technologies.
House Republicans wrote provisions to eliminate the credit for facilities placed into service after 2028 and end eligibility for projects that don’t begin construction within 60 days of the bill’s enactment.
The credit is worth up to 30% of the cost of the project, plus two bonus credits up to 10% each if the project includes mostly domestically produced material and if it’s located in an “energy community,” meaning a place where a coal plant has closed or where unemployment reaches a certain threshold.
The bill also repeals a taxpayer’s ability to transfer the tax credits as a way to finance a project, and introduces restrictions on foreign-made components that industry professionals say essentially makes the credit unworkable.
Critics point to the cost of the tax credits.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated, as of June 4, the elimination of the clean energy investment and production tax credits will save roughly $249 billion over the next decade.
Alex Muresianu, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a right-of-center think tank that advocates for lower taxes, said Thursday in a new analysis that “The final House bill makes impressive cuts to the IRA green energy tax credits, but it does so in part by introducing more complexity.”
The group is advocating for senators to reduce the tax credit rates and make clearer complicated language, like the provision around “foreign entities of concern.”
But Logan Smith, weatherization program manager for the Human Resource Development Council in central Montana, argues the credits have been a lifeline for lower-income rural residents.
“If I can get solar panels on each of the clients’ homes, that means that their power is going to stay on in the middle of winter,” Smith said. “Because every winter we plan for losing power for about a week, that’s just something we grew up with. … But if we have solar panels, the power stays on, the heat stays on.”
Ralph Waters, owner of SBS Solar in Missoula, Montana, became emotional when talking about how an early termination of the tax credits could slow his business and result in having to lay off half his workforce.
He criticized the politicization of the tax incentives.
“Montana is deeply red, but it’s also a very practical place. And so green energy renewables becomes a taboo phrase somehow,” Waters said. “The practical energy needs are undeniable, and so if we can get past our disagreements about the phraseology and realize that it’s electrons, watts, and amps. And it’s cheaper.”
The offices of Montana GOP Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy did not respond to a request for comment.
Why has the Wisconsin State Bar take a pass on condemning unconstitutional intimidation of lawyers? And why can't anyone find out the details of how that decision was made? |Getty Images Creative
The State Bar of Wisconsin was created by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as the trade association that all Wisconsin lawyers must join to obtain their law licenses. Its vision statement declares its cardinal purpose: “Our members are the respected guardians of the dignity and integrity of the rule of law within a fair and accessible justice system.”
Yet recently, State Bar leaders deliberately violated their own vision statement by refusing in any way to push back against President Donald Trump’s blatantly illegal executive orders attacking lawyers, without whom the rule of law cannot exist “within a fair and accessible justice system.” Why they shirked their express mission remains a mystery because State Bar leaders voted in secrecy on the issue and refused to explain themselves to the 25,000 State Bar members they purportedly serve. Instead, they have stonewalled membership with a bogus cone of silence over their deliberations.
Here is the context:
Earlier this Spring, President Donald Trump issued punitive executive orders targeting 14 prominent law firms because he didn’t like their lawyers, clients, cases, or speech. He acted to cripple their ability to provide legal services to their clients. Trump then offered these firms an extortionate “deal” he thought they couldn’t refuse: agree to provide millions of dollars in pro bono legal work to further Trump’s political agenda, such as free work for the coal industry, or else lose security clearances, access to federal buildings and even government contracts held by their clients.
Several of the firms capitulated, offering roughly $1 billion in legal services to Trump that otherwise would have funded true “pro bono” work for the underserved. Several others, including Perkins Coie, a distinguished national firm with Wisconsin members, refused. They fought back in court, and won.
Their wins are unsurprising. The U.S. Constitution undeniably bars our government from wielding its power to target lawyers based on their representation of clients, their employment decisions, or their advocating positions the administration doesn’t like.
Federal courts have been unanimous and unsparing in condemning Trump’s orders. One judge characterized such an order as a “personal vendetta” by Trump that “the framers of our Constitution would see…as a shocking abuse of power.”
Retired conservative federal judge J. Michael Luttig commented that executive orders targeting law firms are “the most sinister and corrupt” of the “ocean of unconstitutional orders” coming out of the White House. He correctly emphasized that the legality of the executive orders is beside the point for Trump, who knows that no court will uphold them. The purpose, rather, is to intimidate lawyers.
Wisconsin lawyers are officers of the court, sworn to support the Constitution of the United States. We are thus duty-bound to guard the Constitution against existential hazards like Trump’s illegitimate orders. The rule of law requires no less.
Because the State Bar, through its governing board, is uniquely positioned to speak on issues of universal concern to all lawyers, we and others have repeatedly urged the Bar to honor its vision statement and publicly condemn Trump’s orders. Various versions of a statement supporting the rule of law have been offered for the board of governors’ consideration and adoption, statements that no reasonable lawyer could find objectionable while remaining true to the lawyer’s oath.
We are not asking a lot. Already the State Bar—once a national leader in advancing the rule of law—is woefully behind many other respected lawyer organizations. On March 26, 2025, for example, the American Bar Association was joined by more than a hundred other lawyer organizations in a public statement specifically rejecting “the notion that the U.S. government can punish lawyers and law firms who represent certain clients…”
The ABA statement continued: “There are clear choices facing our profession. We can choose to remain silent and allow these acts to continue or we can stand for the rule of law and the values we hold dear. We call upon the entire profession… to speak out against intimidation.”
On May 22, we were informed by a single member of the Wisconsin State Bar board of governors that the board met in closed session May 14, and “following extensive discussion protected by the attorney-client privilege, the Board voted to make no statement concerning recent actions taken by the Executive Branch of the federal government.”
That’s all we know because board members also voted to remain silent on what occurred during the closed meeting, for reasons they will also not disclose. Newly-elected members of the board of governors taking office July 1 will be barred from learning more about the May 14 closed meeting until they first take a vow of silence on what they may learn even though they are instructed by their position description to “[c]ommunicate regularly with constituents,” and to “[b]e well versed in the State Bar’s public policy positions and be prepared to explain them to…members of the bar.”
We have since asked 12 representatives on the board several questions about what happened in secret and why. Only three replied, but they provided little information. We still don’t know: (1) why the question was taken up in closed session, (2) why State Bar leaders needed legal counsel to advise whether the Bar should issue a statement supporting the rule of law, (3) what was discussed, (4) why no statement was issued, and (5) what was the final vote.
We asked State Bar leadership and staff to forward our questions to all 52 members of the board but, despite an agreement to do so, the questions were not sent. We still have no answers.
More than 400 years ago Shakespeare highlighted the tyrant’s tactic for thwarting the rule of law: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Federal District Judge Beryl Howell invoked Shakespeare’s warning in her scathing takedown of the executive order targeting Perkins Coie, further observing that when American history is written, “those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded.”
The success of Trump’s intimidation campaign depends largely on whether lawyers forcefully resist his illegal bullying at every opportunity. Thus, the State Bar’s cowering non-response bodes ill for the rule of law in Wisconsin. As the American Bar Association stated: “If the lawyers do not speak…who will protect the bedrock of justice?”
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U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore toured Wisconsin's only the ICE detention facility and demanded answers about the people being targeted for deportation in the state | Official photos
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Friday to ask the agency to remove a statement from the top of its website describing Milwaukee resident Ramón Morales Reyes as “this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump.”
The bizarre accusation that Morales Reyes wrote a letter threatening to kill the president has been disproven, and the man who tried to frame him has confessed to forging the letter.
Yet, on Friday, when Moore visited the ICE detention center in Dodge County, Morales Reyes was still there. And the lurid accusation against him is still prominently featured at the top of the Homeland Security website. In the featured statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanks the ICE officers who arrested Morales Reyes, promotes the idea that he is a dangerous criminal who poses a grave threat, and promises, “He will remain in ICE custody at Dodge County Jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, pending his removal proceedings.”
Moore held a Zoom press conference after her visit. She described Morales Reyes as a humble, religious man who, incredibly, bears no ill will toward Demetric Scott, the man who has been charged with stabbing and robbing him and who then tried to get him deported so he couldn’t testify as a victim in Scott’s upcoming trial.
It’s very important that the U.S. government stop spreading misinformation about Morales Reyes and afford him due process, Moore said, not just because of the outrageous injustice of his particular case, but because of what it means more broadly. Morales Reyes is an applicant for a U visa — a type of nonimmigrant status set aside for crime victims who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are cooperating with law enforcement or the government in the investigation and prosecution of crimes.
Scott, the man charged with stabbing Morales Reyes and who has admitted forging the letter that led to his arrest, was trying to short-circuit that cooperation ahead of his trial for a violent armed robbery.
If the government deports Morales Reyes, “it will embolden criminals,” Moore said. It’s critical that the U.S. government protect immigrants who are victims of crimes, like Morales Reyes, because if we don’t, we are abetting the criminals. “That’s the message that we’ll be sending if we deport these individuals,” Moore said. “If you’re some pimp out there, some trafficker, some drug pusher, and you want to find someone to abuse, all you’ve got to do is find an immigrant.”
Coincidentally, on the same Friday afternoon Moore visited Morales Reyes and began her campaign to get the government to stop spreading misinformation about him, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that Trump administration officials were finally bringing back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man they wrongly deported to El Salvador. But, Bondi said, the government is charging Abrego Garcia with a slew of serious crimes including being “a smuggler of humans and women and children.”
We don’t know yet if the federal case against Abrego Garcia will include another ham-fisted attempt to pass off obviously doctored photos of his hands with photoshopped “MS-13”gang tattoos. But the administration that continues to push the discredited claim that Morales Reyes penned a letter threatening to assassinate the president inspires zero trust.
What a relief, in this awful political climate, to see Moore sticking up for immigrants who are being targeted and terrorized, demanding answers from ICE and doing her best to uphold the rule of law. Moore has also been championing Yessenia Ruano, the beloved Milwaukee teacher’s aid who has a pending application for a T visa as a victim of human trafficking, and has been ordered to self-deport back to El Salvador, where she was victimized. Going back would place her in serious danger and leave her young daughters without a mother.
“She’s an exceptional asset to the school district where she works, not a threat at all to the community,” Moore said.
A week before her visit with Morales Reyes, Moore was joined by her fellow Wisconsin Democrat, U.S. Rep Mark Pocan, on an unannounced inspection visit to the Dodge County jail, Wisconsin’s only ICE detention facility. Moore went back again Friday because she was initially refused an interview with Morales Reyes.
“We have congressional prerogative to do an unannounced visit” to see what’s going on in ICE detention, Pocan said. “In fact,” he added, “I think [it’s] a requirement, really, morally, to do an unannounced visit to these facilities.”
When they got to the jail, Pocan and Moore had to explain their oversight prerogative. They presented a letter from the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, and waited an hour to get inside. They expressed appreciation for the sheriff, who let them come in and tour the facility, though they weren’t permitted to talk to any detainees.
When they tried to contact ICE it was another story. There were no ICE agents present — they only show up to bring in detainees every three weeks, the sheriff told them. When they tried to call the Milwaukee ICE field office, the phone was disconnected. They left messages at the Chicago office that were not returned. Of the roughly 100 immigrant detainees at Dodge, who come from all over the country, they couldn’t find out how many have been arrested in Wisconsin.
“This is the problem, right?” said Pocan. “ICE treats us all like we don’t deserve to get information, even though we have oversight authority.”
Part of what bothered Pocan, he said, is “the arrogance that we’ve seen from ICE so far this year.”
“ICE is acting like they are somehow above the law,” he said, “above lawmakers.”
It has become abundantly clear that the Trump administration’s rhetoric about targeting dangerous criminals for deportation is utter bunk.
Neither Morales Reyes nor Yessenia Ruano nor Abrego Garcia poses a threat to community safety. The real threat is coming from masked ICE agents terrorizing immigrants and local communities.
We desperately need leaders who will stand up to these terror tactics. That takes guts, as the arrest of Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan showed, as did the Homeland Security agents barging into a congressional office and roughly handcuffing a staffer they accused of letting protesters hide there.
I’m grateful for the courage of Moore and Pocan.
As they said, if we don’t stand up for the people the Trump administration is targeting now, we will be next.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
The list was taken down from the Department of Homeland Security website Sunday, but leaders from the Wisconsin communities named on it still have questions about how it was assembled.
The post Wisconsin counties concerned over being on Homeland Security list of immigration ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ appeared first on WPR.
Probably the most commonly used — and, in my opinion, abused — exemption in our state’s Open Meetings Law is the one that lets governmental bodies meet behind closed doors “whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session.”
The exemption, 19.85(1)(e) in Wisconsin state statutes, is used by all manner of public bodies, from city councils to school boards. It is supposed to be used sparingly, when needed to protect ongoing negotiations. But many bodies use this exemption to conceal everything about a potential deal or development, keeping the public in the dark until it is too late for their input.
Thankfully, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued a recent opinion, in a case known as Oitzinger v. City of Marinette, that should significantly curtail such abuses. The court ruled that the city’s attempts to use this exemption on two occasions violated the law.
The first involved an agreement (negotiated for months behind the scenes and presented to the common council for the first and only time in that closed session) that released a PFAS polluter from liability in exchange for a “donation” toward equipment to help address the pollution it caused. The second involved an engineering analysis of methods to provide safe drinking water for people whose well water had been contaminated.
Both closed sessions were illegal, the appeals court ruled, because neither included discussions of negotiation strategies that needed to be kept secret. The court’s ruling does three very important things.
First, the court held Marinette officials accountable for their illegal behavior. The plaintiff, Douglas Oitzinger, was a city council member who thought his colleagues had abused this exemption. He was willing to stand up to his colleagues, endure their scorn and not give up until he won. (His efforts earned him an award from the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council in 2022.)
Second, the case reaffirms an important principle: The law’s exemption protects bargaining tactics, not all discussions about a possible deal. It exists so that government boards don’t have to negotiate at a disadvantage by divulging their strategies, such as the most it is willing to pay to buy a piece of land. But those kinds of discussions are the only thing that is supposed to happen in closed session. Other discussions — particularly debates about the merits of a course of action — need to be held publicly.
Third, the court emphasized that a board’s members need to cast an informed vote to go into closed session. That means it needs to be explained to them — on the record in open session — what kind of information is going to be discussed and why secrecy is necessary. Too often the process for going into a closed session is just a formulaic reading of a vague agenda item and a vote with no explanation or discussion. The court of appeals concluded that more is necessary, not just in this case but whenever this exemption is invoked.
I believe this is the part of the court’s decision that has the most impact. Government board members usually do this work on a part-time basis for little or no pay. They’re frequently happy to follow the lead of full-time government administrators or experienced board members. Administrators or presiding officers now must take the time to explain why they want to go into closed session. That will not only provide more information to the public, it will help board members think about and answer the question of whether secrecy is really necessary.
As an advocate for government openness, my hopes are high. I’ve seen reports from around the state that government attorneys are advising their clients about this case and explaining these requirements. I’m hopeful that abuse of this exemption will significantly decline.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Tom Kamenick, a council member, is the president and founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Project.
Your Right to Know: Want a closed session? Explain yourself! 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.
People in Wisconsin and across the country are facing a new challenge when searching for health care coverage: a bombardment of telemarketers trying to sell them unregulated coverage, according to Bloomberg.
The post How to avoid sketchy health care plans, according to a Wisconsin public interest attorney appeared first on WPR.
A lawsuit against a small northern Wisconsin town seeks to overturn a local ban on wake surfing, saying the regulation is illegal and unconstitutional.
The post Wake boat owners sue northern Wisconsin town to overturn ban on wake surfing appeared first on WPR.
A measure passed by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee allows individual taxpayers such as waiters and waitresses to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. (Getty Photos)
WASHINGTON — House Republicans advanced the tax portion of the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation package early Wednesday, a step forward in permanently extending, and in some cases expanding, the 2017 tax law and temporarily handing President Donald Trump a win on campaign promises like no tax on tips.
The House Committee on Ways and Means voted along party lines to pass the measure, 26-19, after nearly 18 hours of debate that went through the night. Republicans rejected numerous amendments offered by Democrats, including protecting tax credits meant to combat climate change enacted under Democrats’ own 2022 budget reconciliation law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
The marathon debate occurred as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce debated overnight and into Wednesday afternoon over deep budget cuts, including some to Medicaid assistance for low-income individuals, to pay for the cost of tax provisions.
As of now, the massive tax package is estimated to add $3.8 trillion to the budget deficit over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
If any temporary expansions in the bill are eventually made permanent, it would add roughly $5.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the CRFB. The official congressional budget score has not yet been released.
Overall the bill is “a very, very big tax cut,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, part of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. “Much of the benefit will go to higher income people.”
The bill permanently extends the underlying tax provisions passed in 2017 under the GOP-backed bill titled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire in 2025.
This means:
Trump promised on the campaign trail to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security and car loan interest. House Republicans handed him a win in their bill, but only a limited one.
The bill allows individual taxpayers to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. And like the new child tax credit requirement, taxpayers could only take advantage of the deduction by including a Social Security number on their federal tax return as well as their spouse’s SSN, if married.
No taxes on car loan interest would also go into effect through 2028, though taxpayers could only claim it for automobiles that received final assembly in the United States.
Senior citizens with incomes of $75,000 or less, or $150,000 for a married couple, would receive an extra $4,000 discount on taxable income, with the amount decreasing as incomes increase. The tax break would also expire in 2028. The bill does not specify an age for “seniors.”
House Republicans raised the cap on the amount of state and local taxes, or SALT, that can be deducted, but not enough to please both GOP and Democratic lawmakers who represent highly taxed states like New York and California.
Under the bill the committee advanced Wednesday morning, taxpayers could deduct up to $30,000 — three times the $10,000 ceiling in the 2017 law — from their federal taxable income. The full cap would apply to those making $400,000 or less in annual income but phases down for higher earners.
Raising the cap is costly and unpopular with lawmakers representing lower tax states.
Republican Reps. Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota of New York, and Rep. Young Kim of California, are threatening to vote no on the House floor if the cap isn’t raised. The House GOP cannot lose more than a handful of votes if all Republicans are present.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters Wednesday he didn’t want to “handicap” negotiations by sharing details publicly and that he was talking to the SALT caucus until 1:30 a.m.
“But I will tell you I’m absolutely confident we’re going to be able to work out a compromise that everybody can live with,” he said.
The committee’s party-line approval of the bill drew praise and criticism across organizations representing varying interests of Americans.
Kris Cox, director of federal tax policy for the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote on social media that the temporary child tax credit bump does “zilch” for the roughly 17 million children whose parents do not earn enough money to receive a refund check from the credit.
“But it delivers an additional $500-per-kid to higher-income families,” Cox wrote.
The organization also slammed the bill for going “out of its way to take eligibility from 4.5 million US citizen kids who have at least one parent without an SSN.”
Kristen Crowell, executive director of the advocacy group Fair Share America, said in a statement Wednesday that the bill “shows a tragic indifference to the very real struggles of normal, working people.
“In order to save face in front of their constituents, Republicans are hiding behind misleading claims that everyone will see reductions in their taxes,” Crowell said.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental protection advocacy organization, estimates that phasing out and altogether eliminating clean energy tax credits would result in higher electricity bills in several states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to an emailed statement.
Groups representing businesses across the U.S. praised the House bill as a way to bolster investment and growth opportunities.
Former Republican Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady of Texas released a statement Wednesday on behalf of the Alliance for Competitive Taxation praising the bill as a path to “unshackle the economy from burdensome taxes and unlock new growth.”
“The bill reported out by the House Ways and Means Committee is an encouraging step in that direction and, if implemented with its major pro-growth proposals intact, will help American businesses and workers compete at home and abroad,” Brady said.
The alliance hailed the extension of the 21% corporate tax rate and urged lawmakers to make permanent the research and development expensing, and capital investment deductions.
Kristen Silverberg, president and chief operating officer of the Business Roundtable, said her organization “applauds Chairman Smith and members of the House Ways and Means Committee for advancing a comprehensive, pro-growth tax bill,” referring to GOP Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri.
“Today’s vote is a critical step forward in securing a more competitive tax system for American businesses and workers,” said Silverberg, whose organization represents 200 CEOs of U.S.-based companies.
Several state coalitions have sued the Trump administration for their actions since the beginning of its second term. Wisconsin is part of 16 of those cases.
The post Wisconsin is now involved in 16 lawsuits against the Trump administration appeared first on WPR.
Community and environmental justice advocates say the Biden administration is failing to deliver promised transparency and public engagement around its $7 billion clean hydrogen hub initiative.
“Engagement isn’t merely leading people into a process that’s going to happen with or without them,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit serving one of the regions where federally funded partnerships are trying to lay the groundwork for new local hydrogen economies. “It means meaningfully involving people in the decisions about the project.”
The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding in October 2023 for seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — clusters of interconnected projects meant to kickstart production of the fuel with little or no greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the department has held online briefings and virtual listening sessions for each hub, but advocates say they are not getting the kind of information necessary to assess who will be impacted by the projects and how.
Torres and others say they want more than just dots on a map. They want to know how hydrogen will be produced, how it will be used, and how it will get to end users. For projects that depend on carbon capture, they want to know how and where the carbon will be captured, transported and stored. And once the specifics are known, they want a chance to have meaningful input on the final projects.
Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and regional hubs said the answers to those questions are still being worked out and that more engagement is on the horizon. Advocates are increasingly frustrated and fear that community input will come too late to affect how the hubs are developed.
“It doesn’t make sense … on one hand to say there’s not enough on paper to tell the public about, but on the other hand there is enough to allocate almost $1 billion for these companies,” Torres said.
When burned as a fuel source, hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide, but its production today almost always comes from fossil fuels. Some see a potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in certain hard-to-electrify sectors such as industry or heavy duty transportation, but the benefits for addressing climate change hinge on whether it can be produced cleanly and at scale.
The Biden administration’s hydrogen hub program, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to ramp up production of hydrogen made with low-carbon energy, including renewables, nuclear power, and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture.
“It is literally like building the natural gas infrastructure that we have all over the place again for hydrogen,” said Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience manager for Battelle, the project manager for the Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, ARCH2, which includes projects for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A majority of its projects will use steam methane reforming to make hydrogen from natural gas, along with carbon capture and storage. Other projects in the hub plan to make hydrogen from waste gases or from electrolysis, which uses energy to split water molecules.
In May, dozens of groups urged the Department of Energy to suspend funding discussions for the ARCH2 project until the public receives detailed information beyond general maps and short project descriptions. On July 31 the Department of Energy formally committed the first $30 million of federal funding to ARCH2, with a total of up to $925 million to be spent over the next decade or so.
Last month, the Department of Energy committed up to $1 billion for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, MachH2, which spans Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa and plans to produce hydrogen from a mix of nuclear power, wind energy and natural gas. The department will hold a December 9 briefing on MachH2.
In response to the Energy News Network’s questions about community groups’ complaints about a lack of outreach, a Department of Energy spokesperson provided a statement saying it “has been actively engaged with these communities in support of the economic playbook” of the Biden-Harris administration.
The ARCH2 project held a community outreach session in West Virginia in November, and additional meetings will be held in Ohio and Pennsylvania early next year, Bennett said. Some community group members protested outside at the West Virginia session but then came inside for a good discussion, he added.
Torres said there was no general presentation at the West Virginia meeting, and company representatives were present for only a handful of the hub’s projects. Even then, project information was still sparse.
“It wasn’t an opportunity for people’s voices to be heard,” he said. “What is the value of these events other than checking a box for these companies?”
Advocacy groups focusing on the MachH2 project said months went by without getting updates or details. Then last month, they got less than 24 hours’ notice for a briefing with general descriptions about the MachH2 hub projects.
During that session, representatives for the Department of Energy said a decision on the hub’s funding commitment would come soon, “probably next week sometime,” said Susan Thomas, the legislative and policy director and communications manager for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. Minutes after the November 20 session ended, the Department of Energy announced the MachH2 funding commitment.
“Our jaws were on the table,” Thomas said.
Groups have been trying to get answers from the Department of Energy for more than a year, said Chris Chyung, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters. In his view, the agency’s approach “is just flouting the law.” According to the Department of Energy’s website, engagement with communities and labor is a key principle required in hubs’ community benefits plans, which are part of hubs’ contractual obligations for funding.
Community groups learned in the November 20 briefing that the MachH2 community engagement would not address concerns related to any pipelines associated with the hub. Instead, those would be handled by a separate office within the Department of Energy.
But a pipeline for northwestern Indiana “is absolutely part and parcel of [a] dirty hydrogen project that is part of MachH2,” and the community should get a say on it, said Lauren Piette, an attorney with Earthjustice, which does not consider hydrogen made with natural gas to be climate-friendly, even with carbon capture.
The Department of Energy spokesperson did not respond to the Energy News Network’s question about how community benefits for hub projects can fully be assessed if they don’t include consideration of issues and input related to necessary pipelines.
Representatives of the MachH2 and ARCH2 hubs who spoke at an Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Consortium program last month said they couldn’t practically engage in community outreach until funding commitments had been negotiated with the Department of Energy. Until then, it wasn’t certain whether each hub would move forward.
Also, as a practical matter, “there was no budget for these things,” Bennett said. Details for each hub’s projects are still being worked out, and ARCH2 is still trying to add additional project partners.
Even then, details for projects won’t be finalized until review under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Neil Banwart, who is the chief integration officer for the MachH2 hub and also the managing director for hydrogen at Energy Systems Network.
“It’s not a certainty that all of the projects will get built in the locations that we shared on a map,” he said.
Chyung said he felt the comments about funding were “a complete dodge on behalf of these extremely wealthy national corporations that have said since 2023 they were eager to get started on community outreach.”
Advocates frustrated by lack of transparency, engagement on regional hydrogen hub projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.
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