Earlier this month, a 50-year-old man riding his personal electric scooter in Washington, D.C., was killed when he collided with a woman on a rideshare scooter.

In June, a 12-year-old Massachusetts girl died after her electric scooter slammed into a school bus in a suburb of Boston.

And in April, an Atlanta woman riding an electric bike was killed when she hit a curb and was thrown headfirst into a wall.

A string of high-profile deaths and injuries involving electric scooters and bikes is spurring states and cities across the country to crack down on them. As technology improves, e-scooters and e-bikes capable of motorcycle-like speeds have become cheaper and more popular. Some models — and the ability to modify them with aftermarket upgrades — are blurring the lines between bicycles, scooters and motor vehicles.

State and local regulations, many of which were originally written to manage the glut of low-speed rideshare scooters nearly a decade ago, haven’t kept pace, some experts say, and they’ve left city officials scrambling to do more.

The victim in the Washington, D.C., incident was Talib Shakir, who worked in the office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. Police said neither Shakir nor the woman he collided with was wearing a helmet, and that Shakir’s e-scooter could reach speeds up to 55 miles per hour.

A few days later, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police launched a street safety initiative focused on educating e-bike and e-scooter riders about road safety.

In New York City, local leaders held a hearing in August to discuss a slate of new regulations for e-bikes and e-scooters. As of September, at least 28 New Yorkers riding electric devices have died in crashes, the city’s highest-ever total by that point in the year.

A month before the Massachusetts accident, Gov. Maura Healey proposed legislation to establish safety standards and other regulations for e-scooters and e-bikes.

Healey, a Democrat, called existing laws around so-called micromobility devices “unclear and inconsistent,” in a May 2026 statement announcing her bill, which is currently in committee.

“We are seeing too much reckless behavior, more crashes and close calls,” she said, “and too many people, especially pedestrians and young riders, are at risk.”

And after several highly publicized deaths in the Atlanta metro area, including the woman who died after she was thrown from her bike and a teen who died when his e-scooter collided with a tractor-trailer, local officials in surrounding communities have been under pressure to address safety issues.

States including Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania have enacted or considered new restrictions this year. The feds have been studying the issue, too: A report released earlier this year from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found the number of fatalities from e-scooters and e-bikes has been steadily increasing.

Consumer Reports, a nonprofit that reviews consumer products, in August said it had tested 13 e-scooters and didn’t recommend any due to high speeds and an increase in injuries.

Despite the rush toward regulation, e-bike and e-scooter advocates and manufacturers say any new restrictions should distinguish between different types of devices that often get lumped under the umbrella of “e-bikes.” There’s a difference, they point out, between low-speed, motor-assisted bicycles and throttle-driven electric bikes that are essentially motorcycles.

They say states and cities should enforce tiered safety laws rather than outright banning high-speed personal vehicles, as lawmakers in states including New York and some municipalities have considered.

Most new research — as well as data from individual hospitals — shows that injuries and deaths from e-scooters and e-bikes are on the rise, particularly for children.

Johns Hopkins researchers found nearly half the e-scooter injuries they studied involving kids between 2020-2024 occurred in 2024.

“That was striking,” said the study’s author, Dr. Mary Beth Howard, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. “And, for us, it raises questions about safety policies keeping pace with the growth in e-scooter use.”

Skewing younger

One of the most significant — and surprising — takeaways from new research on e-scooter injuries was that children ages 11-14 have some of the highest injury rates, Howard said.

She and fellow researchers found nearly 1 in 4 e-scooter injuries in recent years happened to kids in that age group.

A few factors contribute to that overrepresentation, she said, including increasing access to e-scooters while kids’ motor skills and ability to assess danger are still developing.

And, too, they aren’t legally allowed to drive so they don’t have the experience older teens have in managing traffic and speed.

“That creates the perfect storm for that 11 to 14 or early adolescent group being at incredibly high risk for injuries from e-scooters,” she said.

In Oregon, a 13-year-old girl died last month while riding an electric scooter; police say she was struck by a van in a hit-and-run. And in Florida, two children have been injured in the past year after colliding with school buses in two separate incidents.

The Johns Hopkins researchers found that 1 in 10 kids were injured severely enough while riding e-scooters that they required hospitalization.

“That’s important for policymakers to understand,” Howard said. “This isn’t just scraped knees.”

States step in

A new Illinois law taking effect in January will bar anyone under 15 from riding an e-bike of any type, and requires riders of high-speed devices — those that can travel more than 28 miles per hour — to have a driver’s license, registration and insurance. It also prohibits high-speed e-bikes from sidewalks and regular bike lanes. New Jersey also recently enacted a law requiring e-bike riders to be licensed and registered.

Illinois state Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Democrat, sponsored the bill, saying in an August statement that “without clear regulations for these devices, we are seeing increased injuries and accidents — jeopardizing community safety.”

The bill passed with bipartisan support and a handful of Republicans joined Democrats as co-sponsors.

More than two dozen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted or amended e-scooter laws with minimum age requirements, speed limits and other restrictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

State lawmakers have been looking at ramping up the regulation in the face of injuries and pressure from physicians, law enforcement and safety groups.

This week, the Pennsylvania House approved a bill that would legalize and regulate e-scooters — it’s currently illegal in Pennsylvania to ride them on public streets, sidewalks and bike lanes — and would require riders to be at least 16. The bill also has speed limitations and helmet requirements. It next heads to the state Senate.

In Michigan, a Democratic-sponsored bill would require teens under 18 to have a license to ride e-bikes that can travel faster than 20 miles per hour. It would also set helmet requirements for teens; a companion bill would set new fines for certain e-bike violations. The bill comes after several towns in Michigan have banned or restricted e-bikes and other vehicles after crashes involving teens.

Earlier this month, Democratic state lawmakers in Ohio introduced legislation that would tighten existing state regulations on e-bikes and e-scooters, including banning children 13 and younger from operating them and requiring riders to wear helmets.

And in California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed three new e-bike laws this month that set age limits and other restrictions.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Federal regulators are cracking down on the nonprofits responsible for coordinating organ donations, aiming to begin shutting down substandard groups by early next year.

New criteria will score the organizations on donation and transplantation rates and will decertify the bottom tier, meaning their contracts with the federal government will be revoked. Many professional medical groups welcome more stringent evaluations. But the nonprofits strongly oppose aspects of the criteria and have filed lawsuits, warning of potential disruptions in some states or regions.

More than 109,000 people are on waiting lists nationwide for organ procurement, according to federal data as of July. The majority of patients await kidneys. Each day on average, about a dozen patients die waiting for an organ. 

State- and region-based nonprofits known as organ procurement organizations recover organs from deceased donors and work with families and transplant centers to coordinate donations. The procurement organizations have faced heavy scrutiny in recent years, with media reports and research papers highlighting issues such as skipping over some transplant centers and sicker patients, which worsens racial and socioeconomic disparities in organ transplants. 

The feds have shut down at least two groups in the past two years, citing questionable practices and saying that there were cases in which workers ignored signs of consciousness in donors.

Changes have been in the works for years. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services first announced the new evaluation framework in 2020, in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump. Earlier this year, CMS released proposed revisions to that rule. 

Aiming for better accountability, transparency and oversight of the groups, as well as increasing patient protections and organ recovery, CMS will score the nation’s 55 organ procurement organizations based on their donation and transplantation rates. 

It will rank them into three tiers: Top tier organizations — those calculated in the top 25% of organizations for donation and transplantation rates — would be automatically renewed for another four years. Those that fall in the second tier will have the opportunity to improve and reapply for certification, while those ranking in the bottom tier would be decertified entirely. Other nonprofits will then make bids to the federal government to take over their service areas, according to CMS.

The new evaluation method has stirred debate. Some medical and policy experts say better oversight of the nonprofits is long overdue, while organ procurement organizations say they will face logistical hurdles in coordinating lifesaving organs if some are shut down.

CMS hasn’t yet released which organization’s contracts will be renewed or dropped, but said in March that the process would begin sometime late this year. The current four-year contracts expire in January, but CMS has said it will issue extensions as needed to ensure organ transplants continue. 

CMS did not provide a specific date in response to Stateline’s request for information about when it would release certification decisions. The agency said it “is committed to a process that is transparent, data-driven, and focused on the goal of saving more lives through organ donation.”

But the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, which represents the nonprofits, says nearly 42% of the 55 organizations could be ranked in the bottom tier, meaning they would face automatic decertification. The association says this may disrupt logistics around organ donation coordination.

Jeff Trageser, the association’s immediate past president, said the organization agrees that underperforming nonprofits should be held accountable. But he noted that many of the groups argue that outcomes such as transplant rates aren’t within their control and shouldn’t be considered in evaluations.

“Decertification needs to be a part of that. There has to be repercussions if there is just no improvement,” Trageser said. “Let’s measure the OPOs on what we actually do, and that is talking to families, advocating for donation, working to get organs allocated effectively to the right patients.”

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons said it supports “long-overdue” changes to how the nonprofits are evaluated and called the feds’ decertification last year of a Miami group a “powerful decision” that will strengthen the system. But it had also raised concerns about using transplant rates to grade the nonprofits.

Dr. Joel Adler, a transplant surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, said some factors the organizations are responsible for can influence whether a transplant center accepts an organ or not, but that transplant centers’ own acceptance decisions matter too. He also said designing a quality measure for the complex process is difficult, but necessary. 

“At some point, there needed to be quality metrics attached to the whole system, so we can have different ways to measure it and work toward improvement,” Adler said.

Nonprofits have brought several lawsuits against CMS — most recently, in August, a nonprofit in Hawaii sued to block the rule, arguing that it would force organ procurement organizations to compete with each other for service areas.

A federal district court in Florida recently upheld the rule in a case brought by organizations serving California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Puerto Rico, Texas and Washington state that filed a lawsuit last year. The organizations appealed the ruling.

In some of the legal complaints, the nonprofits called the new evaluation method a competitive “Hunger Games” approach, arguing it would destabilize the nation’s organ donation system.

If a group shuts down, the trust that organizations have spent years building with its local communities could be fractured, particularly in communities of color that may have historic distrust in the medical system, said Dr. J. Thomas Rosenthal, board secretary of OneLegacy, the organ procurement nonprofit that serves Los Angeles and surrounding counties and is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. 

“Trust is the key factor in everything that we do,” said Rosenthal, former director of renal transplantation at the University of California, Los Angeles school of medicine.

But Greg Segal, founder and CEO of patient advocacy nonprofit Organize, said he questions the success of community relationships among lower-ranking organizations.

“There’s a lot of fearmongering. If an OPO is tier three, I am not impressed by the strength of the relationships they have built … because if you have done all the things right and built all the right relationships, you are going to have much better outcomes than being a tier three,” he said. “If you’ve been failing and failing and failing, you are not serving patients well.” 

Katie Ross-Driscoll, assistant professor of surgery at Indiana University’s school of medicine, researches disparities in access to care among liver transplant patients.  

“They (organ procurement organizations) serve an absolutely vital role in the system and in the community, and they are what makes the promise of transplantation possible for patients,” said Ross-Driscoll, who is also a researcher at health systems research organization, Regenstrief Institute and statistical editor for Liver Transplantation and Hepatology Communications. “At the same time, I think that objective measures that enable comparability across organizations are what helps us understand how we can do better.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

In front of a friendly crowd at a small-town community center last week, Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate Mitchell Berman launched into the pitch he’s made countless times in the last several months.

“Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I never saw running for Congress on my bingo card,” Berman told the room full of supporters in the Rock County community of Milton.

The son of a roofing contractor and a foundry worker, a first-generation college graduate and an emergency room nurse, he wove together stories from his daily work and his own family’s experience grappling with the healthcare system.

Berman ticked off a litany of priorities he’ll pursue in  the House of Representatives if he is elected and if Congress returns to a Democratic majority in November.  Those included restoring funds cut from federal healthcare programs, supporting union organizing, raising the minimum wage and taking steps to shore up Social Security in the face of threatened cuts in less than a decade.

“Well, we only have 21 days to go. We are in the final stages of this race,” Berman said. “We have always looked at this district as having an opportunity. But right now we’re one point up in the polls.”

A cheer and applause burst from the crowd.

“We are continuing to build momentum,” Berman said. “We are filling rooms like this across the district because people are sick and tired of the partisan politics. They are ready for people to go to Washington and actually get things done.”

Berman is the latest in a string of Democrats who have hoped to turn the 1st CD back to a Democratic seat after decades of Republican representation, including by U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) for the last eight years.

Steil is a former corporate lawyer and one-time aide to his popular predecessor, former House Speaker Paul Ryan. When Ryan gave up the seat in 2018 after two decades, Steil easily topped the Democratic challenger, union activist Randy Bryce, whose candidacy drew national attention.

While the margins have narrowed in the ensuing three reelection campaigns, Steil has continued to maintain a solid  advantage — leading the Cook Political Report to label the district “likely Republican” for most of the current term, until recently shifting it to the less-definitive “lean Republican.”

In 2026 Democrats are leaning harder into their campaign to wrest the district from its long-time GOP dominance.

Berman’s campaign sees in the polling trends and the Cook Political Report shift evidence that the seat is winnable thie year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Wisconsin’s 1st District to a list of races targeted for special attention — and some party spending — this fall.

U.S. Rep Mark Pocan, who has endorsed Berman and spoke at the Milton rally, says this year’s cycle has changed the dynamic of the district, and the race.

In his previous terms, Steil “did his very best to be as flavorless as possible,” Pocan says. “He wasn’t upsetting anyone and he’s a nice guy but he didn’t have positions.”

Steil joins Tiffany rally

Steil’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview despite repeated requests over the last week. The campaign also declined to respond to a list of questions about criticisms that have been lodged against him in the race.

Steil has continued to cultivate an upbeat presence in the district, documented on his office’s social media with visits to local fire departments, healthcare facilities and factories.

He also joined last week’s Waukesha County rally with Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany, sponsored by the GOP-aligned Hunter Nation organization, whose members are lobbying for passage of legislation that would create a controversial sandhill crane hunt.

Taking his turn at the podium, Steil excoriated “how radicalized the Democratic party has become, where they are going after all aspects of our culture” — zeroing in on controversies over whether trans girls should be allowed on girls’ sports teams.

“They want to come after our hunting rights,” Steil said, although not spelling out specifics. Steil also condemned “higher taxes on the Democratic side.” 

“This is not your grandfather’s Democratic party anymore,” Steil said. “This is a radicalized, activist socialist party that we are seeing on the left.”

Drilling home the Tiffany rally’s get-out-the vote message, Steil urged the crowd to “run on the assumption that the Democrats are going to vote in full strength in the liberal core cities in Wisconsin.” To counter that, he said, “We need to get that message out to our friends, our family, our neighbors, our coworkers, folks in church on how important this election is and how important it is that people like us get out and vote.”

Pocan interprets the shift in Steil’s profile during his latest term as an attempt to advance within the Republican party. “So instead of quietly rubber stamping Donald Trump, he’s now doing it more vocally,” Pocan says.

Drawing a contrast

While Steil has emphasized an image of Democratic radicalism, Berman’s campaign is drawing a contrast  between the Democrat’s working-class background and the Republican incumbent’s history as a corporate lawyer and his voting record in Congress.

“My dad owned a small roofing business that he built from the ground up,” Berman told the Milton crowd. “My mom, she worked long hours in the foundry. But they instilled in me the values of hard work, perseverance, and they taught me to always stick up for the little guy.”

He pointed to a resume that included working part-time at UPS — a union job — to help make ends meet in college, working off student debt after he graduated, and then making a career in healthcare, including 11 years as a Veterans Administration nurse — a job he had to quit because he couldn’t run for political office as a federal employee.

It was at the VA “where I started to recognize that a lot of these issues that we were having didn’t stem from me and my coworkers not having the capability to deliver the type of care that patients deserve,” Berman said. “But we were being handcuffed at the bedside by bad policies that were trickling down from Washington.”

Cuts to the VA health system early in President Donald Trump’s second term exacerbated those issues, he said. “That’s when I realized it was going to take somebody from the ground floor, from the bedside, standing up and fighting for change if we actually wanted to succeed.”

Berman said an insurance company denied his mother a colonoscopy in her late 40s despite a doctor’s recommendation because she wasn’t yet 50. At 49 she got the procedure in an emergency, he said, and was diagnosed with late stage colon cancer.

“So that same insurance company that denied that preventive procedure then began increasing our premiums,” Berman said. “At that point they could no longer afford insurance. Medicaid was the safety net that caught my mom.”

The massive tax and spending bill — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — that Trump and the Republican majority in Congress enacted in mid-2025, with its cuts amounting to nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years to Medicaid, along with other provisions, are a key talking point for Berman, who points out that Steil voted for the cuts.

The war in Iran that has driven up gasoline and diesel fuel prices and tariffs that have hobbled farmers also contribute to escalating difficulty for families in the 1st District, the state and across the country, Berman told voters in Milton.

He blames Steil for not voting to block the tariffs or end the war.

“You know, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for all representatives to be in Washington working for us, making Washington work for working people, because that’s what they should be doing,” Berman said. “So, while he’s making it more difficult for us, we’re here at home, struggling, trying to put food on the table, trying to make rent.”

Spotlight on  Steil’s record

With increasing tenure, Steil has advanced to new leadership roles, expanding his opportunity to advance his legislative priorities. His higher profile has also made him a bigger target for Democrats.

In January, as chair of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees federal election-related policies, Steil introduced the Make Elections Great Again Act.

Federal law generally delegates election administration to the states, minimizing the authority of the federal government. The Steil legislation would impose new national requirements on states, including mandating photo IDs in all states and setting new restrictions for what qualifies as a legal ID.

Among many other requirements, the bill would also compel states to check every 30 days on whether existing registered voters are still eligible. It would “improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” Steil said when he introduced the legislation.

The bill has not advanced. The Trump administration and Republican leaders instead focused on the SAVE America Act, which included similar requirements for voter citizenship verification and other limits. The SAVE America Act stalled in the U.S. Senate after passing the House.

Voting rights groups condemned the SAVE Act and also rejected Steil’s bill.

“Election officials — including in Wisconsin — have shown again and again that elections are secure,” said Samuel Liebert, Wisconsin state director for All Voting Is Local, when Steil introduced his measure. “Codifying suspicion into law doesn’t strengthen democracy; it undermines public confidence and puts election workers in harm’s way.”

Oversight, votes and campaign donations

Steil also chairs the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence — a panel that, among other things, oversees the crypto currency industry.

Earlier this month, the crypto PAC Fairshake launched a pro-Steil ad in the Milwaukee media market, reserving $735,914 in airtime for the ad, WisPolitics reported. According to Tech Influence Watch, an independent organization that tracks tech political spending, crypto interests have spent $1.3 million to support Steil in the 2026 election, a mix of campaign donations and independent spending.

In a post on X earlier this month, Steil wrote approvingly of a Commodities Futures Trading Commission announcement of advanced rulemaking on regulations for crypto transactions and crypto asset markets.

Steil “advocates for clear digital asset regulations, emphasizing consumer protection. His support may influence regulatory frameworks moving forward,” reported the outlet Coinfomania, which covers the crypto industry.

Steil’s campaign did not respond to a question about what his call for “clear regulations emphasizing consumer protection” would mean in concrete terms.

He is one of a bipartisan group of 21 lawmakers who cosponsored  legislation on regulating the crypto industry that the industry had sought. After passing the House, the bill foundered in the Senate, in part due to Democrats’ objections over President Donald Trump’s profiteering from crypto transactions, HuffPost reported.

At Berman’s Milton rally, however, Pocan suggested the outcome of the proposed legislation would be looser regulation for crypto businesses — “making sure they don’t have enough regulation so they can continue to operate in that dark realm.”

The Milwaukee Courier linked Steil’s votes to campaign donations from interested industries. The bills involved were not enacted. The donors included Blackstone, a corporate owner of rental housing nationwide, which made its contribution around the time Steil voted on bills cutting rental assistance and increasing mortgage fees; banking and credit businesses around the time of a vote to reduce regulations including on banking firms; and mortgage companies around the time of a vote that would have raised fees for borrowers.

Steil’s campaign did not respond to a question about the donations and bills identified in the Courier reports.

The Berman campaign has highlighted the findings. A TV ad also highlighted earlier reporting on Steil’s votes for federal tax breaks for data centers and donations totaling $300,000 to his campaigns from related industries.

Curbing Congressional stock trading

Besides the issue of the crypto industry’s pro-Steil ads, the Berman campaign has targeted the spot’s message, crediting Steil with writing a bill “banning members of Congress from trading stocks.”

A measure Steil authored, the Stop Insider Trading Act, prohibits members of Congress and their families from buying new stocks and hikes the penalties for violating an existing law against failure to disclose stock purchases and insider trading.

After passing the U.S. House, Steil’s bill stalled in the Senate when it failed to clear 60 votes to move forward to a vote in the chamber. In a Facebook post, Steil blamed Democrats for blocking the bill.

But Pocan says that when Steil’s bill was introduced, it effectively halted the momentum for a stronger, bipartisan measure banning members and their families from buying, selling or owning stock.

Their bill was on a trajectory to garner  enough support to force a House vote on the measure, Pocan says. That stalled after Steil introduced his bill, which would allow members to continue to own or sell stock and included a provision that allowed them to buy stock if they were reinvesting dividends.

“That is the opposite of a stock ban bill, but he’s taking credit for it,” Pocan told the crowd in Milton.

Even in the face of repeated Democratic disappointments in the district that go back decades, Pocan contends the 2026 race offers a new context. Voters’ disenchantment with Trump is part of that, but Democrats are also betting on a message that highlights the incumbent’s record in terms that resonate with people this year.

“I think those are all stances in a year that corruption is a big issue,” Pocan says. With his status as an outsider rather than a politician, “I just think Mitchell Berman in many ways is the right candidate right now.”

Lilly Goren, a political scientist at Carroll University in Waukesha, sees too many unknowns to offer a clear prediction. 

“I think the potential things that could make a difference — and I don’t know if they will — are that the map is slightly different, and whether the Blue Wave, if it comes to pass, will be sufficient to bring an upset to such a consistently Republican district,” Goren says.

There have been anecdotal reports that Trump supporters are ignoring survey calls, which could mean pollsters aren’t hearing from voters who could make a difference in the result. 

On the other hand, Trump’s record-low approval ratings “suggest that Republican support is not necessarily out there and enthusiastic,” Goren adds. “The question becomes, also, whether people come out and vote, or whether they stay home.”

Baylor Spears contributed to this report.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he would sign a bill to repeal tax incentives for data centers if he’s elected, marking a change in his position on the issue.

Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin Republicans approved a provision during the 2023 state budget that exempts data center developers from paying sales and use taxes for the “sale of property and equipment to construct, renovate or operate data centers.” The policy is estimated to have already saved data center developers $1.5 billion. 

However, as data centers have become increasingly unpopular, Democrats and Republicans alike have changed their minds on providing these subsidies. 

A group of Republican lawmakers, some of whom voted for the budget that created the tax subsidies in 2023, introduced a bill earlier this month that would repeal the tax breaks, though the bill won’t go anywhere as the Legislature is out of session.

Crowley said he would “absolutely” sign that bill to repeal the tax subsidies if it were sent to him as governor during an event at the Overture Center on Wednesday evening.

“The fact that these tech companies are getting a billion dollars in tax breaks — it’s being delivered on the backs of hard-working families,” Crowley said. “I want to be very clear about my position. We’re going to be aggressive when it comes down to holding data centers to account, making sure that we protect our land, protect our water, have strict environmental standards, but also communities need to have a seat at the table.”

Crowley had previously been noncommittal when it came to repealing the tax benefit for data centers. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he did not “believe Wisconsin should automatically roll back all data center tax incentives” but that he believed that the state needed “a more rigorous review of whether taxpayers are receiving sufficient value for the incentives being provided.” 

Republican candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany had previously criticized Crowley’s position on the tax incentives, saying that he wanted to give “a blank check to data centers” and that data centers “do not need to be subsidized by us, the taxpayers.” Tiffany has not always been a champion of tough regulation on data centers, either. He previously voted for legislation in Congress that would have banned state and local governments across the country from being able to enforce laws or regulations on AI models, systems, and related digital infrastructure, including data centers, for 10 years. 

Crowley’s changing position comes with less than three weeks left until Election Day and as data centers and AI continue to be unpopular across the political spectrum. A September Marquette Law School poll found that 74% of Wisconsinites say the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits.

This week Crowley laid out an 11-point policy plan for restricting and regulating AI and social media companies. The policies include:

• Requiring platforms to set kids’ accounts and new accounts to the highest privacy setting and cut off unsolicited messages. Users over 18 would have the option to turn the restrictions off. 
• Prohibiting infinite scroll, autoplay and other addictive features for minors’ accounts as well as a ban on push notification for the users overnight and during the school day. 
• Banning surveillance advertising. 
• Allowing parents the option to sue platforms over design choices that harm a child including content promoting suicide, eating disorders and drug sales 
• Regulating AI chatbots by restricting them for users under 13, prohibiting chatbots from posing as doctors and therapists and requiring disclosures on AI chatbots designed to form emotional bonds with individuals
• Increasing the penalties for online predators and sextortion and implementing those same penalties for creating or sharing AI-generated sexual images of children
• Penalizing companies that knowingly make money from scam ads
• Requiring identification verification for advertisers before they can place ads
• Requiring platforms to implement a scam reporting tool that’s easy to use and requiring that they confirm the reports and report the action that they took within a set timeframe
• Funding the state Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to support their work to combat online fraud and enforce anti-trust law
• Investing in county and tribal adult protective services and aging and disability resource centers, so victims of scams have support to recover

Crowley said during the Wednesday evening event that the state needs to do something in the absence of the Trump administration and Congress taking action. 

“It’s unfortunate that the federal government has actually not put in these guardrails to protect our young people, protect our families, but also to protect our seniors,” Crowley said. “Look, I’m a father, I have three daughters and I want to make sure I can protect my girls from these chatbots. You have, you know, social media platforms that allow them to chat about sexuality. That’s not what I want my 9 and 7-year-old to be introduced to. My oldest right now is a freshman at Whitewater. I don’t want her having pictures out there, and all of a sudden, she can’t be protected.” 

Crowley said the policies are aimed at putting the burdens on the tech, social media and AI companies, rather than on individuals. 

Tiffany also supports some guardrails for these companies. He said in a statement to the Examiner that the state needs “common sense guardrails that protect children and seniors, safeguard personal privacy, and prevent sensitive data from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Communist China.” His campaign noted that in Congress Tiffany cosponsored a law aimed at strengthening law enforcement’s ability to investigate financial fraud targeting seniors. The legislation covered scams involving AI.

“We cannot allow artificial intelligence to become another tool for harvesting Americans’ personal information or exploiting vulnerable individuals. We must hold Big Tech accountable when its platforms enable the creation of sexually explicit AI-generated images of children or expose minors to sexually inappropriate chatbot conversations,” Tiffany said. 

Tiffany said he would support imposing age verification requirements for app providers, strengthening parental consent protections and “give parents greater control over their children’s online activity.” 

A proposed overhaul of federal Head Start regulations could significantly change how transportation services are governed, and attendees at the Transporting Students with Disabilities & Special Needs (TSD) Conference this November will have an opportunity to examine what the changes could mean for daily operations.

A special conversation scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 7, will focus on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs. The session will provide attendees with an update on the status of the rulemaking as of the conference and bring the discussion directly to transportation professionals who serve Head Start children and families.

The Administration for Children and Families published the NPRM Aug. 7 and set an Oct. 6 deadline for public comments. It proposes to rescind and replace the Head Start Program Performance Standards most recently revised in 2024, including those for transportation. ACF said the changes are intended to reduce federal regulatory burden, eliminate requirements it considers duplicative of state and local rules, and return greater decision-making authority to Head Start agencies and families.

The NPRM proposes removing the detailed federal transportation requirements contained in 45 CFR 1303.70 through 1303.75. Those provisions currently address vehicle selection and operation, routing, safety procedures and transportation of children with disabilities. Under the proposal, Head Start programs would instead continue to follow applicable state and local licensing and transportation requirements, along with remaining federal statutory obligations.

One of the most closely watched provisions is the existing federal requirement for a bus monitor aboard vehicles transporting Head Start children. ACF proposes eliminating that mandate and allowing programs greater flexibility to determine transportation staffing based on local operations, safety practices and state or local regulations. The agency’s regulatory analysis states some programs could reduce staffing costs, while also acknowledging that programs may continue using monitors because of state or local requirements or their own safety practices.

That distinction is expected to be central to the TSD Conference conversation.

Rather than simply reviewing regulatory language, the Nov. 7 session will examine the operational questions the proposal raises for the people responsible for transporting young children. Among them: Would programs continue using monitors even if they are no longer federally required? How might requirements vary from state to state? What could changes to federal vehicle, routing and safety rules mean for training, staffing and equipment? And how could programs balance potential new flexibility with the unique transportation needs of preschool-age children and children with disabilities?

Those questions have surfaced repeatedly in interviews conducted by School Transportation News, which will report on the topic in the upcoming November edition of the magazine. Issues cited include the role monitors play in securing young children in child safety restraint systems, supervising students and assisting during loading, unloading and emergencies. Others pointed to transportation access as an especially important issue for rural families and programs already confronting driver shortages and increasing operating costs.

The discussion will also distinguish between what has been proposed and what programs are currently required to do. The NPRM itself does not change existing Head Start transportation requirements while the rulemaking process continues. The TSD Conference session will reflect whatever action, if any, HHS has taken following the close of the public-comment period.

The 2026 TSD Conference and Trade Show runs Nov. 4-10 at the Embassy Suites Dallas-Frisco Hotel & Convention Center in Frisco, Texas. The event brings together student transportation, special education, safety and industry professionals for general and breakout sessions, specialized training, hands-on activities, networking and a trade show focused on transportation for students with disabilities and special needs.

Early Bird main conference registration is $499 through Oct. 2, a savings of $100 off the $599 standard registration rate. Registration includes keynote, general and breakout educational sessions as well as the Welcome Party at Topgolf The Colony, the Ride & Drive + Technology Demonstration and the TSD Tailgate Trade Show Reception. Certain specialized training programs require separate registration and fees. Visit TSDConference.com to register and view the latest agenda.

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The post Proposed Head Start Regulation Changes Could Impact Transportation appeared first on School Transportation News.

WASHINGTON — The rare 2026 issue that draws huge support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress is the same one that’s mobilized many Americans: restrictions on giant data centers.

The House has overwhelmingly passed legislation forcing state regulators to consider requirements that data centers absorb the cost of the electricity they use. 

But there’s more to be done, say data center critics, and they’re finding there is no easy or even obvious answer about what to do next.

Leave it to state and local governments to decide whether and how the centers should function? Should their size be restricted? Should they be banned altogether?

The future of data centers has become a flashpoint in this year’s congressional races. It’s woven into the debate about affordability, artificial intelligence and corporate influence on government.

“People see big energy cost increases and say data centers must be the reason,” said Daniel Birdsong, senior lecturer in political science at the University of Dayton.

Before leaving Washington for an extended recess not due to end until after the election, the House voted Wednesday 417-3 on a bill that requires states to consider having data centers using large amounts of electricity pay the full additional cost of that generation, as well as transmission and distribution upgrades that are needed.

Obstacles to action

The vote was only a prologue for action. There’s no clear next chapter, as skepticism is coming from critics at the White House and among progressives.

The biggest obstacle appears to be President Donald Trump.

“The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change,’” he said on his Truth Social site Monday.

“That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they’re on to the next one. These people are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause. Soon you’ll find out they’re working for people that do not have the best interests of the United States in mind!”

Senate leaders have not said how or if they’ll take up the House bill, or any other data center legislation.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, was not optimistic.

“There aren’t many alternatives to a president who thinks this is a wonderful asset and communities who think just the opposite,” he said.

The lawmakers know this much: Their constituents don’t like data centers. 

“I’ve never seen people come together across the political spectrum like I have the last few months on concerns about big tech, concerns around AI, concerns around data center development,” said Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H.

A national University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll released this week showed just 11% said they backed the construction of the data centers in their local area. Sixty-five percent were opposed, and about half said they were strongly opposed.

“Opposition to AI data centers has emerged as one of these rare areas of consensus,” said poll director Tatishe Nteta.

The political divide

Solutions tend to fall along three very general lines: A complete ban or moratorium; giving state and local governments more tools to regulate the centers; and withdrawing federal support.

Putting pressure on utility companies appears to have the most legislative traction. Rep. Rob Latta, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Energy Subcommittee, found the House-passed legislation would protect consumers from runaway center-inspired utility rates.

The bill, he said, “protects American ratepayers from being forced to cover the cost of energy infrastructure upgrades needed to support data centers.”

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., one of the bill’s lead sponsors, saw the measure as help for constituents facing affordability issues. “Data centers cannot come at a cost to neighbors who are already facing high grocery, gas, utility, health care and housing costs,” she said.

At the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned electric companies, Drew Maloney, president and CEO, said in a statement that he appreciated Congress’ work and that EEI’s members “will continue working in lockstep to ensure large customers cover the costs of the energy infrastructure they use, and communities have a strong voice from the beginning of the planning process.”  

But some environmental activists saw big flaws in the bill.

“With only a weak directive to states to voluntarily consider adopting cost protections against the energy costs of data centers for ratepayers, state regulators could ultimately choose to ignore this bill,” said Sara Chieffo, senior vice president for government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters. 

A report last year from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that in 2023, data centers used roughly 4.4% of total electricity in this country. It forecast that the figure could double or triple by 2028 to meet the needs of more data, notably from artificial intelligence.

Consumers’ costs are generally figured by how much it costs to generate and deliver electricity. State and local regulators usually set those rates.

Looking ahead 

While the House bill had strong Democratic support, many in the party wanted to go further.

“It’s a step forward,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, told reporters when asked about the House bill. “But more needs to be done.”

That could include some sort of ban, or at least a moratorium, on building more centers, an approach favored by many Democratic progressives.

“Communities should have the right to say ‘no’ to a data center being shoved down their throats,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told colleagues in a floor speech. 

In the Senate, some Democrats sent a strong signal that they wanted to do more than the House bill provided.

The bill “does nothing to meaningfully address the rising costs of AI data center development. Instead, it relies on a voluntary framework that does not require AI data centers to pay the full cost of the energy they consume or the strain they place on the grid,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“We need legislation that makes AI data centers pay their fair share and actually protects families,” he said. 

Among this week’s efforts was new legislation from a group of House Democrats to end certain currently available federal tax incentives available to data centers.

“Tax cuts need to go to families, not data centers. We absolutely should not cut healthcare and food assistance for children and seniors to pay for tax giveaways to corporations,” said Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., one of the bill’s lead sponsors, at a Capitol Hill press conference.

“Why incentivize this right now?” asked Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., another top sponsor.

Political fallout

Find a close House or Senate race and chances are good there’s a brawl between candidates over who can best deal with the data center issue.

In Ohio, Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican, is in a close battle with former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.

Husted is the lead sponsor of the Senate ratepayer protection bill. Husted tried to get the Senate to consider the measure Thursday but it was blocked by Heinrich.

Asked why he doesn’t support a ban, Husted said, “Whether you want a data center should be a local decision. What we should do is protect the ratepayers from bearing the burden of the cost of building the electricity those data centers use.”

Husted is in a difficult position, Birdsong said, because his call for limits on data centers “puts him at odds with Trump.”

Close House races have similar fights. In Michigan, Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican, is campaigning as the voice of the consumer.

One way to deal with data centers, he said, is by “stopping federal overreach and preventing the secrecy pledges that have plagued Michigan and undermined the power of local residents.”

The House, though, left Washington and won’t be back voting until a lame-duck session starting Nov. 8, sparking outrage from Democrats.

“That means ZERO votes on lowering costs, ending corruption, addressing AI, or responding to the Iran war before Election Day,” tweeted Rep. Johnny Olszewski Jr., D-Md. 

The Senate’s scheduled to be around through September, but there’s no sign it will take a close look at the data center issue. The big hope is that it will continue to be discussed back home and lawmakers will return ready to act or at least debate.

“We have to understand, ‘What’s the real implication here?’” Davis said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled this week that it would not suspend the legal license of former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted earlier this year of obstructing federal agents trying to make an immigration arrest in the county courthouse. 

In an order released Wednesday, the Court overruled the request of the state Office of Lawyer Regulation to suspend her license on the grounds that she was convicted of a “serious crime.” Wisconsin’s court rules state attorneys found guilty of a serious crime can have their licenses suspended until their disciplinary proceedings are complete. 

Dugan was convicted of one felony count of endeavoring to obstruct a pending proceeding after helping an undocumented man appearing in her court briefly evade federal agents. The case drew national attention and in July she was sentenced to pay a $5,000 fine. 

The Supreme Court suspended Dugan from her position as a circuit court judge in April 2025, shortly after she was arrested. 

In its Wednesday order, the Court found that “in its exercise of its discretion … a summary suspension of Attorney Dugan’s license to practice law is not warranted under the facts of the matter.” 

The two conservatives on the Court, Brian Hagedorn and Annette Ziegler, dissented from the order. 

Ziegler wrote that the standard practice of the Court has historically been to suspend attorneys convicted of crimes to expedite the investigation of the Office of Lawyer Regulation. She also questioned why the majority wouldn’t act to discipline Dugan for her actions. 

“These charges concerned then-Judge Dugan, in her capacity as a circuit court judge, wearing a judicial robe, at the courthouse, obstructing federal agents,” Ziegler wrote. “I am confounded by our court’s inaction.”

Kenosha County District Attorney Xavier Solis had his license to practice law suspended Monday. The Office of Lawyer Regulation then reinstated the license Tuesday.

A memo issued by the state court system’s Office of Lawyer Regulation states that Solis’ suspension was for “willfully failing to cooperate with one or more OLR investigations into alleged misconduct.” 

The memo also states that Solis violated a Wisconsin Supreme Court rule that states that lawyers can have their licenses suspended if they’re under investigation by the OLR and don’t comply with deadlines to provide information. 

Solis, a Republican, was elected DA of Kenosha County in 2024 and had previously worked as a private defense attorney. 

Stephen Kelley, a spokesperson for the state court system, told the Wisconsin Examiner the only information available to the public is the rule Solis is alleged to have violated. 

State law requires district attorneys to have a valid law license, so Solis cannot currently perform the job. It’s not clear what the suspension will mean for Solis’ future in the seat. Under state court rules, an attorney suspension can be lifted if the suspended lawyer discloses what happened and cooperates with the investigation to the “reasonable satisfaction” of the regulators within 18 months. 

Deputy District Attorney Rosamaria Delgado is now serving as interim DA in Solis’ office. 

“Administrative staff of the Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office and I will continue to oversee the day-to-day operations of the office,” Delgado said in a statement to 620 WTMJ. “We have reached out to the State for direction. I will take over management and/or reassignment of District Attorney Solis’ caseload until such time as District Attorney Solis’ license to practice law is reinstated or, until further direction is received from the Governor’s Office.  At this time, no other information is available.”

Solis, who had no experience as a prosecutor when he was elected in 2024, has been the subject of criticism since taking office and has struggled to fill vacancies after experienced prosecutors resigned. He was previously sanctioned by a judge for filing briefs written using the assistance of artificial intelligence which “hallucinated” fake citations.

This story was updated on Tuesday, Sept. 15 to reflect the reinstatement of Solis’ law license.

For more than a year, the U.S. Department of Energy has repeatedly extended the lifespan of a coal plant in West Olive, Michigan, arguing the power generated at the facility was needed to help address a national energy emergency.

However, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a ruling issued Friday, said it was unpersuaded by the department’s justifications for keeping the J.H. Campbell Coal Plant online, determining that the department had exceeded the emergency authority granted by the Federal Power Act.

“There is no dispute that for almost a century states have exercised authority, preserved by the Federal Power Act, to regulate in-state power plants for the economic and environmental benefit of their citizens,” Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for the panel. “It is the states — informed by federal, regional, and load-serving entities’ assessments of available supply and reliability needs — that bear the responsibility to plan for and avert reliability risks on an ongoing basis. To that end, states decide which generation resources must be built, expanded, reduced, or shut down.”

The panel ultimately vacated the order.

The Campbell plant’s owner, Consumers Energy, announced a plan to retire the facility in 2021. The Michigan Public Service Commission, which oversees energy companies within the state, and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the energy grid operator for the central United States, each signed off on the plant’s retirement, with MISO determining the move would not violate its reliability criteria.

“The Department’s position would empower it to pick its preferred power sources in Michigan — or, presumably, any other state — and order them to operate without regard to the multiple procedural and substantive constraints built into state reliability planning processes,” Pillard wrote, determining that the department’s emergency authority “is best read to apply where the Department identifies a risk of substantial harm from inadequate electricity supply that calls for immediate action by DOE in particular.”

In addition to the Campbell plant, the Trump Administration extended the operation of five other plants in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington.

Retiring the Campbell plant was expected to save Mchigan residents $600 million by 2040. Consumers Energy’s quarterly report filed on June 30 notes that keeping the plant online has cost the company $259 million after factoring in the $239 million in revenue it received by selling power from the plant to MISO.

Consumers Energy Media Relations Specialist Brian Wheeler told Michigan Advance the company is reviewing the court’s ruling. 

“While that happens, we are continuing to comply with the current 90-day Department of Energy order that keeps the Campbell plant operating,” Wheeler said in an email. “Ultimately, we will follow the law and work to ensure that everyone who benefits from power from the Campbell plant across the Midwest pays their fair share.”

Consumers Energy is seeking to recover the cost of keeping the plant open from ratepayers in Michigan, as well as energy customers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, challenged the Department of Energy’s order and its subsequent extensions on behalf of the people of Michigan. Friday marked the first time a decision had been made on any of those challenges. 

“I am relieved that the court saw through this facade and threw out the DOE’s order that had zero basis in reality,” Nessel said in a statement. “My office has been fighting this unlawful political stunt at every turn, and this ruling proves what we have been saying all along: this administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents. We remain committed to fighting these nonsensical orders and protecting our ratepayers.”

Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Clean Air Task Force and the Environmental Defense Fund also petitioned the court to set aside the order.

In the court’s ruling, Pillard notes that the U.S. Department of Energy order it reviewed had already expired, as each renewal has extended the plant’s lifespan by 90 days.

Earthjustice attorney Michael Lenoff, in an interview with the Advance, called on the department to follow the law and rescind its most recent order extending the plant’s operations through Nov. 14.

“If it doesn’t and continues to issue these unlawful emergency orders, we will challenge them in court,” Lenoff said.