A masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent knocks on a car window in Minnesota on Jan. 12, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
After White House officials announced Thursday they will be ending the federal immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said she would not vote for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying she hopes to prevent some other community from being victimized next.
On Thursday afternoon, Senate Democrats blocked the DHS funding measure. A procedural vote to advance the funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47. Baldwin joined with all Senate Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman in voting against the measure.
Baldwin said at a virtual news conference Thursday that her office has received more than 40,000 phone calls demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be reined in.
“The Trump administration claimed that they are winding down their invasion of Minneapolis, but I’ll believe it when I see it, and the truth is that is not even close to enough,” she said. “What is stopping them from just going to another American city and causing the same chaos? We need to put in law some serious guardrails and rein in ICE, and that’s exactly what I’m fighting for.”
Baldwin said she wants ICE to be held to the same standards as local police officers, which includes not wearing masks, carrying identification and wearing body cameras. She also said she wants to stop “chaotic, roving bands of federal agents” storming across communities as they have done in the Twin Cities and to make sure the investigations into the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, are conducted independently and transparently.
But Baldwin said congressional Republicans and President Trump have been unwilling to work with Democrats to put up “common sense” guardrails for ICE operations.
“I am still hopeful that we can find compromise, but negotiations are a two-way street,” she said. “Democrats have put forward some common sense measures that Americans overwhelmingly support, and so it’s up to my Republican colleagues if they want to get serious about negotiating with us. I’ve been clear for weeks that unless serious measures are added to this legislation that serve to rein in ICE, I am not going to be a signatory to a blank check for this administration to wreak havoc on communities and endanger our neighbors.”
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2025, at the beginning of a government shutdown of historic length. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats in Congress are cautiously optimistic they can enact the remaining government funding bills before their deadline at the end of the month, avoiding another shutdown.
The milestone would represent an accomplishment for the typically gridlocked Congress, though it comes months after lawmakers’ original October deadline and the longest shutdown in history that reverberated throughout the country.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said recently negotiators are making “progress” toward agreement on the unresolved bills, which include funding for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security.
Those three bills are the most complicated to resolve and this year will be no exception given President Donald Trump’s actions on immigration, deportation and military intervention in Venezuela.
Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the committee, was somewhat less optimistic than her colleague about the likelihood all of the bills become law. But she didn’t rule it out.
“It’s up to the Republican leadership,” Murray said. “We’re working hard to get our end of it done.”
House approves some spending
Congress approved three of the dozen annual spending bills in the package that ended the shutdown in November, providing funding for their own offices and operations; military construction projects; the Agriculture Department; and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The package provided stopgap spending for the remaining federal programs in the other nine bills.
The House voted 397-28 Thursday to approve the Energy-Water, Commerce-Justice-Science and Interior-Environment spending bills, sending them to the Senate, where Collins expects that chamber will take a procedural vote Monday.
Collins said the remaining six unresolved bills will likely move through Congress in two separate packages — one funding financial services, homeland security, the State Department and foreign operations as well as one funding defense, education, health care, housing and transportation programs.
If Congress finishes work on the full slate of bills, which will likely account for about $1.8 trillion in spending, it would mark the end of the first annual appropriations process of Trump’s second term in office.
Minnesota ICE shooting jolts process
The biggest hurdle to completing work on all of the bills will be reaching consensus on funding for the Homeland Security Department, especially after an immigration agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota.
Collins said a day after the Jan. 7 incident that members of both political parties in both chambers continue to work on the bill and praised subcommittee Chairwoman Katie Britt of Alabama for “doing a really good job.”
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, ranking member on the subcommittee, however, said there must be “constraints” on how immigration agents are operating.
Murphy said the sharp increase in hiring at Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, spurred by billions in additional funding included in Republicans’ big, beautiful bill, “likely resulted in people being out there on our streets who don’t have the necessary training.”
“Now I’m not saying that’s part of the story yesterday, but we know that they are not applying the same standards and the same training that they have in the past,” Murphy said. “There’s a broader question about whether CBP is qualified to operate in the interior at all. From my understanding, CBP was part of that deployment yesterday that resulted in the murder of this young woman.”
Murphy said he has a “handful of ideas” about how to address his and other Democrats’ concerns about how the Trump administration has approached immigration enforcement, while acknowledging any final agreement will need Republican support to move through Congress.
“I won’t be asking for the moon. We’re not going to fix all of these issues. And I’m not looking for comprehensive immigration reform at all,” Murphy said. “But some targeted improvements in the way that ICE and CBP are operating, I think, are going to be necessary.”
Murphy said he believes there is time to work out a bipartisan solution on that spending bill before the Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a press conference that the leaders on the Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee are having an “important and serious discussion” about the funding bill after the shooting.
Congress could pass a stopgap spending bill for programs within the Homeland Security Department, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to keep everything up and running for the rest of the fiscal year. The fall-back option can be used when consensus on a full-year bill isn’t possible.
That type of funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, would keep DHS’ funding mostly flat and avoid the need for it to shut down after the current funding law expires at the end of the month. It would leave in place the types of policies that DHS has been operating under all year.
Negotiations continue
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said Wednesday talks on the unsettled bills are “going well” and that she expects lawmakers to meet their Jan. 30 deadline.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said his “goal” is to approve the leftover bills before the end of the month, avoiding the need for Congress to use another stopgap measure to keep the government up and running or face a shutdown.
While the groupings Collins outlined may seem random, Cole said appropriators spent a good bit of time contemplating how to package the remaining bills.
“There was a lot of thought given to how to work these things together and what would maximize support on each side,” Cole said. “Obviously, those discussions were had not just amongst Republicans but our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and in the other chamber. So we think that’s the best package to move forward.”
Congress rarely approves the final versions of the government funding bills one-by-one and used to approve all 12 in one omnibus package, though Republican opposition to that has led to smaller “minibuses.”
Cole said negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on final versions of the full-year spending bills are being undertaken by subcommittee leaders.
“If you can solve these problems at the subcommittee level, you’ve got the most knowledgeable people, the people that care the most on both sides of the aisle,” Cole said. “The further up the food chain it goes — whether to my colleagues in the four corners (of the Appropriations Committee) or to leadership — the more political decisions come, and the less knowledgeable the people making the decision are about the topic.”
Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the top Democrat on the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said that “great progress” had been made so far toward final agreement on that bill.
“I’m very hopeful and encouraged, given the work that’s been done so far, that we can do that,” Baldwin said.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy cast doubt on his colleagues’ ability to reach consensus on the last six bills, saying it will be “difficult” to work out final agreements in the time left.
“I wouldn’t bet my house on it,” Kennedy said. “And if I were betting your house, it would be just a maybe.”
Kennedy said he isn’t involved in the negotiations on those bills but expects negotiators are “fighting over something.” Kennedy is chairman of the Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which already completed work on its bill.
Smoke is seen over buildings after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on Jan. 3, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 a.m. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
The U.S. military action to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Saturday night has divided the candidates running for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
The swing district is set to be among the most high profile congressional races in the 2026 midterm elections as Democrats try for a third time to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden. President Donald Trump won the district in 2024 with 53% of the vote.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Van Orden has positioned himself as a vocal supporter of the president, often appearing at White House events and loudly defending Trump on social media.
That defense extended to the Venezuelan raid, of which Van Orden, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, described on X as “perfect.”
“I would like to commend @realDonaldTrump, @SecWar, and the members of our glorious military that conducted the raid in Venezuela to capture the narcoterrorist Maduro,” Van Orden wrote on X shortly after the news of the action was announced. “Perfect operational security and execution.”
Despite regularly criticising American “forever wars,” Van Orden has praised the Venezuela attack as part of an effort to prevent the flow of drugs into the U.S.
“This operation sends a clear message to America’s adversaries: harming U.S. citizens carries consequences,” Van Orden said in a statement. Nicolás Maduro operated as a narco-terrorist under the false cover of political authority. His criminal network helped fuel the drug trafficking that has killed thousands of Americans. He is now detained and no longer in a position to threaten American lives. President Trump’s decisive leadership made this possible. His administration has made it clear that America will no longer tolerate narco-terrorists who profit from the deaths of our citizens.”
While Van Orden’s defense of the president is expected, two of the Democrats running in the primary to challenge him have diverged on the issue.
Rebecca Cooke, who ran against Van Orden in 2024 and is widely seen as the frontrunner, criticized the lack of a long term plan in Venezuela and the break from Trump’s campaign promise to stay out of foreign wars, but celebrated the unseating of Maduro despite the lack of congressional involvement in the decision to approve military action on a foreign country.
“Donald Trump and I don’t agree on much, but one thing we used to agree on is ending American involvement in endless foreign wars,” Cooke said in a statement. “I applaud the excellent work of the CIA and Delta teams in capturing a ruthless dictator in Nicolas Maduro — but where is the concrete plan for stability in the region? We haven’t seen one yet. Without it, our nation involves itself in another foreign conflict. I am disappointed — as I’m sure many Wisconsinites are disappointed — to see this administration betray a central promise when communities across Western Wisconsin are struggling.”
Cooke also said she thinks the president should be more focused on domestic issues.
Emily Berge, the president of the Eau Claire City Council who is running against Cooke in the Democratic primary, criticized the military action without any laudatory comments about deposing Maduro.
“Derrick Van Orden and Donald Trump promised to be ‘America First’ and to end the longstanding waste of our tax dollars bombing other countries based on fabricated stories all in the pursuit of foreign oil,” Berge said in a statement. “They are both breaking their promises to the American people.”
Across the country, criticism of the attack has focused on the president’s decision to go into Venezuela without approval from Congress — which under the U.S. Constitution retains the authority to approve the use of military force.
On X, Van Orden supported the lack of congressional notification before the operation, agreeing with a post that stated telling Congress would have resulted in details being leaked to the press.
However, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has co-sponsored legislation prohibiting the use of military force in Venezuela without authorization by Congress.
“President Trump stormed into Venezuela and is drawing the U.S. into another forever war just to take Venezuela’s oil and enrich his big oil buddies,” Baldwin said in a statement. “Simply put, this is not what Wisconsin families signed up for. This puts all the men and women who don the uniform at risk, reeks of corruption, and just shows the President is focused on everything except lowering costs and the issues that keep Wisconsin families up at night. The President cannot just start wars at a whim; he needs to get the people’s approval – and that means Congress signing off.”
The Vernon County farm owned by Wisconsin Farmer's Union President Darin Von Ruden. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin lawmakers at the state and federal level have proposed a flurry of policies to support Wisconsin farmers after the first year of the second Trump administration brought increased uncertainty, the whiplash of trade wars and the fear of increased immigration enforcement against migrant workers.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it would be providing $12 billion in bridge payments to American farmers to help them manage the economic fallout of Trump’s tariffs. The tariffs have increased the costs of inputs such as machinery and fertilizer while limiting international markets for U.S. farm products.
After the bailout was announced, Wisconsin farm advocates said the money was needed to help make ends meet this year, but called for more permanent solutions so farmers can make a living from what they grow.
“This relief will help many Wisconsin farm families get through a tough stretch, and we recognize the need for that kind of support in a crisis,” Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden said in a statement. “But farmers in our state don’t want to rely on emergency payments year after year — we want a fair shot at making a living from the work we do. It’s time for long-term solutions that bring stability back to our markets, tackle consolidation, and ensure rural communities across Wisconsin can thrive.”
Wisconsin’s soybean farmers have been among the hardest hit by the Trump trade wars because China was a massive market for the crop.
Dr. Success Okafor, policy fellow at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the Trump administration needs to help farmers of commodity crops such as corn and soybeans and specialty crops such as vegetables. The U.S. Department of Agriculture program has set aside $11 billion for commodity producers and $1 billion for specialty crops.
“For many Wisconsin farmers, especially those already under financial pressure, the relief is important, but the key issue is not whether the relief exists, but it is whether it is accessible and aligned with long-term resilience,” Okafor said. “Soybean farmers in Wisconsin have been hit particularly hard by the trade disruptions, and targeted relief for those losses is absolutely warranted. But the question is not whether soybean producers should receive support, but how this relief can be structured so it does not unintentionally exclude other farmers who are also economically vulnerable.”
Okafor said key elements of an equitable government relief program for farmers would include transparency in how losses are calculated, flexibility in program design and making sure access is not limited by short deadlines or complex paperwork.
Bipartisan bill to help for organic farms
Last week, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden joined a bipartisan effort to support organic farmers. The Domestic Organic Investment Act would extend a UDA grant program to help organic farmers find markets for their products.
A number of Democratic state legislators also introduced legislation aimed at helping Wisconsin’s farmers find markets for their products. The bills are unlikely to move forward under the Republican-controlled Legislature, but the package of agriculture bills is among the proposals Democrats have made throughout the year to signal their agenda if they win a state legislative majority next year.
The proposal includes grants to support specialty products that are sold locally, providing healthy food to federal food assistance recipients and expanding the state’s farmland preservation program.
“The federal government has failed our farmers and our agricultural economy,” Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said at a news conference last week. “We would not need a $12 billion bailout for our farmers if the Trump administration was doing right by them in the first place. We are now trying to play catch up, and here in Wisconsin, we are trying to fill in those gaps and support our farmers in these difficult times as the Trump administration fails.”
At its annual conference in Wisconsin Dells last week, the Farmers Union set its 2026 priorities, which include managing the continued consolidation of the agricultural industry, protecting the rights of immigrant workers, supporting family dairy farms and ensuring access to quality health care.
At the local level across Wisconsin, debates are raging over the best use of the state’s agricultural land. A number of communities had heated arguments over proposals to construct massive data centers on existing farmland while others have continued yearslong efforts to oppose the expansion of massive factory farms.
Despite pressure from industry groups and business lobbyists, towns across western Wisconsin have enacted local ordinances limiting the ability of farms to expand without local approval. Last week, the town of Gilman became the third Pierce County community to pass a local CAFO ordinance. Gilman officials said their goal was protecting local resources while trying to encourage a local agricultural industry that can support smaller family farms.
The new ordinance, Gilman town board chair Phil Verges said, puts in place minimum standards to address community concerns.
“We have legitimate concerns and this is the best option we have to protect ourselves from the seemingly unlimited growth of these factory farms,” Verges said. “We can’t sit by and do nothing.”
The first deadline for people to sign up for health insurance in 2026 through the federal health care marketplace passed Monday. With the loss of enhanced federal subsidies coverage is forecast to decline after rising for several years. (FS Productions/Getty Images)
When Chiquita Brooks-LaSure stepped into her job overseeing the federal health insurance marketplace in 2021, about 12 million Americans were purchasing their health coverage there.
By the start of 2025, that number had doubled.
Brooks-LaSure served as the administrator for the federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Biden administration. In addition to managing the federal health insurance programs for people over 65 and people living at or below the federal poverty guidelines, CMS also manages HealthCare.gov — the health insurance marketplace created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
The purpose of the marketplace was to make it easier for people who had neither employer-provided health insurance nor Medicare or Medicaid to purchase a policy that would cover them.
The ACA set standards for what the insurance plans are required to cover, and it established a system of nonprofit navigators to guide buyers as they sought to match their own health needs with the coverage that was available to them on the marketplace.
Early during President Joe Biden’s term, Congress passed and Biden signed legislation that increased tax credit subsidies making insurance plans purchased at HealthCare.gov much more affordable. Those enhanced tax credits brought in a flood of new insurance coverage.
“By the time we left, there were 24 million people who were enrolled” in marketplace health plans purchased through HealthCare.gov, Brooks-LaSure said during a video call with reporters last week. The call was organized by Opportunity Wisconsin, an economic issues messaging and organizing group aligned with the Democratic Party.
The federal move to give people on marketplace health plans larger tax credits drove that increase in enrollment, health policy watchers agree.
Now the enhanced tax credits are due to expire at the end of this year. So far attempts in Congress to extend them, whether permanently or even temporarily, have gone nowhere.
On average, Brooks-LaSure said, premiums for 2026 have gone up by 26%. “For many people, they will choose to not buy health insurance coverage at all,” she said. “But others may choose to buy coverage that doesn’t cover all of their health care needs.”
Monday was the first of two red-letter days in the current history of the ACA and the health care marketplace. People hoping to get coverage starting Jan. 1 were required to sign up by the end of the day.
People can still sign up between now and Jan. 15, but policies won’t take effect until Feb. 1.
After four years of increases in the population with health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office has forecast about 4 million people will drop their coverage in 2026 without the higher subsidies.
“For 275,000 Wisconsinites, these tax credits have saved them on average almost $600 every month,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin in another call with reporters. “Without them, these Wisconsinites will pay double, triple, or even worse for their premiums next year. And for 30,000 Wisconsinites, the price will be just too high. And they’ll choose to go without insurance.”
That was a decision that Shana Verstegen of Madison said she and her husband briefly considered. Verstegen spoke on Baldwin’s call about the choices the couple is having to make on behalf of themselves and their two sons, ages 7 and 10.
She and her husband both work for a small community gym, Verstegen said. Their employer has too few employees to be able to purchase a group health policy, so they went to the ACA marketplace.
This year they pay $460 a month, already a squeeze, but that will increase to more than $700 a month in 2026, she said.
“It’s an amount we just simply can’t afford,” Verstegen said. Realizing that they could not risk the family’s health by going without coverage, they’ve looked at other options — including possibly giving up work that has been a long-term career in order to find a job with employer-sponsored health insurance.
In the end, Verstegen said, the couple decided to increase their work hours and cancel some events in 2026 to save money to afford their higher-priced health plan.
“These are really tough and frustrating emotional and scary choices,” Verstegen said. “We’re a middle-class, healthy, hard-working family and like so many others we’re simply struggling to keep up.”
Forecasts are murky
Themost recent “snapshot” from CMS on HealthCare.gov enrollment covers Nov. 1-29 this year. In Wisconsin, it shows enrollment down by almost 4,000 people compared to Nov. 1-30, 2024.
Nationally, however, the numbers are up — 5.76 million in November this year compared with 5.36 million a year ago. There isn’t enough data to confidently forecast a trend, however.
Of the people signing up in November, “a lot of those folks were probably people who already had coverage and were either renewing it or picking a new plan, but there were also likely some new enrollees,” said Louise Norris, a health policy analyst at healthinsurance.org, an insurance information website.
Norris said there could be a large upswing in enrollment ahead of Monday’s deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1. “Then again you’ll see another sort of surge as we get to mid-January” — the Jan. 15 deadline for coverage starting Feb. 1, Norris said.
Both Norris and Brooks-LaSure said that initial enrollment numbers also don’t tell the whole story.
“The people who are enrolling right now are people who absolutely know they need to have coverage,” Brooks-LaSure said. “But the number always drops when people have to pay their premiums. And so, it’s really the number in January, once people are enrolled, that we think that will be the important number to know about coverage.”
People who are not changing plans may be automatically renewed in their current plans, which can explain some of the initial signups, said Brooks-LaSure. In addition, she said, some people signing up may be opting for less expensive — but also less generous — health insurance than they purchased in the past.
HealthCare.gov classifies health plans as Gold, Silver or Bronze. Gold plans have costlier premiums but more generous coverage with lower deductibles and less cost-sharing required of patients. Bronze plans have lower premiums with higher deductibles and more cost-sharing, and Silver plans are in between.
Brooks-LaSure said she has heard anecdotally from people stepping down from Silver to Bronze plans, for example.
“Coverage is really important, of course, but your ability to actually pay when you go to the doctor is equally, if not more, important,” she said. “It may be that we don’t see the drop in the uninsured rate. We see people shifting to less generous coverage.”
Kelley Bruns, a Sawyer County resident who spoke on Baldwin’s call, said she and her husband took that route for 2026.
Bruns said her husband, a veteran and career firefighter, had to end his career early due to work injuries and resulting disabilities.
When the premium for the policy they had in 2025 rose to more than $1,600 a month — 40% of their monthly income — they opted for a less expensive plan for 2026. That plan, however, has copayments of up to $100, a $15,000 deductible and a cap on out-of-pocket expenses of more than $21,000.
“We have to pray we don’t need surgery or any other major medical procedure,” Bruns said, “since our out-of-pocket maximum is almost half of our annual income and would be a catastrophic expense for our family.”
A Wisconsin plant that President Donald Trump and Republicans championed during his first administration as the “8th Wonder of the World” is set to venture into building data centers with a new $569 million investment.
But members of Congress said the state should first address serious concerns from constituents about manufacturers’ energy and water use, which could strain existing infrastructure and leave consumers footing the bill.
“The average Wisconsinite should not have to subsidize the power or water for a commercial entity,” Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden said.
Foxconn, a Taiwanese company and one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, says it will create nearly 1,400 jobs in Racine County over the next four years, in exchange for up to $96 million in total performance-based tax credits. It’s the second amendment to the company’s contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. after Foxconn dramatically rolled back its initial plan, proposed in 2017, to invest $10 billion and create as many as 13,000 jobs.
Foxconn had invested nearly $717 million by the end of last year, according to WEDC.
The company’s original multibillion-dollar deal with Wisconsin was heralded as an “America first” achievement, complete with a White House rollout attended by former Speaker Paul Ryan and former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
“The construction of this facility represents the return of LCD electronics and electronics manufacturing to the United States,” Trump said at the announcement in 2017.
However, Foxconn’s new investment will take Wisconsin — where Meta and Microsoft in the last several months have announced deals to build data centers — further into the AI economy.
Five days before Foxconn pledged new investments in Wisconsin in November, OpenAI announced it would “share insight into emerging hardware needs across the AI industry to help inform Foxconn’s design and development efforts for hardware to be manufactured at Foxconn’s U.S. facilities.”
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, whose district includes 11 Madison-based data centers, said the state’s growing data sector should be a wake-up call to the Republican-led Congress.
“All the more reason Congress should get its act together because we need to do the proper regulation that’s good on all fronts related to AI, and I feel like we’re not even crawling at this point,” Pocan said.
The House reconciliation bill included a provision to halt AI regulation by states for 10 years, but the Senate cut the language.
The question of who will pay for the new data centers’ anticipated energy and water consumption is becoming a major concern for lawmakers and constituents alike.
“I think if you’re going to have this data center, you are either going to — business is not going to like this — you’re either going to help pay for those utility rates (that) are rising, or you’re going to self-power,” Van Orden said.
Some Wisconsin residents have spoken out against data centers’ environmental impacts, including at small protests in seven cities across the state in the first week of December.
Just two major data centers slated for development alone, including the Microsoft project, would require the energy of 4.3 million homes, according to Clean Wisconsin, an advocacy organization that has criticized rising resource demands from the state’s data centers.
“The issue is we only have 2.8 million homes in Wisconsin,” said Amy Barrilleaux, a spokesperson for the organization.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said that although the energy and water demands of data centers are ultimately a local permitting issue, constituents’ concerns are very real.
“I’d be concerned about that, as well,” Johnson said.
A petition to pause approvals of AI data centers until these issues are resolved got nearly 3,000 signatures since last week, Barrilleaux said, calling it a sign of the growing “frustration” from Wisconsinites over the state’s lack of transparency about how the centers will affect the energy system.
“If you’re in Wisconsin right now and probably a lot of states, you hear about a new AI data center development every couple of weeks. So it feels overwhelming,” Barrilleaux said. “It’s not just what’s happening on that Foxconn site.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., pointed to public input processes taking place in local government.
“I want my constituents to get their questions answered before these projects move ahead,” Baldwin told NOTUS.
Reps. Glenn Grothman and Tony Wied declined to comment on the Foxconn plant. A spokesperson for Rep. Bryan Steil, whose district includes Racine County, did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
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