(The Center Square) – A series of hearings related to a challenged plan for a Line 5 reroute will begin next month to determine if Enbridge Energy can begin the project.
Enbridge applied for permits and proposed to reroute the line in 2020 by replacing 20 miles of existing pipeline – including the 12 miles currently within the reservation – with a 41-mile-long stretch of pipe around the reservation in northern Wisconsin.
Line 5 transports 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario for 645 miles through a 30-inch diameter pipe.
The challenge comes as Enbridge learned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Michigan have fast-tracked permitting for a $500 million project for 3.6 miles of pipeline tunneled under the straits of Mackinac between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City under an executive order from President Donald Trump related to emergency energy production projects.
The pipeline currently sits on the shoreline in that area. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy approved Enbridge’s proposal three years ago while the Michigan Public Service Commission sanctioned it in late 2023.
“It may have taken a year, but I’m glad that the Army Corps took my advice and agreed to fast-track the Line 5 tunnel project,” said Michigan Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River. “It’s moves like this that prove how impactful strong leadership can be. I’m sure the Army Corps saw my letter, but they listened because the administration recognizes the importance of the pipeline and is fighting to keep it open.”
The first virtual hearing for the Wisconsin reroute will be May 13-14, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discussing impacts to the Bad River Band’s water quality standards. Afterward, there will be 30 days for public comment on the impacts.
The Band is pointing toward how Enbridge’s spilled more than 69,000 gallons of crude oil in Oakland, located in Jefferson County east of Cambridge, from Line 6 due to a failed gasket flange. The spill was initially reported as a two-gallon spill but further investigation found that it was a much larger spill.
The Band is both concerned about water contamination on the reservation, in Lake Superior and in the wetlands that serve as the Band’s wild rice beds and as a critical migratory bird habitat.
“It’s longer, it has more water crossings and it doesn’t eliminate the risk to the Band and the impact to their watershed in the event of a spill or spills,” Managing Attorney for Earthjustice’s Tribal Partnerships Program Gussie Lord told The Center Square about the reroute plan. “We know that pipelines spill, Line 5 itself has spilled dozens of times during its lifetime, I think 29 times in the past 50 years. The Band isn’t convinced that this reroute is going to protect its watershed, protect the Great Lakes, protect it from an oil spill.”
Enbridge told The Center Square that it has received five years of public review and input, making it the most-studied pipeline project in Wisconsin history. The process included an Environmental Impact Statement and a process to mitigate any project impacts.
“We’re confident construction impacts from the project are temporary, will have no measurable impacts on water quality, and will not exceed the Bad River Band’s water quality standards,” Enbridge told The Center Square through a spokesperson. “This was confirmed by extensive and thorough sediment modeling by RPS (now Tetra Tech), a firm with over 40 years of experience. The RPS modeling demonstrated that any increase in sediment levels associated with construction would completely clear in hours – significantly less than during an average rainstorm.”
The hearings will continue on Aug. 12 at Northwood Technical College in Ashland, where the public can testify related to permits from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
There will be a trial-like hearing in Room S149at the Hill Farms State Office Building in Madison from Sept. 3-12 where environmental groups will present a case against the WDNR permits.
The Band will bring witnesses to challenge the adequacy of the WDNR approval of the re-route from Sept. 15-19 at Northwood and then a potential hearing will take place in the same room in Madson from Sept. 22-Oct. 3 where Enbridge and the WDNR will present their cases.
“The project will generate millions of dollars in construction spending in local communities and create 700 family supporting union jobs,” Enbridge told The Center Square through a spokesperson. “Refineries and propane facilities in the Great Lakes region rely on raw materials from Line 5 to produce refined products millions of people rely on every single day.”

(The Center Square) – High school sophomores could soon get updates on what their potential college major would cost, and how much they’d make after graduation, under a new plan at the Wisconsin Capitol.
The Assembly’s Committee on Education recently approved the legislation.
The plan, AB 166, requires the University of Wisconsin system, along with private colleges in the state and Wisconsin’s technical colleges, to “report cost and student outcome data” to high schools. The idea is to make sure high school students know what they’re in for if they go to college or a technical school.
“We’re now asking children at sophomore year, junior year to start thinking about ‘what is your plan?’,” Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, said. “So, we have kids at 14, 15, 16 years old starting to take four-year credits, starting to take tech classes.”
The colleges and universities would be required to share with high-schoolers:
● Average salaries for recent grads, and graduates from five, 10, and 15 years ago.
● Average debt loads for graduates and students who drop out, both overall and broken down by major.
● A school’s graduation rate, both in the aggregate and broken down by major.
● A school’s yearly total cost, and average net cost
● Financial aid that is available to students
● The 10 most popular degree programs
“The goal of this bill, of course, is to help students in high school make good choices, better choices on where they’re going to spend the next four years or more,” Rep. Paul Malotik, R-Grafton, said.
The proposal is headed for a vote in the full Assembly with support from both Republicans and Democrats. Though three Democrats did vote against the proposal in the committee. All three said the legislation would place another unfunded mandate on Wisconsin’s colleges and universities.

(The Center Square) – Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that led to a $325 per student per year funding increase for the next 400 years was allowed, according to a 4-3 Friday ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Evers used his partial veto power to erased numbers and a hyphen to change “2024-25” to “2425” in the budget bill, locking in the increase for 400 years.
“I exercised the same line-item veto authority that has been used by decades’ worth of Wisconsin governors, including my predecessor—a line-item veto that the Wisconsin Supreme Court, at a time when it was under Republican control, declined to review,” Evers said in a statement after the ruling.
That change was challenged, reaching the state’s Supreme Court for Friday’s ruling.
“The bottom line is that the partial vetoes were within the bounds of the constitution,” Justice Jill Karofsky wrote. “But the legislature is not without recourse. It has multiple options at its disposal …”
Karofsky then outlined that lawmakers can address the vetoes in the 2025–27 biennial budget process, pass a constitutional amendment to change the governor’s veto power or draft funding bills outside of the appropriations bills to avoid the partial veto.
“At present, legislators are circulating a proposed joint resolution for a constitutional amendment that would change the governor’s partial veto power to permit him or her to only veto entire sections of the proposed bill or to reduce appropriation amounts,” Karofsky wrote. “If the proposed joint resolution is adopted in 2025, it will go through the same process for submission to the voters. Such a constitutional amendment would substantially supersede this court’s partial veto precedent.”
Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote a dissenting opinion for the court, joined by Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley.
“As governors pushed the boundaries over the last half-century, this court largely responded by throwing up its hands,” Hagedorn wrote. “And now, what the constitution calls the power to ‘approve in whole or in part’ has transformed into the monarchical authority of one person to create brand new laws from scratch.
“Instead of reading what the bills actually say, and construing the partial veto power accordingly, this court treats bills presented to the governor as simply a set of alphanumeric ingredients from which the governor can cook up whatever he pleases.”
The decision was criticized heavily by conservatives in the state.
“The Governor is not a king, even if the state Supreme Court says he is,” wrote Will Flanders, an education policy expert at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. “Given this increase, the legislature should fight hard against any further increases for public schools that are now set up for a boondoggle.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin sent a $2 million earmark to Discover Green Bay and released $5 million of opportunity attraction and promotion funds to tourism agencies in the state heading into next week’s NFL draft, scheduled to run from April 24-26 near Lambeau Field.
That’s in addition to the $1.25 million being requested for additional law enforcement resources at the event.
Politicians such as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers have continued to tout economic impact claims about the event as they request more funding. But those numbers – an economic impact of $94 million in the state and $20 million in the Green Bay area – are not backed up by solid economic numbers, according to economists who study large sporting events.
“Every year these bogus economic claims about the NFL draft come out,” economist J.C. Bradbury wrote about the Green Bay tourism estimates. “Economists haven’t studied it directly because it makes no sense. But we really could use an actual serious study to counteract this BS PR.”
Inflated claims are often a part of funding requests related to sports stadiums. But economists say the numbers are often flawed because they include only the revenue and not the lost revenue from the crowding out of other events, diverted spending from elsewhere in a region and costs related to hosting an event.
Last year, Visit Detroit claimed the draft created $213.6 million of economic impact and Kansas City made the claim of more than $100 million in 2023.
Both claims were disputed by economists.
“The Draft is an outstanding opportunity to showcase everything Wisconsin and Titletown have to offer—and on a global stage,” Evers said in his weekly radio address. “The economic benefits will be felt by local businesses, Main Streets, and communities throughout the Fox Valley and across our state.”
Evers said that 250,000 are expected to attend the draft. Several media outlets reported this week that short-term rentals near Lambeau Field have dropped prices and are still available.
“This is a free family event. It’s not like a Super Bowl corporate audience,” Nick Meisner of Discover Green Bay told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “It’s families and it’s real people who are coming to a free event. Those prices are simply out of their range.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s unemployment rate remained at 3.2% in March, a full percentage point better than the 4.2% national rate.
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Chief Economist Dennis Winters said during a news conference Thursday the data didn’t show any large-scale layoffs as businesses face an uncertain financial and overall trade market outlook after President Donald Trump’s tariffs were introduced.
Winters said that Wisconsin companies are sitting and waiting right now instead of acting.
“It puts them into a kind of limbo,” Winters said. “… You haven’t seen a lot of drastic action at this point.”
Winters added that companies would love to have more information in order to plan for the next six quarters but that they are “stuck kind of straddling the fence here because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He also said that consumers have shown similar apprehension.
The data show that there were 3,055,200 total nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin in March. The state’s labor force participation rate went down to 65.6% while the national rate is up to 62.5%,
The total number of individuals employed decreased by 5,600 over the month to 3,071,900.

(The Center Square) – A new poll says abortion and stopping President Trump were the top issues for voters in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election.
The Institute for Reforming Government recently released the poll after the April 1 election.
“Every election that doesn’t go one side’s way people can get us to ‘Why voters did what they did?’ We thought it’s important to really take a deep dive and get some data,” IRG’s Chris Reader said Thursday.
“There were really two, well two and a half, issues. There was Trump, Elon Musk, and the Trump agenda, And the left was just absolutely ready, and wanting, and angry, and they were able to get voters out to the polls in an effort – the voters thought – to stop Elon Musk [and] to stop President Trump’s agenda,” Reader added. “The other big issue that is out there, is the abortion issue.”
The poll said 80% of voters said abortion was an important issue, and 75% of voters said stopping Trump’s agenda was important. The poll said another nearly 60% of voters disapproved of Elon Musk.
The poll paints a picture of a wave of voters who didn’t so much vote for Justice-elect Susan Crawford but voted against Trump.
Reader said it hurt Brad Schimel that Wisconsin’s Trump base, largely, didn’t vote for him.
“The left turned out to stop him, [and] the right did not apparently see that same motivation,” Reader said. “So, 600,000 people that voted for [Trump] last fall did not now five months later and feel it necessary to turn out in order to protect the Trump agenda – to vote in-line with what President Trump and Elon Musk were saying.”
The IRG poll did say that 88% of voters said crime was an important issue. But Reader said no more than 5% said it was the issue that decided the race.
Many of the millions of dollars in ads in the race focused on crime, accusing both Crawford and Schimel of being soft on crime.
The IRG poll suggests those ads didn’t move the needle for most voters.
Wisconsin’s April Supreme Court race set spending records, with at least $100 million spent between both Crawford, Schimel, and outside groups.

(The Center Square) – The co-chairs of Wisconsin’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee announced there will be a public hearing at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at the state capitol about two audits on the costs of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Wisconsin government.
An audit of Wisconsin state government agencies spent $2.4 million on the salary and costs of 47 employees related to DEI while a second audit showed the University of Wisconsin system spent $40.2 million on offices with duties related to DEI, though the amounts spent specifically related to DEI were not specified.
“These new reports show millions of dollars spent to propagate hateful rhetoric to divide Wisconsinites in our halls of government and universities,” co-chairs Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, and Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, said in a statement. “The agencies and colleges pushing these DEI initiatives need to be held accountable. We look forward to shining a light on these wasteful practices at next week’s hearing.”
The audits were completed on April 11 after being approved and ordered by the committee in May 2024.
The audit showed that the UW System spent $12.5 million related to salaries and compensation for roles that have DEI functions while an estimated $7.9 million was spent working on DEI activities related to a DEI checklist.
The audits were intended to investigate the costs of a November 2019 executive order signed by Gov. Tony Evers requiring each state agency to develop a DEI plan.
The government agency audit found that 21 state agencies completed DEI action plans between January 2020 and April 2024 with 1,212 combined DEI actions taken in those agencies.

(The Center Square) – There continues to be a lot of discussion around Milwaukee Public Schools’ lead paint cleanup, even though little of it is about the actual cleanup.
The city’s school district has not said when it expects to have seven schools with dangerously high lead levels cleaned, or when it expects to test the rest of its students for lead poisoning.
Gov. Tony Evers last week ordered MPS to do more to clean up the lead that has closed several schools.
This week, two parent groups suggested that MPS sue the makers of lead paint that is still in the city’s schools.
“As the district begins to weigh the costs of remediation of this highly toxic hazard harming the health and well-being of MPS students, teachers and staff, we agree efforts must be made to find revenue to cover the costs of this daunting endeavor,” Lead-Safe Schools MKE and Get The Lead Out Coalition said in a statement.
Lead-based paints have been banned in the United States since 1978, but many of Milwaukee’s schools were built before that ban went into effect.
MPS has not said how many schools have lead paint, or how many kids have been exposed to the chips or dust that comes from lead paint.
Parents, though, could get a bit more information about the work to replace that lead paint.
MPS School Board members Missy Zombor and Megan O’Halloran are planning to introduce a proposal at Thursday’s school board meeting to create a public portal to track work orders at Milwaukee schools.
“We have heard loud and clear from…parents that they were very concerned with the work that was being done and how we are going to ensure there is strong oversight,” O’Halloran told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The public portal would track the “quantity of work orders” for lead paint complaints. Parents and the public could also see the response times to deal with those orders.
MPS’ superintendent is not saying just how long it could take to clean the lead paint from all of the city’s schools. She’s also not saying how long it will take to clean the lead paint out of the seven schools that have been flagged for dangerously high lead levels.
Milwaukee’s health department said this week there could be lead paint in as many as 100 MPS buildings.
The health department has also warned in the past it may need to test as many as 10,000 MPS students for lead poisoning.

(The Center Square) – It once again looks like the race for Congress in western Wisconsin will be crowded.
Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge filed the paperwork to run against current Congressman Derrick Van Orden.
“It just seems like our current representative isn’t really listening or aware of the magnitude of the issues,” Berge said.
Berge is the second Democrat to jump into the race, though she may not be the last.
Rebecca Cooke, who ran against Van Orden last November and lost, has already said she’s running again next year. And there’s word that two or three other Democrats may jump into the race as well.
Berge told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it’s time for a “new candidate,” adding that Cooke has lost twice in the race for the seat in the western part of the state.
“Democrats want a choice in this election,” Berge said. “They don’t want to be forced to vote for someone, especially someone that’s lost twice before.”
Berge is currently the head of Eau Claire’s city council. She was first elected to the council in 2018 and became council president in 2023.
“I’m running because our communities deserve better,” Berge said in her campaign statement. “The gap between what our communities need and what we’re getting from our current representation has never been wider.”
Western Wisconsin’s Third District is one of two possible swing districts in Wisconsin and is the one that got the most attention last year.
The 2024 Democratic primary for the seat saw $1.5 million in spending, with Cooke winning.
Van Orden went on to win the seat by about 2.5 points or about 12,000 votes.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin ranked near the middle of the pack at 26th in economic outlook in the American Legislative Exchange Council’s rankings released Tuesday.
ALEC’s 18th edition of its annual “Rich States, Poor States” report showed that Wisconsin was 34th in economic performance over the 10 years running from 2013 to 2023, ranking 37th in state gross domestic product, 34th in absolute domestic migration and 32nd in non-farm payroll.
The rankings looked at 15 state policy variables to determine an overall economic outlook ranking based upon the premise that states that spend less and tax less experience higher growth ranks than states that tax and spend more.
“Each of these factors is influenced directly by state lawmakers through the legislative process,” the report’s author’s wrote.
Wisconsin’s economic outlook ranking has dropped from a high of 12th in 2020 to 15th in 2021, 14th in 2022, 17th in 2023, 21st in 2024 and the current ranking of 26th.
Wisconsin earned its top ratings for being a right-to-work state, relying on the $7.25 state minimum wage and not having an estate or inheritance tax.
Wisconsin received its lowest ratings in the average workers’ compensation costs (42nd), personal income tax progressivity (40th) and top marginal person income tax rate (40th).
Wisconsin workers’ compensation costs employers $1.67 on average per $100 of payroll.