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Welcome, welcome, welcome to civic media mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
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I am Greg.
I'm happy to have you here today.
It's kind of a
All over the place, kind of Thursday, I must say.
Thursday, I can't get my head around Thursdays.
I could never do that.
I got Calvin Butenhof on the board right now.
We should just start over.
Let's just do it.
Start over from, let's start all over Calvin.
How are you doing this morning?
I'm doing
pretty good.
I'm glad it's Thursday.
Yeah.
I'm really glad it's Thursday.
I just seriously, for some reason, Thursday just kind of hits me nowhere.
And I go, it's actually Thursday.
And then all these things happen.
And it's like, I can't tell time.
I can't look at a calendar correctly, but you are here with us today.
I'm happy you are spending time with us.
I truly appreciate that.
If you want to be part of the conversation, call.
text.
The number is the same, no matter what you do.
It's 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter.
We have a great show for you today.
It's going to be packed.
There's lots of great stuff.
We're going to start off with the news.
But then at 930, after the 930 news you're going to hear, we will be talking to Chelsea Chandler from Clean Wisconsin, and we'll be talking about data centers.
This conversation is going to keep on going.
We're talking about data centers.
We're talking about legislation that is being put forth through the Madison State House.
Regarding that matter, there was a Republican bill that is going through, and we've talked about that, AB 840.
And there was a press release from Clean Wisconsin about this, and Chelsea, who is the Climate Energy and Air Program Director for the group, will be here to discuss that.
other pieces of legislation and how, you know, how we can protect our communities.
And I will, I will do maya culpa on this one, you know, this, this bill from the Republicans looks fairly, I don't know, good.
I thought it was, but I would like to talk to Chelsea about maybe what it's missing, what can make it better and why there needs to be less of a one versus the other and more of a
bipartisan working together to try to get protections for our communities when it comes to data centers, because that is something that is not going away.
But I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on that.
I know a few of you already have those.
You've called in before, call or text 855-752-4842.
I'm sorry, yes, that she's going to be out at 930 after the 930 news.
And then after the 10 o'clock news in the second hour to kick it off, I'm talking to a colleague.
a reporter from the Wassa area.
Her name is Isabella Nieto.
And she will be talking to us about her story, what she does up in Wassa and the story she is working on right now, including great conversations with people who are running for governor, but that is coming up in the second hour.
And then JR Radcliffe with sports, we are going to be discussing Yanis rumors.
Apparently there are rumors about Yanis.
Calvin has said that he will not believe anything until he sees it.
Yeah, that's basketball talk.
So I'll let them handle that.
I'll just kind of tune out, look at my phone, read about tennis, cause I'm going to go see tennis later this year.
I'm very excited when it's very, very warm out, but we'll talk about that in the coming months.
And then a handy tip from Greg, we close out the show today with a handy tip from Greg.
Today I'm giving a piece of advice to a politician overseas who really should understand why
There's a difference between a political party and parties.
So that's all coming up on the show today.
We were talking earlier about, not talking earlier, I mentioned a moment ago about the governor's race up there in Wausau, Chad Holmes, host of the Chad Holmes show.
He will actually be coming onto the show, be talking to him.
It's great to talk to him.
Great to see him.
He is going to be here next week.
And if I'm not mistaken, I think it's going, yes, on Monday, February 2nd, he'll be here on the show.
And I want to talk to him about,
what they're seeing up in Wausau, stories that are breaking, but also his conversations with those governors candidates as they come through town and meet with the people.
But there is some governor's race, gubernatorial race news that's been breaking in the past day.
And that is, uh, we, you know, Tom Tiffany, current US congressman here in Wisconsin, he is now officially the endorsed candidate of the president of the United States.
America Donald Trump he has Donald Trump has thrown his endorsement to Tom Tiffany.
He did that via his truth social media platform and Quote he has his complete and total endorsement.
This is a story in WPR by Anya von Wagendonk who it says President Trump endorses Tom Tiffany for Wisconsin governor, which
doesn't really surprise me.
I don't know about you, Kelvin.
I don't know about any of you out there in radio land and or live stream land because it's been pretty much a given that this would be the way it goes.
Unless some, I mean, we had heard rumors about Tim Michaels.
We had heard rumors about Eric guy who tried to run for, what's his last name?
I'm blank.
I hate that you reminded me.
Eric Hovey, Mustache and all.
And there was even, you know, there were a couple of stories where Tommy Thompson was dipping his toe in and saying, you never know.
But this seems like it's pretty much locked it up that he is going to be the only real candidate for the GOP this fall.
Some of you might be saying, well, what about Josh Showman, the Washington County executive?
And I would say who?
Just kidding.
No, he has ended his campaign because of the endorsements.
Josh Shulman, I will say, had a very strong presence on social media, was very much out there, very much towing the line, trying to delineate himself from Tom Tiffany.
And I think, you know, doesn't take a political genius.
I am not a political genius.
I am politically...
adept, but it doesn't take a genius to see that this is going to be the way that it was going to work out.
There was, I don't, there wasn't a scenario in my head, Calvin, where Tom Tiffany loses the endorsement of Donald Trump because I think for, you know, Tom Tiffany has been a staunch, mega supporter for a while.
He really, I mean, I will say this, he has come out of his shell in the past few years.
He's very quiet.
You did not hear a lot from Tom Tiffany.
You know, we had, you know, you're not here, we're hearing more from Scott Fitzgerald and Brian style lately too.
But yeah, Tom Tiffany was kind of a backbencher and that's not a, that's not a pejorative.
That's not an insult.
That's a term used in politics.
A backbencher is someone who sits back, does their thing, does the job and is reliable.
That was Tom Tiffany.
Now he has of course stepped out in the spotlight.
He is making himself more known.
He is on social media, making very
wild claims, if you ask me, regarding the state of Wisconsin, both the actual thing as well as just the state of where we are at.
But he has secured the
of the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
And Josh Shulman came out yesterday to announce that he's ending his campaign.
This is the story in the Wisconsin Examiner by Baylor Spears.
He announced he's ending his campaign for governor.
The announcement came after President Trump endorsed Shulman's rival, Mr. Tiffany.
He said, I wish Tom great success in November.
If we focus on the people of Wisconsin rather than fighting with one another, we can make Wisconsin a place to be, not just be from, which
I think that's a good line.
We can make Wisconsin the place to be, not just be from.
I actually like that, but I don't know about you, Calvin.
There's a big age difference between us, but I just find it really funny that during the primary season, when candidates of the same party are doing their best to stand out the things they will say to...
to each other, at each other, about each other.
And it really kind of seems like, oh, these folks don't really like each other in the moment, you know, they end their campaign.
It's, I, oh, it's great.
This is going to be wonderful.
Bang up guy, smashing dude, can't gain enough of him.
And, and that's where we are.
And that's where I knew we were going to go.
I just find it very interesting now, but I actually really liked that line.
We can make Wisconsin the place to be, not just be from.
Tiffany represents the seventh congressional district.
And he's been there since 2020.
And he's been the front runner since he entered the primaries or entered the race last September.
He also outraised Mr. Shulman by $1.5 million.
Calvin, do you have any shock whatsoever on this?
Is there anything in here that makes you go, Oh my goodness.
I'm not surprised at all.
I suppose.
I think it's.
I guess it shows where the Republicans are at in Wisconsin.
I think it's a missed opportunity because Trump is not polling well right now.
And that's he's yeah gone.
He's very unpopular.
So it would have been interesting to have a Republican candidate present himself.
or themselves as unequivocally pro-second amendment, pro-free trade, like a bunch of things that Trump is provably not like a Thomas Massey type figure.
This would kind of feel like the perfect opportunity for that kind of figure to emerge out of the Republican primary in Wisconsin.
Yeah.
And instead, everyone's falling in line to shut their
mouth.
Well, I think, and I think, you know, that is, that is something that I've seen from both.
Actually, I've seen from a lot of parties.
It can be third parties too, is that sometimes the path of least resistance where you have to do the least amount of work, you're like, Hey, that's the person.
I guess that's our, that's our, our, our candidate.
Let's just go with that.
It's just easier than a fight.
It's easier than trying to whip into shape somebody who like, you know, if, if a
Thomas Massey or a Tom Tilley or Liz Cheney was in this state and saying like, well, you got to come more in the line.
If this is easy, he's towing the party line and you're right, Calvin.
Donald Trump is becoming wildly unpopular on many, many topics.
And I know that we're going to be talking to Dan Schaefer in the coming weeks and months ahead about this.
And I'd love to get his take on it because the things that I'm seeing from Mr. Tiffany on social media is one.
really showing a lack of understanding of certain details on policies that come out of the state.
And two, it doesn't really make himself look like he's any different.
And if Republicans in this state who are not on board with the mega train now, this could hurt him.
I remember something Dan said in a discussion we had with Jane back in the day that former governor Tommy Thompson said that he does not believe
That Tom Tiffany is a good candidate.
Could that change?
Yes.
Absolutely.
We got plenty of months ahead.
We'll be talking about this endlessly by by I'm sure September you guys will be texting going Greg.
Just please don't talk about the election for 10 minutes.
I'd love to get your thoughts though.
Please let me know on this.
You know, what, what are your thoughts on top?
If you are Republican out there, if you are a mega supporter, are you happy about this?
Are you a Republican?
who is unhappy about this.
I want to hear from everyone.
I really would like to know more about this.
So, uh, let me know, call or text, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic leave a comment on the live stream.
Again, this, this is an open question to all who are listening.
I want to have this discussion and let's talk about Tom Tiffany.
If you have your, uh, your pros and cons because he is the de facto nominee at this point.
They plan on having a midterm convention, the GOP, which says that we are going to have an election, which actually gives me some bright hope there and we'll talk more in the coming months on that.
But let me know your thoughts on Tom Tiffany as the GOP candidate for governor of Wisconsin pros and cons.
I want to hear from folks who
think this is great as well and tell me why you think it's great.
So 855-752-4842-855-756.
Still ahead, we're talking to Clean Wisconsin about data centers, legislation and why we need better protections here in the state.
But don't go anywhere.
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So still ahead after the 9 30 news, we are going to be talking to clean Wisconsin, Chelsea Chandler from clean Wisconsin about data centers, their press release on the legislation going through Madison right now.
And we'll be talking about that.
And I want to hear from you as well.
But right now we are discussing the news, the not the news that is nowhere near surprising that
Tom Tiffany seems to be the de facto nominee at this point for governor of Wisconsin on the side of the GOP.
He received the endorsement yesterday from President Donald Trump via Truth Social, the platform that they don't call Twitter.
And Mr. Josh Shulman, who is the Washington County executive, has dropped out, endorsed
Mr. Tiffany.
And it seems like it is a one-person race on the GOP side, which honestly isn't surprising, I think to anybody.
I don't believe there was going to be much of a fight there because Tom Tiffany is a U.S.
Congressman.
He's got the media.
He's got the ability.
He's got the reach.
Josh Shulman made a good go for it on social media specifically, but this is kind of where we thought the path was going to lead.
And I want to know from you, do you think Tom Tiffany's the guy?
What do you like dislike about him?
Prose cons, are you a Republican who loves this?
Are you a Republican who is not happy about this?
Calvin was saying earlier that does the Republican party need a Tom Tillis or a Thomas Massey or a Liz Cheney or an Adam Kinzinger to come out and say, look, I'm here for these Republican values of days before, which is a discussion point in and of itself, but
It seems as if the GOP here in Wisconsin is going to go lockstep with mega and Tom Tiffany is their guy and I want to hear from you leave a comment on the live stream Send me a text always like to hear from you gene from Eau Claire is on the line right now gene What say you about this?
Let me know your unvarnished yet very FCC compliant opinion Okay, all right
going
for dramatics again today
Gotta, gotta, gotta get out of this.
Hey, this is from Walkerism.
Walkerism was a step before we got Trumpism.
And this guy is all hands on deck for big money.
And this is, no, this is my opinion, my personal opinion.
I mean, they started the whole beating, not beating on, but...
hurting people who are protesting when they handcuffed people singing at the Capitol who are older behind their backs and they could barely walk and watch the vet fall down the
stairs.
Let me interrupt you for a second just there, Jeannie.
I apologize for that.
And I want to just make something very clear that if you go on Scott Walker's Twitter profile now, he is on a big nostalgic kick and
He is talking about those days, Gene, and he is referring to them as, you know, his glory days and his victory days and the people in there who are getting handcuffed and singing and trying to fight for, you know, the rights of teachers and our schools.
He refers to them as like, you know, the problem.
And I think that, I think that, I think you're right, Gene.
I think that Tea Party beginnings led to where we are now.
And I think that this is the inevitable
The evolution the evolution of that party.
I'm sorry that you were saying something though Jean
No, no, thank you.
I like the clarification.
Thank you.
I appreciate that because everybody who hasn't seen this I mean I I watched on YouTube over on my side of the state because nobody even covered it and I cried I couldn't believe that this was happening in my state and then Tiffany he
He's involved in supporting what happened with trying to get rid of our votes the way Wisconsin voted.
And I remember Trump telling Walker he better fix the roads which he never did.
We're so blessed to have our governor that we have right now.
We'd be up the creek without a paddle.
All of our
Uh, voter information would be going to Trump.
Um, you've got people need to wake up because this ain't pretty and we need protection and he's not the guy to do it.
So thank you very much.
And you have a good day.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you very much, Gina.
I appreciate you calling.
I appreciate you getting in touch as always.
Katie on the live streams is no more Tiffany, no more MAGA.
I really want to hear, I'm going to talk about this going forward and in days and months to come.
And I want to know from Republicans, are you happy about this?
Is this the representation that you would like?
I think that a larger field for people to choose from is more indicative of a democracy, is more interesting for choice and allowing candidates to speak out and qualify themselves for a job that will seek an office for four years that controls the government.
not controls, but like, you know, you are our head of state, you are our CEO in essence.
And so I think that maybe the GOP is losing out on something by knowing this early that they only are going to have one person that is unless someone else steps in with more money, more influence.
And we're still many, many months away.
That is not an impossibility.
But again, if you are out there, GOP members, Republican members, tell me your thoughts on this.
We're going to be talking to Chelsea Chandler from clean Wisconsin.
She's the climate energy and air program director about data centers legislation and their press release on this matter.
But you can always reach out about the governor's race anytime you want.
855-752-4842 855-75 civic.
This is civic media mid mornings.
My name is Greg box.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
Welcome, welcome back to civic media.
Mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator and all things staying warm.
Cause good Lord is still cold outside.
It's going to be cold for the next few days.
And then everybody, guess what?
Guess what?
Calvin, can I get a, can I get a hooray or applause?
A thing behind me really quick.
It's going to be 23 degrees this weekend.
Oh my God.
We did it folks.
The long national.
nightmare is over for now, but they'll get cold again.
But yeah, so stay warm.
Keep it locked here on civic media.
We'll get you all the weather updates.
You need to stay prepared, stay safe, stay bundled up.
But we got lots of great programming still ahead of for you today in the 10 o'clock hour.
We're going to be speaking to civic media reporter Isabella Nieto about her updates in Wausau where, you know, where she sees the community and what she's working on and talking to governor's candidates up there in that area.
But
It's going to be a great time.
Sports 10 35 with J R Radcliffe.
I'm sure we're going to be talking about the bucks and maybe even some nineties music and then finally wrapping up the show with a handy tip from Greg.
This time I'm giving a tip to an.
English politician who doesn't understand the difference between a party and parties, but that's all still ahead.
So don't go anywhere.
But now I want to welcome our first guest this morning.
She is the Climate Energy and Air Program Director for Clean Wisconsin here to talk about data centers and legislation.
Welcome to the show, Chelsea Chandler.
How are you today?
Thank you so much.
I'm doing all right.
How are you?
I'm doing well trying to, I mean, I know I'm, it's, it's
Currently two degrees and I'm wearing a t-shirt, but luckily the heat's working and I'm happy about that so Welcome, we're very very happy to have you here.
I'm happy to have I'm excited to have this conversation because There's been you know, we've been talking about data centers regularly for the past I mean say price say the year or so now it's really hit the zeitgeist.
It's in the papers on the regular basis It's not going away and it's important to be informed and before we get into that.
I want to talk about
clean wisconsin and what you do as an organization specifically specifically what you do as the program director for climate energy and air
yeah so clean wisconsin is a statewide environmental nonprofit we've been around since 1970 since the first earth day um and as an organization we work to fight climate change and pollution and wisconsin's air water and land
Um, so my role in that is focusing on the climate and energy and air piece of things.
We also have folks working, you know, on water and in agriculture, uh, exclusively, um, and in kind of local ruling community work and green infrastructure.
Um, but what I'm focused on is really making sure that everyone has clean, affordable energy, um, that the built environment, like our buildings, transportation system, um, are working for everybody and are not causing.
Um.
pollution.
And I also do some work on regenerative agriculture, wearing another hat and also a farmer in the Driftless area.
That's something to care about sort of from both lenses.
But these days, I am spending a lot of time also talking about data centers, largely because of the huge energy needs and, you know, water use and pollution and other impacts that they could bring to Wisconsin communities.
You mentioned Earth Day that you started on Earth Day.
Earth Day is right here tied in Wisconsin.
That's an
important thing.
We keep that message going that the environment, conservation of the environment, that's very important here in Wisconsin.
And data centers aren't going away.
I know for some people, that's an unfortunate thing.
I feel like there's three camps when it comes to data centers.
There's people who are like, yes, build more, build one next door to me, build one in my basement, go for it.
There are people who are in the middle who say,
Okay, but let's have some transparency Let's have processes and as you talk about protections for the ratepayers the people of the community and then folks who are just like go away Don't want them at all and I feel like we're sort of in that middle ground where we have to focus on the protection of our communities and that's what You that's what clean, Wisconsin was talking about you put out a press release regarding AB 840 which you refer to as a partisan data center bill that passed
that passed in the assembly, which makes a, I'm going to quote this, makes a bad problem worse for Wisconsin families and communities.
Can you talk more about that?
And then I'm going to admit a little bit of naivete on this matter.
Go ahead.
Sure.
Yeah.
And you know, I want to mention Clean Wisconsin's working in partnership with a lot of other organizations were part of the Clean Economy Coalition Wisconsin.
So there's lots of, you know, environmental groups, folks focused on environmental justice on, you know, labor issues.
So protecting rate payers from high utility bills.
So there's a
really broad group of folks that are coming together and have some alignment around what we really need to do to adequately and kind of more comprehensively tackle this really big challenge that is data centers coming to Wisconsin.
So there have been various legislative proposals around data centers now.
The one you're referencing is AB 840, which was a Republican-sponsored bill that passed the assembly recently.
It moved really quickly.
basically that introduced how to hearing and then passed within a couple of weeks.
And there are some parts of it that are attempting to address transparency, have better reporting requirements.
But a big sticking point for a lot of people, including our coalition, is that the bill is attempting to say any renewable energy that is primarily serving a data center has to be located on site at the data center.
space constraints, that's practically impossible.
So what that amounts to is the de facto ban of the cheapest, the cleanest energy resources for powering data centers.
And a lot of us are saying, you know, if data centers are coming to Wisconsin,
we want to design them right so that we're reducing the environmental impact.
And that can be achieved through energy efficiency and other ways of reducing the huge energy demands.
And then what's left, we'd like to see powered with renewables.
So the problem with this bill is that it is, it's just perplexing why a bill that's trying to do something about affordability would be taking off the cheapest options for powering.
that huge load
and there's so.
We've I've I have been talking about this bill for since its introduction and on face value, you know, on face value.
it seemed like a good thing because it, because it was being proposed as protecting the communities.
And I know there was a bill that came from state Senator Jody Habersonakin that went a little deeper as far as like protections, renewable energies, as well as hiring practices, keeping it Wisconsin, keeping it local, keeping it Union.
And that didn't go anywhere.
But one thing about this bill, you're very right.
It came up fast.
It went through it fast.
And from the stories that I read and talked about,
It has its opponents on both sides, but what's funny to me is that Folks on the right who said they don't like this bill.
It's poorly put together.
It's too quick They voted for it anyways everyone voted for it except for one Republican and it still went through which is very baffling to me and on the matter of renewable energies Which to me sounds like a no-brainer, but I never claimed to be smart
The assembly speaker Robin Voss said that nobody wants to see a solar panel farm across the street from their house.
And I felt like that was a very cheap shot to take of the fact that we have solar panel farms and arrays all over the state.
I have a bunch of them in Kenosha County.
I see and no one complains.
Yeah, I mean, there's people have different ideas about.
renewable energy, right?
But there are some people that don't like it, and there are some people that like it.
And ultimately, renewable energy is what's helping it.
It's the cheapest source of energy right now.
It's the cleanest source.
It's non-polluting.
It doesn't use water
in its
generation.
That's another big issue with data centers because...
We're talking a lot about just the closed loop systems and the water that's used on site, but a lot of the conversation ignores the fact that 70% of water used in Wisconsin actually goes to energy generation, and that's for thermal technologies like gas and coal and nuclear.
Renewable energy doesn't have that problem.
So there's a lot of benefits to renewable energy.
And unfortunately, I think like is the case in many instances, you hear opponents, you know, are louder and more vocal than supporters, but there are a lot of folks, farmers who are getting a diverse, you know, diversified income from hosting solar panels or turbines and really see the benefit for keeping those farms and their family and, you know, keeping farming on the land, which is as I can attest is a really tough profession.
Yeah.
If you're just joining us, we are speaking to Chelsea Chandler, who is the climate energy and air program director for Clean Wisconsin.
We are talking about their press release on the matter of AB 40, which is a bill that has been voted on and passed in the Wisconsin state house regarding data centers that for me, when I read it, pose itself as a protection of the community, but we're seeing more and more people who do not like what's in this bill or what's not in this bill and.
regarding a framework for I guess the question for me is from me to you is.
If you as clean Wisconsin want to see legislation go through that is a true protection of the community and the people.
What is the framework that you work off of to make sure that happens as far as putting certain protections language in place that makes that that really has the right idea that can be voted on in a bipartisan manner.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, I mean, what we've been saying is this is such a big problem that this like piecemeal legislation that we're seeing isn't really meeting the moment and that's not doing enough.
You know, I heard when I was at the hearing on AB 840, one of the authors was talking about how, you know, we can't let perfect be the enemy of the good basically, but you know, there is a
question of what is good enough.
And so I think that ultimately what we've been saying is clean Wisconsin, what the Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin has been saying is that we really need a comprehensive framework, a comprehensive plan for addressing data centers, because otherwise we're going to fall short.
So that means better design of the data center
so
that we can, as I was talking about, reduce some of the energy demands.
There's a lot of things that we
do with like demand response or saying like you know these data centers a lot of times they want 24-7 reliability because they say they need to be functioning constantly but there are models in other states where they said like look
when
the grid is strained data centers are the first to have to you know shift their load decrease their load so we don't have power outages for residents for example.
We want to see better backup.
Again, because they want 24 seven,
a
lot of the data centers are coming in saying that they want having diesel generation as their backup and that's polluting locally.
So we'd want to see batteries or.
other clean technologies.
Critically, like I was talking about before, we want renewable energy to be powering the data centers that are coming in because otherwise we're building new fossil-based power like gas
plants.
We've already seen a couple of gas plants that were approved in Wisconsin to meet the load of the Microsoft data centers.
That's a burden on the community in terms of pollution.
We're worried about
the costs getting passed on to ratepayers, that's another really important issue is that the data centers are paying their own way and not burdening communities by this whole infrastructure build out.
So there's a lot that we think needs to be in place in terms of making sure that we've got good community benefit agreements, that local communities are maximizing any benefits that are coming with the data centers, bringing all of this investment and money into our state.
And really that we're using as little energy as possible, making sure that that energy is renewable and that we're also mindful of our water use too.
I'm glad you brought up Microsoft.
I want to talk to you about that on the other side of the break, but we're going to go grab some snacks and grab some water.
We're talking to Chelsea Chandler from Clean Wisconsin.
She is the, when I get this right, Climate Energy and Air Program Director for Clean Wisconsin.
We are talking about data centers here in Wisconsin and going forward, creating protections for communities to make sure that we are our environment safe and our pocketbooks are not being taken to the cleaners.
But more coming up after the break.
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We are talking to Isabella Nieto from.
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She is a civic media reporter.
She's going to be talking about stories she's working on as well as just getting to know candidates for the 2026 gubernatorial race, which is now kicking into high gear.
They're talking to people coming through Wausau and she'll be discussing that more when we come back in the second hour.
And then of course sports with JR Radcliffe.
He is a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and then a handy tip from Greg.
rounding it all out, but we're happy that you're here this morning.
We are talking to Chelsea Chandler, who is the Climate Energy and Air Program Director for Clean Wisconsin, and we are discussing data centers.
We are talking about transparency and what we should seek from bills that, quote, want to have transparency and coverage for the communities.
And you brought up Microsoft earlier, and you mentioned the fact that, you know,
non-renewable energy sources have to be built to power these centers now that are going to be built from Microsoft.
And that is going to be a burden on the communities, on our pocketbooks.
But also, the president of Microsoft comes out and says, it's on us.
We should pay for everything.
It should not be an unfair deal for the communities.
When you hear that as an expert in this field, how do you decode that so people can understand the truth?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we need to make sure that that that talk translates into action and that that is actually what's happening on the ground.
So, you know, when they say that they are going to pay their their their way and not burden, you know, average Wisconsinites and their energy bills, what they're talking about is that they're negotiating a special rate with the local utility so that they are paying for, you know, all the energy that they are using in their data center.
There are a couple of tariff cases at the Public Service Commission right now
that
regulate energy use in our state.
And so what Klim Wisconsin and a lot of other advocates are trying to do is making sure that in those cases, they're actually saying like 100% of the costs are being covered and that they're not passing on a portion of that even to your average folks trying to pay their energy bills.
Because it's a little bit tricky.
It's not just about the power that's being sold.
There's a lot of infrastructure that's
being
built that would not have been built in the absence of these data centers coming on.
So there's power plants, there's transmission lines.
There's also just kind of wear and tear on the existing infrastructure.
We want to make sure that they're doing things to reduce energy demands and produce energy if they can right on the...
the data center, so we're just reducing some of that strain.
So basically, we just want to make sure that, like, one, they mean what they say, and two, that, like, we're truly talking about everything and not paying, like, part of it, and then part of that gets passed along, because really, the devil's in the details.
And that's sort of, you know, it's...
We've seen a lot of individuals, folks from communities stand up and say, no, we don't want this.
They're going to meetings.
They're speaking up.
They're speaking their mind.
We always talk to people and say, you know, go to the meetings where the rules and laws are being made that affect you directly.
Check out those agenda notes.
But it takes an understanding of this process, not just for the people, but also the lawmakers.
And that's, I'm talking like village county board.
city councils.
Is there any other discussions you have with those individuals say, here is the short version of it.
So you know what's going on.
So when a big business comes in and says, hey, we got a deal, they don't just go, that sounds great.
Pass it.
And they have no idea what they're passing.
Well, and it's also problematic because there's a lot of pressure to sign NDAs to not be able to talk about it publicly There's a lot of pressure to move really quickly too and not be thoughtful and that's again part of why we're asking for
a pause and a comprehensive plan because we're saying, hey, these things are getting negotiated way too quickly.
People don't have the information that they need to make sound decisions for their communities.
And the communities don't hear about these data centers until it's very far along and oftentimes feel like they don't have a real chance to kind of share their opinion with their local decision makers with, you know, their state electeds.
And so this
is a local issue and that approvals of these data centers are local, but in many ways it's actually a statewide issue because the impacts really ripple across our state because of the huge energy use, the water impacts and so on.
So
that's why we really
need state leadership as well to help provide some of that guidance and some of those safeguards to make sure that if we are welcoming in data centers to Wisconsin that we're doing it in a way that we're increasing any benefit.
and mitigating the harms that could come to our communities otherwise.
And I think something you said earlier too, the comment of the, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect.
And I don't just agree with that.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but I think in order to get closer to perfect, people need to work together.
It can't just be one bill on one side.
Our leaders need to work together in a room.
And with folks like yourself who can advise on ways to make it better, and that's how we can get closer to perfect, not just passing a bill through really quickly, where even people in your own party are like, I don't like this, but whatever.
Before we get out of here really quick, you said something at the top of the show that piqued my interest.
You are a farmer.
What is your, what is your, no pun, I'm sorry, but what is your field?
I grow organic fruits and vegetables and nuts and have a lot of conservation on my farm as well.
That's excellent.
I always love having farmers here.
I think that's a conversation that we like to keep going here, the health and well-being and the financial impact and investment of our farmers.
So I'm glad to see you're doing the work and you're doing all the work, whether you're farming your own land or you're taking care of the land here in Wisconsin.
We have been talking to Chelsea Chandler, who is the Program Director of Climate, Energy and Air at Clean Wisconsin, discussing the data centers as well as legislation to protect our communities.
All this information in our show notes today.
So if you want to check out
more about clean Wisconsin.
If you want to check out a B a 40 and look at it, please do so go to civic media dot us slash shows.
Look for civic media mid mornings and find it there because we're going to keep talking about this for a while.
Chelsea.
Thank you so very much.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Stay warm, my friend.
Thank you, you too.
All right, when we come back, we're speaking with Isabella Nieto from Wausau here at Civic Media about stories she's working on, but don't go anywhere.
You're listening to Civic Media Mid-Morning.
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