Transcript
Reporter Henry Redman on PFAS Progress, Gas Prices & The Big Arch Buzz(Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Tue Mar 3, 2026
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As we talk about all the things in life, well, some of the things in life that make us happy and some of the things that we just need to discuss.
And we've got both of them on the agenda tonight.
Sitting across from me in a manner of speaking is the awesomely talented Greg Bach.
Hey, buddy.
Good evening, everyone.
Good evening, Peter.
How are you doing today?
How was your day?
It was crazy.
I was all over the place.
It was one of those days where I had so much to do, like housewise, chorewise, that kind of stuff.
But, you know, every day is a good day.
Greg, that's my outlook, especially when I have Walmart radio.
What?
It's on in the store, and they play tunes I haven't heard in 30 years.
Gotcha.
And then they say, take Walmart radio with you.
And I wondered to myself, does anybody ever do that?
Does anyone take Walmart radio with you?
Does anybody listen to it outside of Walmart?
And it's not terrible.
It's not like it was bad.
It's just like, who would do that?
Huge fans of Walmart I like this stuff that like you're like you're just walking around all day long just looking at the ground going Yeah, what do such a thing who would do that?
And I get if look if there's a good tune on and you want to keep it going You don't want to stand in loiter by the door So maybe you pull it, you know pull out your smartphone put the song on and you keep it keep it rolling But I don't know man.
It was just weird.
I wonder if anyone's ever done that
Or just listen to it at home.
I didn't realize there was such thing as Walmart radio Yeah,
that's
interesting to me.
It's like its own street like another another streaming service And soon they'll be charging
you for it.
Yeah Walmart radio plus It's like prime just with like, you know less, you know
exactly
Hey, this is Nightlight with Peach Wabba and Greg Bach and we are very happy to have you with us.
We got a lot of fun planned for tonight.
So hopefully we help you wind down your day in a very relaxed atmosphere, I guess.
Yes.
Like
the
candles.
Yeah.
Like the incense.
Oh, you know what?
Yeah.
Candles would add some nice ambience.
Ambience.
What is?
You know what?
I love kids.
I love to I love to calm down.
I love to just put some scoffs over the lamps and get some ambience.
Get some ambience up in
here.
When I can't sleep at night, I take ambience.
It's it gives
me weird dreams.
Every once in a while, I slip into Mo from the Simpsons at the ambience, Homer.
So that's what I was going for anyway.
Hey, we got a fun show, Greg.
We got a great guest tonight.
Yes, we do.
We have from the Wisconsin examiner, Henry Redmond is going to be here talking about an article he wrote regarding good news out of Madison, bipartisan legislation, but like, we'll check out, we'll check out some of the catches in there regarding PFAS legislation, PFAS mitigation legislation.
Some bills went through to help with PFAS and before the show.
Pete, you said that that's a big deal in Marionette.
So
it is.
Yeah.
Well, it's a big deal everywhere, but yeah, for sure up here in the Northeast Wisconsin.
Yeah, definitely.
And then in the second hour, we'll be welcoming standup comedian Kristen Toomey from Chicago, from Chicago.
She probably says ambiance too.
Chicago.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So she'll be coming on talking about, she's got a show coming up this weekend at a place called Q's.
I get that actually.
Correct here.
I got a I got a I
got a message from the owner today.
They said like it's pronounced cues cues bar and river deck in prairie du sac.
So we'll be talking more about that today on the show.
And then we'll be talking about we'll be talking about, you know, just kind of, you know, cutting up, having fun, discussing our question of the day.
Pete, by the way, what is our question of the day?
Tom, go for it.
Oh, it's
so busy dancing.
I forgot.
Okay, here we go.
How do you feel about cold cuts?
What is your favorite?
It is, ladies and gentlemen, National Cold Cuts Day.
It is the all-American meal.
It is.
It's a wedding.
Funeral first can you mean you name it cold cut platter is always good stuff
Yes, I if I heard if I had like let's say let's say if I had 10 grand for every time I heard will there be cold cuts there I'd have about maybe a hundred grand.
I've probably heard that 10 times in my life My rider says I am to have a cold cut platter
Have you ever seen that like when they you know you did stand up Greg like sometimes you go to the green room and they have like a They have like a cult if it's like a special show to have like a cold-cut platter I remember is that the ice house once and they had cheese on there, too And the cheese like starts to sweat it gets that weird film on it.
You know when it's been sitting out too long Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's shiny.
It's
shiny.
It's
actually one of like little little square cheese cuts It's like and you're like you're like I can
I'm
not
gonna die if I eat that, I'll still eat that,
so I still eat it.
Like the corners start to curl up because they get hard and then you get sweat on the cheese.
Dami, you still with us?
How you doing, buddy?
Dom Lee, ladies and gentlemen.
my God.
You hear that?
I have a delicious answer, so we'll keep everybody in suspenders for just a little bit here, but.
I think.
I think mine is pretty simple.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm ardent in my belief in this, but we'll talk more about that in the second hour.
Maybe even find out what Kristen Toomey's favorite cold cut is.
I like to ask every guest a question tonight.
It's just a nice icebreaker, Greg.
And I like how you said your... I like how you said your ardent and your cold cut choice.
Got me very excited to do this.
But you can let us know throughout the course of the show, folks, at 855-752-4842-8555, 75 Civic.
You can also text us on the app.
Or if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment.
Tom, is Facebook back up?
Did you get ahold of Zuckerberg?
lessons, probably.
He's
beating up the air while
jet
skiing.
So be part of the fun folks and you can let us know whatever you're thinking on any topic we discuss here at night.
We actually have a call from Greg and Waukesha on his favorite call.
I know Greg and Waukesha.
Love it.
Good evening, Greg.
How are you doing?
Hey, buddy.
Hello, Pete.
Hello, Greg Bach.
My last call into your show, Pete, was BGB before Greg Bach.
Um, so we're going to call it the bgb era of the show.
Um, fair enough.
I like it.
Um, not to be confused with a bg era, but, uh, anyway, um, you know, this was a hard one and I'm honestly, um, still not sold on this answer, but, um, I'll have to go with turkey.
Um, even though I much prefer turkey, like warm.
like let's talk Thanksgiving turkey, like turkey as a cold cut is still good.
So we're going to go with that.
It's a safe one.
And yeah, that's what we'll go with.
All right, Greg.
Well, here's the best part is you can change your mind anytime you want.
And I'm going to
say this, Greg, if you change your mind.
any time you call and let us know.
I don't care what we're talking about.
Is Greg still there?
I think he's gone.
All right, Greg, here's what I want you to know, Greg.
Listen to the show and see, I have a feeling Turkey's going to be number one, but we'll tally all that when we get there.
But I think Greg's answer is going to turn out to be very popular.
Thank you for the call, Greg.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
We
asked the hard questions.
We break stories.
Exactly.
Breaking news here.
Greg from Waukesha says his favorite cold cut is turkey.
Changes mind possibly.
Nobody could dispute that.
We can't get sued for that.
I don't believe that his favorite cold cut is turkey.
I'm taking you to court.
It's just not that kind of story.
This is slander, my good man.
Slander!
Hey, should we get to our three big things?
I think we should get to
our three things.
Dominic.
Holy gasoline Batman.
Oh my goodness.
Have you guys been seeing the prices go up?
What about like Pete?
Have you seen the prices going up
by your place?
You know what to be honest?
I just don't need gas right now But I got a text from my sister earlier who said gas went up 50 cents a gallon overnight in Marinette Which means in maybe Milwaukee or Madison you might be looking at a buck 75 cents I don't know but I'm that's kind of I should have filled up because I knew this was coming right because of the war
Well, we should have, I mean, yeah, you should have known there was a war coming, Pete.
You should have known.
You should have
filled up
last
Friday.
The AP is reporting the price of a gallon of gas spiked overnight in the US and drivers overseas are filling up tanks.
I will say this, I've got quite a few gas stations by my house.
This time, maybe even this weekend, the regular or I would say before the bombings in Iran, uh, it was like three 30 something, three 40 something.
I passed a quick trip today on the way here.
Uh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Two 49, three, uh, two 49 today, passing the quick trip.
It was two 99 a gallon.
It's almost three bucks.
And that was, yeah.
Yeah.
Is, uh, are you guys seeing that?
Let us know eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic.
And, uh, it says here in this article, they talked to one person named Anne.
She said she paid $15 more than usual to fill up her tank at a gas station in Jackson, Mississippi today versus the previous week.
I mean, we're going to be seeing.
gas, gas prices go up because of the cost of oil.
And this is going to have a knock on effect, this big old incursion in Iran.
But that is like the big thing I saw today driving in was the price of gas.
I mean, I actually had to like, look twice be like, I'm looking at, am I looking at the right?
Is this the diesel price?
Nope.
It's the unleaded price 2.99 a gallon.
Yeah, it's weird.
I don't really pay attention to gas prices that much.
I have to be honest, like I notice when they're low and I try to fill up then, but they're never going back to what they were 20, 30, 40 years ago.
It's just they're always going to be high.
So this is a concern because if you have a 20 gallon tank, I have an old Toyota Land Cruiser with like, that's going to cost me the same with the social media user another 10 or 15 bucks just to fill it up once.
So that adds up over here.
Well, and the other thing too to take in consideration is you think about how much gas prices were even 10 years ago.
They were still in the $2, $3, you know, this hovering between, you know, the low twos into the mid threes to maybe even four, like that's where we've been sitting for a very long time.
Plus when the price of oil, so like people always talk about, I want lower gas prices.
Well,
Okay, that's fine.
We all do that's of course a very good cost to cut but when we lower gas prices That's because the cost of oil has gone down which means they're drilling less which means people could possibly be losing their jobs like there's a knock-on effect to low gas prices and So when we say we want lower gas prices, we have to look at what that actually means for this country and what it means for our exporting around the world as well
Yeah, it's kind of weird because I remember when Biden was president and he got blamed for gas prices, then Trump got blamed for gas prices.
I don't think, based on everything I've read, it really isn't up to the president.
No, it's not.
But this war is affecting it, so you could argue that for sure.
Well, one thing we said, and maybe we'll get him back on the show one of these days, but his name is Mr. Global Matt Randolph.
He talked about the fact that it's not about who's sitting in the White House in the moment.
It's about...
who was sitting in the White House when they struck certain deals, which would cause gas prices to go up or go down.
That's what you need to be looking at.
Not just like, Oh, it's his fault because it's his fault cause he's there or yay, he's in the office.
So therefore the gas price, it's not how it works ever, but no one ever listens to that.
No one ever like it's, they don't, they don't, you know, presidents don't cause the gas prices to go up or down.
They don't set grocery prices, but we've
seen to
always blame or give credit to them in the, in this case.
So.
I think I would be intimidated meeting someone named Mr. Global.
I gotta be honest.
I'm excited to meet him, but I'm just like Mr. Northeast Wisconsin.
That's a big discrepancy there, Greg, but I can't wait to have this guy on the show.
All right, this is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
You've got Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We're coming right back with our next two big things.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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started.
It is great to have you here tonight.
Our question of the night is, how do you feel about cold cuts?
What is your favorite cut?
We'll read your texts throughout the show, but let us know.
Be part of the fun.
It's always more fun when you guys participate.
I'm very excited to share my answer later, and I think it's going to be groundbreaking.
But right now, Greg, we've still got a couple of big things.
Let's be honest.
Yes.
Yes.
We have another
big story.
This is one okay, so I worked in my daughter's school Park time a few years ago, and I just loved it I worked in an intervention room where kids would come in after they got in fights or swore at the teacher or whatever and was my job to kind of de-escalate and calm them down and Tell them they couldn't have their cell phones because this became a rule here in Marinette in the schools And
this is a
big thing right now.
I read this on NPR
They're trying for a cell phone ban.
Now here in Marinette, we did it a few years ago, and it was unbelievable when kids got out at recess, how much they actually played again and interacted again.
And some would try to sneak their cell phones.
In fact, there was one moment in the cafeteria where there was like an Amber alert or something.
And we heard all these buzzing phones.
We were supposed to have their phones.
Gotcha!
Gotcha!
Yeah, exactly.
So I do think I'm all in favor of it.
And the Republicans supposedly want a bell to bell ban.
And some Democrats are with them, but some are saying, well, they should be able to check it at lunch for emergencies or home situations.
You know, so I've been gone.
I've gone back and forth on this one because I understand all of the arguments, except for like no ban whatsoever.
I don't think kids should have should have phones in the classroom period at all.
And people will say, what about emergencies?
I'm like, well, if parents need to get a hold of their kids and I don't want to be sitting here going all back in my day, but your parents just called the office, they called you to the office, you would get the call and that was it, or they'd bring you a note and that was it.
Like you didn't have to have a cell phone then.
And there's also the argument of like, what happens if there's something, you know, someone invades the school or something.
It's like, I understand that as well.
But then you make, if we can come up with a whole industry that
Bulletproofs are kids' schools.
We can come up with an industry that allows kids to be reachable, not like, you know, there should be other ways of doing this.
So Pete, you're in favor of the bell to bell band?
I don't know.
I feel like now it's sort of like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
I don't know that you can totally do that, but I'm totally for it.
And maybe, like you said, Greg, if there's an emergency, call the school, bring the kid down to the office.
It's not difficult.
But
I do think if they want to check it at noon at lunch, I guess I'm okay with that.
But I don't know.
I have trouble staying off my phone, to be honest with you.
I do too.
I mean, I'm very much so I'm looking at my phone right now.
It's like, look at me, Greg.
Look at me right now, but my buttons.
Okay.
All right.
But I think that, I think that, uh, you know, you start with, start, yeah, start there, start with, you know, you, you have to put your phone in your locker.
You can check your phone at lunch and then you can take your phone when you're gone.
You get, you get, you get it like that one time, but also you can't just be dragging it around.
the hallways while you're at lunch, too.
It's like, I do believe there is some, I think there are benefits to them not being on their phone all the time.
I agree.
Personally.
And I know there are people out there who say I'm wrong, but you know,
that's how it works.
They can set up like little smoking areas for phones.
Like go in this room if you want to be on your phone for five minutes and then put the phone back and leave.
I
don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or go in there and smoke.
You know, kids
have to
make.
Whoa, Pete.
Pete.
They're just cigarettes, Greg.
Come on.
My
goodness.
Okay.
All right.
Well then on that, let's go to the last new story of the evening.
Speaking of health.
So this is, this is a follow-up from what we talked about last week for my handy tip.
We were talking about the big arch, which is a sandwich that the McDonald's claims is all the best of their burgers in one burger.
And it seems that the CEO now has made a video showing how
Good it is.
In a video featuring a man who looks like he's never looked at a McDonald's burger, let alone eaten one, he showed it off and he really tried hard to make it look good.
And the internet is having a field day with his response to what is the big arch.
Yeah, his name, he's the McDonald's CEO, Chris Kempzinski, I think is his name.
And he tried the burger and he referred to it as, he goes, this is a delicious product.
something like that like and then he took a bite and then he's commenting on it.
He's got food in his teeth.
It was just a weird video on every level.
Yeah.
And the internet's now roasting him for this because like also the thing is when you watch the video plugging the product from like last week, it is what looks like a burger in a commercial is big and is it's huge.
And you know, you're like, Oh my gosh, how am I going to eat this in one bite?
But
He's eating this burger that looks like nothing more than like a smashed up burger.
It looks terrible.
And
it has
like all the different, like at one point, I think he's about to, he's about to take a bite.
And he goes, Oh yeah, fried onions.
I'm like, Oh no, thank you.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
This doesn't look good at all.
It's got, it's got twice.
Okay.
It's got two quarter pounder.
Patties on it three so
far.
It's a double quarter pounder with cheese,
right?
And three pieces of cheese and then the fried onions which are pretty caloric as well Yeah, and I he was sort of bragging about it like this is the birdie and he took it out of the box.
He goes it's very heavy Like this has nothing to do with like they just want
to appeal to your lowest, like, hey,
you can
get a lot of food and a lot of bite.
McDonald's does not have salads anymore.
So they have completely just kind of given up on, this is nothing healthy.
And this video kind of confirmed it.
Do you know what I love in my burgers, Pete?
Heft.
I like to have to use two hands on my face.
I want a burger that TSA
makes me throw because it weighs too much for my bag.
Well, the CEO likes it.
It must be delicious.
Yeah, he looks
very convincing.
Very convincing that he actually eats McDonald's ever.
Show me the focus groups.
That's what I want to see.
All right, folks, we're going to break for the news here, and then Henry Redmond will be here.
He is a staff reporter for the Wisconsin Examiner, and he is here to talk about new PFAS legislation.
There's some cooperation.
We'll hear what Henry has to say.
Coming up on hour two, very funny comedian, Kristen Toomey.
You've got it all right here on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
My name is Greg Bach across the table from me in a way, in a manner of speaking, is Mr. Pete Schwabba.
We are here on the Civic Media Network.
You can always give a call or text the number is same 855-752-4842-855-755.
Civic, leave a comment on that live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter still ahead after the six o'clock news.
We have a comedian, Kristen Toomey, stopping by to talk about all the good stuff comedy in Chicago, her shows coming up this weekend.
And just, you know, maybe her hot takes on cold cuts because it is.
national cold cut day.
And our question of the evening is, how do you feel about cold cuts?
Call our texts, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, civic.
Now Pete.
Cold cuts are funny.
It's just a fun thing to say.
Oh, there are cold cuts.
Like you mean like, oh, was it a bad party?
It wasn't great, but there were cold cuts.
Awesome.
Exactly.
Which, which allows me to bring on our first guest of the evening.
He is a staff writer at the Wisconsin examiner and a man with cold cut opinions.
Henry Redman is here this evening.
Good evening.
Henry.
How are you doing tonight?
Hey, Henry.
Oh, can you
us?
Did you freeze?
Oh, there
we are.
Henry are there.
I'm here now.
Wonderful.
We did it.
Technology.
Good evening, sir.
How are you this evening?
I'm good.
How are you?
doing quite well.
Now, we will leave the cold cut discussions for a little bit.
I want to kick right into this article that you wrote.
It actually came out late last month regarding PFAS legislation.
This has been a long time coming.
And for the uninformed, can you please give a brief overview of this legislation as well as just the money that we received as a state for PFAS mitigation?
Yeah, so in the 2023 to 25 state budget The governor and the Republicans in the legislature agreed to set aside 125 million dollars in a trust fund to spend on PFAS mitigation cleaning up people's private wells providing grants to local governments to You know redo municipal water systems, but all they did in the budget was set aside the money
And then we're planning to come back later with a separate piece of legislation to create all those programs.
Last legislative session, they tried to come up with a bill to do that.
And after initially starting off with hopes of compromise that kind of died, mostly over a disagreement over how much immunity to grant certain types of people, Republicans wanted to
protect what they call innocent landowners.
Democrats and environmental groups did not.
Evers vetoed a bill the legislature passed this time around tweaking the dial a little bit.
They managed to get it through the assembly with the support of the DNR and the governor.
So now it is just waiting passage in the Senate when they meet to wrap up their work for the session later this
month.
Really quick follow up to that you mentioned that that's the that phrase right there the magic I feel like that's the magic phrase that has kept this been kept from happening for so long is that where
Some folks said, yes, there are innocent folks out there who should be protected, who should not be bankrupted.
But the definition of what innocent landowners actually meant, where some people were just meaning they don't want these big corporations to have to pay for them, for the lands they've polluted.
And it's gone back and forth.
And this money has been sitting in your article says for over 30 months.
Yeah.
And it's, you know, the, if you look, compare the language in the bill that is moving now and the one from before, it's not huge changes.
Essentially, it's sort of which industries are going to be wrapped into that definition.
In a lot of places, you have farmers who accepted what are called municipal biosolids from local dumps to spread on their fields to use as fertilizer.
Those weren't being tested for PFAS, but PFAS is all over the place.
when they spread on that field then that is you know running off and some amount into the groundwater and local streams causing you know contamination and the big question especially for the republican authors is has been how do we protect those people who were doing these activities that the state the dnr specifically gave the okay to through their permits yeah
How do you determine, I mean, this is bipartisan legislation, but it was the Republicans that were holding up for the reasons you just mentioned, but how intricate is that when it comes to the legislation that who is being protected and who is not?
I understand that there are some people that are innocent, but also, you know, what we've dealt with here in Northeast Wisconsin, it was
kind of slap on the
wrist.
Ben.
Uh-oh.
I think he froze again.
Wouldn't it be funny if he was just doing that
if he was just thinking right now Henry if you can hear us.
Can you call the phone number?
Because you are frozen right now Okay, he's frozen.
Yeah We'll get him back.
That's that's kind of what they were dealing with up here.
Do we have them?
There he is.
Okay.
There we are.
Okay, great.
Okay.
Yeah, so I was saying Basically last time around it was too broad
this time around, the business lobby was got some manufacturers in commerce and the sort of state paper industry lobby were on opposition basically because the paper industry was going to be left out.
Interesting.
Yeah.
That was, that was the question I had for you because in this article, that's that paragraph really stuck out to me because it says, you know, the Republicans narrowed the definition of innocent landowners.
And I mean, this.
is the best version of compromise because as you said this was proposed in the 2023-2025 biennium budget and it's just sat there but like I guess I have to imagine for some folks that this has to be better than nothing.
I don't know if it's the best version of it but at least it's moving forward and money can be spent.
Is there any talk about where it lands in the Senate right now?
I think they're confident it's going to get through the Senate.
Eric Wimberger, the senator from sort of the Green Bay area has been, you know, like the lead negotiator on all of this.
I don't I don't think that the Republican leaders in the Senate are going to let Wimberger spend, you know, almost three years working on this just to like leave him high and dry when he's finally going to get it over the line, especially in an election year.
Yeah.
I mean, he has been one of like in this article, he's very outspoken about getting this done and that he wants to get it like through the finish line.
He also has a very odd statement.
Even a broken squirrel can find a clock twice a day.
I don't know what that means, but you know what?
I bet you provides lots of laughs in the cloakroom.
Everyone
loves that
line.
We were laughing about it in the press section of the assembly when we got it that night.
It's funny.
Like he, he's like,
Serious guy.
He's not one of the legislators who are often, you know, joking around or, you know, being kind of quippy.
But, you know, apparently he's so happy about getting this through that, you know, he's going to let it loose.
Our guest is Henry Redman.
He is a staff reporter for the Wisconsin Examiner.
We're talking about PFAS, namely an article he just wrote for the examiner.
Okay, so Wisconsin, as I understand it, just
made its standards complicit with the federal ones, where it's four parts per trillion in PFAS drinking water, four parts per trillion is acceptable.
Ideally, it's no parts per trillion.
But what were they previously here in Wisconsin?
And I would like to think the area I live in is raising the bar a little bit, like make the feds come to us.
You know what I mean?
Like what is this legislation?
Will that affect that that much?
No, I mean, in a lot of cases, especially with water law, the state kind of has to just follow what the EPA is going to set.
So if the EPA makes it more stringent, the state is pretty quickly going to have to align itself with that standard.
Really, on the standards especially for largely rural Wisconsin, the issue is that
for every Wisconsinite who gets their water from a private well, there isn't a standard.
There are not groundwater standards for PFAS in the state, which is the problem for places like the town of Stella up near Rhinelander or French Island near La Crosse, where basically these whole communities are on private wells and they're having to get outside water trucked in to have a water cooler in their house for washing the dishes and brushing their teeth.
And French Island just got a bunch of money too from the federal government.
And they, apart from this 125 million, they, if I'm not mistaken, it was, they're part of like, they are part of like an $80 million program that will help basically get them off of bottled water, correct?
I
believe so.
I don't know all the details about the, you know, money there, but yeah, that I think is right.
Okay.
Henry.
Okay.
So 125 million, you know, this has been going on for decades.
Is that enough?
Or is it just kind of like, well, that's what you're getting.
Make it work with the cleanup.
I mean, and I don't expect you to be an expert on the financial figures, but what's your take on that?
Well, I mean, from the start, they've been saying, this is our first bite at the apple.
And, you know, part of it is, you know, you get these programs up and running, then you can always infuse more funds the next budget cycle or whatever.
But.
The program infrastructure getting going is the hard part.
Yeah, I mean apparently I guess like you know the budget process is what it is, but from the beginning they Said this is not gonna mean up.
We're gonna have to come back for another bite at the apple, you know, even like that's Republicans Democrats everybody and You know, there's really no idea how much it's gonna ultimately end up costing
the sense of the scale of the problem isn't even fully understood.
Part of the bill that is waiting to be passed in the Senate includes expanded testing capability.
So we're still spending money to figure out how much money will ultimately need to be spent.
Well, and the other thing too, and I doubt there was any talk about this in the legislature because they are basically days away from being done for the year.
But with the money that was received was from the Biden administration, if I'm not mistaken.
And I don't know how much more money will be there for the current administration.
And when you talk about EPA standards changing, how we will equip ourselves for whatever's coming down the way from the federal government, because I can imagine that it might be the first bite of the apple, but it could possibly be the last bite too, depending on what they decide they do and do not want to fund over the next how many years.
Right.
I mean, who knows how like what.
The budget surplus that we have right now was going to look like the next time we're going through the budget process You know what kind of support is even gonna exist from the federal government that is retreating from a lot of these bar environmental issues So I mean that's a valid question.
I just think right now Nobody really knows and yeah, it does help like them that money the 125 million dollars they set aside
you know, two years ago, it's been sitting in an account growing.
It's actually more than 130 now, just collecting interest.
So, you know, part of it is like, you know, that's a big amount of money collecting interest in this trust fund that, you know, we'll get some ticks up just from existing in a bank account somewhere.
I hope the PFAS aren't growing faster than the interest on the money.
Well, that's it.
I mean, that's, that's, that's a question I have for another time just because this has, you know, no one's proposed it, but, you know, going the way of Minnesota where we just outlaw PFAS and clean it up and this doesn't be, this is not a problem anymore, but that's for another day down the road.
We're going to continue our discussion though with Henry Redmond.
He is a staff writer at the Wisconsin examiner.
We were talking about his article about hurrah, hurray.
Finally, there is PFAS mitigation bills, hopefully going through the Senate and then signed into law and people will get some relief.
Getting their water cleaned up, we'll talk more about that with Henry as well as his hot takes on cold cuts.
Boom, National Cold Cut Day here.
Don't go anywhere, you are listening to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Mach on the Civic Media Network.
Stay
tuned, stay close.
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
You are listening to us on the Civic Media Network.
My name is Greg Bach across the way in a matter of speaking is Pete Schwabba.
And in Madison is Mr. Dom Lee.
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Today is Internet, or it's, I don't know, it's National Cold Cut Day.
It's not international.
I don't know how the globe celebrates it, but today is National Cold Cut
Day.
Just domestic.
Just domestic, you're right.
Domestic cold cuts only.
Let us know your favorite cold cuts.
If you don't like them at all, that's fine too.
Any answer is a fine answer.
It's your opinion.
We are talking to Henry Redmond from the Wisconsin Examiner discussing his story about the Wisconsin assembly passing PFAS mitigation legislation after so many years of going back and forth on this.
We're coming to the end of the legislative session, Henry.
It is, they are going on a long, it's a short work year, every year after the biennium budget.
Is there anything besides this that you're seeing coming through in these last few days that have like big things happening?
Is it seemed pretty standard issue going normal towards the end of it?
Or is there anything interesting to report as they are closing up shop for the rest of the year?
Yeah, well, there's this ongoing back-and-forth between the governor and Republicans over this kind of joint Public schools funding property tax relief compromise.
They're trying to find Yet to be seen if they're gonna reach a deal if they do the assembly is gonna have to come back in a special or extraordinary session and then otherwise there's been this
fight going on the whole session over reauthorizing the Knowles Nelson stewardship program, which has funded public lands acquisition all across the state for about 40 years now, and it is set to expire this summer unless they reauthorize it.
The assembly has passed a bill.
Lots of people have problems with that bill.
It got pulled off the schedule in the Senate last month, so that's really up in the air.
Um, and really that's kind of the big thing I've been watching as this legislature wraps up
I just want this is kind of for both of you guys, you know, there's there's you know Like are you confident when they test local drinking water that are being transparent with the results just to go back to the PFAS thing for a minute and You know, they they're saying use certified specialized filters.
How effective are the filters?
Like I've heard
You know contradictory information on those two you don't know what you know You can't drink out of aluminum because I can give you Alzheimer's like where you supposed to get your water seriously I
mean
I can't speak for anybody else, but like I live on, I live in southeastern Wisconsin and, and along the shorelines here, but we're seeing Milwaukee, especially cause back in the nineties, they had cryptosporidium,
but
we're seeing has an excellent filtration system.
Kenosha has an X. So for me personally, I just sort of trusted me like I feel fine.
I'm not, I'm not hurting nothing's, nothing's turning colors.
So I kind of just trust my government.
I know that sounds weird, but I trust my government be doing the work and something changes that'll let me know.
But yeah, I mean, that's as far as, I mean,
yeah
yeah those municipal systems are you know under so many requirements from both the state and the feds um and you know you know madison even which has had a PFAS problem you know painted managed it i think unless you're getting a private well or you know you're in wasa which has spent millions of dollars you know currently installing their
mitigation system.
I think, you know, the tap water is largely fine.
Okay.
I'm
glad to hear
that.
I honestly,
I just, I just don't know.
You don't know.
Well, I mean, you can also,
you can also call your municipality and ask them about the water filtration systems they have in place.
And I don't think that personally, I don't feel like they have a reason to lie to you.
I mean, they're going to be upfront.
If there's a PFAS problem, they're upfront and they're telling you now.
But I
would
say if you have questions, call the municipality and say, what is the processes?
What do we do to make sure the water is safe and go from there?
Now I got to worry about the lead pipes too, though, Greg.
Well, yeah, you should always worry about the lead pipes.
You shouldn't start worrying about them now, but we are talking to Henry, Henry Redmond from the Wisconsin examiner about his article.
I think this is, I think this is good news.
It is compromised.
It is bipartisan about taking care of the PFAS mitigation bills that go in that went through the assembly are awaiting the Senate and then we'll be on the governor's desk.
Now we were talking about this earlier.
You said you had opinions on coal cuts, Henry.
Go.
Okay, so on a sandwich, I want like a spicy salami, crisp it up like bacon and then put it on like a panini.
If we're just eating cold cut straight, there's a local butcher in my neighborhood, meet people here in Madison that makes a lamb salami, like kind of Euro mix that is funky and definitely not for everybody, but I'm a big fan.
I think salami and bacon.
I'm just worried you're not getting enough sodium there.
You might want to add some salt to that.
Yeah, I'm
kind of with you.
It's not both on a sandwich.
The salami crisps up like
bacon.
OK.
Because salami is one of the only ones I can really tolerate.
I can't eat bologna anymore.
Turkey's OK, but salami, there's something about salami mustard and maybe a slice of cheddar cheese.
It'll take you home every day.
OK, wow.
See, I'm
just.
Henry,
would
it kill you to write an article about cold cuts?
I mean, I'm writing about ag pretty regularly.
It's not that far of a leap to get to processed beef.
Well, we will have this article in our show notes, as well as a link to all of Henry's work at the Wisconsin Examiner.
And heck, Dom, while you're in it, throw in Meet the People.
Meet People?
Is it called Meet the People?
Yeah.
Meet People.
I'm going to be in Madison next month, so I'm definitely going to hit that up.
That is for darn sure.
Henry, thank you so much for being here tonight.
We appreciate your time and your thoughts on the story.
Great.
Thanks for having
me.
Thanks,
Henry.
When we come back, we are going to be talking about the question of the day.
What is your favorite cold cuts in celebration of national cold cuts day, as well as a great conversation with a comedian, Kristen Toomey, all in the second hour after the news.
Don't go anywhere.
You're listening to nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Mach on the civic media network.
Dom is in Madison.
Thank you so much, folks.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
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