camera and you're good to go.
Hundreds of Wisconsinites gathered at the state Capitol on October 13th, calling on lawmakers to oppose the proposed 765 kilovolt transmission lines.
Residents met directly with legislators asking them to take a public stand against this project.
State Senator Sarah Kieski, who represents the 14th Senate District, was among the lawmakers meeting with constituents.
She's joining us now to talk about what she heard, where she stands, and what happens next.
So thank you, senators, so much for joining us today.
You're
welcome.
Thank you for inviting me.
Well, let's just jump right into this because I know you've been pretty vocal about these lines as you learn a little bit more about them.
And as I said, you met with constituents today who traveled to Madison to express their opposition to these transmission lines.
What are you actually hearing from those individuals?
I'm hearing fear and worry and
anger and frustration.
I'm hearing people that are talking about the impacts that this potentially will have on their property values, on legacy farmland, on small businesses.
We have agro-terrorism that is really big in our driftless area.
A lot of people concerned about the impacts on the environment, on migration patterns, on the water table.
And then there's people that are concerned about the electrical emission and how that will impact health.
So there's a number of issues of concern and a broad breadth of them were discussed in our conversation today.
you?
I think, gosh, there's so many pieces of it.
I think that for me, being somebody that grew up on a farm, now living rurally in the Lodi area, I understand this desire to live in
the country basically and to live rurally and to have that rural livability be something that you get to experience the beauty of the environment, the quiet, the natural habitats of the animals and the beauty of Gibraltar Rock and the Ice Age Trail and all those things.
So I think understanding just kind of the deep heartfelt
pain in thinking about that being devastated through the act of changing the topography with something so big, so broad, coming so fast, and having very little understanding about it, say in it, and clarity about it, I think is just really off-putting and quite painful.
Residents who were at the Capitol for this event, we're asking legislators to publicly commit to opposing this project.
And as I stated, you've been very vocal about it.
I've seen you at some other forums discussing some of the issues that you think these lines are going to have.
Have you made that commitment and that they were asking for?
And what does that mean for you?
Yeah, so they were, they're very organized.
And first of all, I want to say like,
kudos to anybody that gets involved in the process of advocating for things that they feel strongly about.
I'm sort of an activist at heart and so I like feel so much for them coming and if they weren't
if I wasn't in this seat I probably would be with them honestly because that's kind of the way that I have always oriented is like when I feel strongly and fiercely about an issue I really try to do something about it.
So I give them great credit for standing up and speaking out and I applaud them.
They did have three asks and those three asks were good
and had some limits to them, which is appropriate.
So I'm not exactly sure what they will look like, but one of them, the first one was that I would be willing, would I be willing to meet with bipartisanly with other legislators and work on crafting legislation that might be protective.
Now, that's not clear what exactly that would look like, but that would have some protectiveness to it for the next session.
And I said I'd be more than happy.
always willing to work in a bipartisan way on things that are going to serve constituents across the board.
So that one was the easy one.
Another one was, let me think of the other one, whether or not we could have public hearings.
And that is,
an interesting one because they want public hearings to be had on the side of the Senate and the side of the Assembly in the committees that are the utility committees.
Those are chaired right now by Republicans, so would be asking those Republicans to be willing to have hearings.
I'm open to that idea.
eager and offering to endorse that idea, whether or not they will listen to this Democratic Senator asked for that.
I don't know, but I certainly am happy to do that.
And then the third one was asking that during the public
Sorry, during the public comment time where the PSC is going to be listening in about whether or not MS MGS will become a utility, there's a public comment time when I would be able to.
ask that that become a contested case and write a letter to say hey I want this to be contested and I would like there to be an open hearing for the public to participate in about this request for a utility designation by MGS.
I'm again absolutely open to doing that once that public comment period opens with the PSC.
Senator, State Senator Sarah Kieski, who represents Wisconsin's 14th Senate District, joins us to discuss what she heard from constituents who gathered at the state Capitol on October 13th to oppose the proposed 765 kilovolt transmission lines.
Let's go back to what can realistically be done and kind of piggyback off that Senator Kieski.
I mean, what can your colleagues in the legislature realistically do right now to influence the future of this project?
such a great question and that's what I've been trying to really understand being I'm not on the utility committee and so all of this as far as energy generation energy transmission has been kind of a big learning curve for me to try to understand okay what what is the lay of the land how is this done currently and what might
be possible to change with regard to that.
So right now we're looking at legislation that kind of makes the request that is already part of statute but even make it a little bit more robust that asks for any transmission lines that are coming that are new to be following existing corridors.
That's one of the things that is legislation that we can work on and
There was a bill that I was willing to sign on to earlier in the session.
And we'll be working on seeing if we can even make that a little bit stronger.
So that's one example.
I've asked the PSC, pardon me, I've asked MGS to postpone their request to be, put their request forward to build this.
I've asked them to postpone that until May 2027.
And I asked my colleagues that are in the assembly within the same Senate district, two Democrats and one Republican to sign on to that with me, asking again for more time.
Because right now, the PSC has 180 days that can be extended to another 180 days.
But within that timeline, if they are not able to get everything figured out at that 360 day mark, then it would
an automatic yes which has me very nervous so I asked can we extend that 180 more days that would be another request of asking for changes because we need to have enough time we need people to have a say about what's happening I think
property values and how people are compensated.
If this were to come through is an issue that we need to be addressing, we need to be helping people understand if there are companies, big manufacturers, data centers, et cetera, if they're coming and needing.
a lot of energy off the grid.
How about if they are mandated to generate their own energy?
What would that look like?
So there's a number of things as this issue is coming forward in such a quick and fast and revolutionary way because of the changes with data centers in particular.
I think we're going to have to think about energy going forward and what it's going to look like in our state, what we have
regarding the guardrails around that, including asking our state to be one that is like the other I think 33 around the United States that has a integrated planning process that outlines kind of what we do versus doing piecemeal each project at a time.
So there's a lot of different pieces that ultimately need to look at and those are just a few that I'm aware of.
I
I think it's the really tricky thing is, is that because the election is just, you know.
21 days away that will change who is even in elected office may change.
Who has the majority and minority and therefore who the leaders will be and therefore who will be in charge of different.
Committees so in some ways that's a little bit tricky so right now what we can do is kind of talk about what we want to see.
in 2027 to address some of these issues and start to get some ideas out there.
and work with whoever is willing to work on it right now.
Some people are going to be retiring.
Are they still willing to work on it right now?
I don't know, but I'm open to working with anybody that is willing to start to figure it out.
What kind of legislation do we need?
What tweaks to the statutes now do we need that address some of the new issues that are coming forward given the changes in the lay of the land of electricity needs, of data center demands,
And the way that we have this grid that is called MISO, this grid that is a 15 state one province grid that is sharing energy and how those plans and get created.
So looking at all of that and thinking about what we want to do going forward.
particular things I think would be related to the state.
And again, following corridors, making sure that we have energy generation by big companies that are asking for generation.
Some of those things I think would be particularly poignant right now.
you
You know, I fully believe that
The voices of people rising together to make a chorus is going to be the most impactful thing to make changes in our country, in our state, in our current district.
So the more people that can share a kind of a joint.
mission and share that I've had 850 letters, calls, emails to my office about this one issue.
That is huge.
That means so much to me because then I can advocate for that number of people knowing they have my back.
I have their back.
I'm trying to be their voice.
And so honestly, I think it is continuing to.
Speak out about the things that you feel strongly about not give up even though it feels like a really big Machine because it kind of is and yet at its heart it is about doing what is right for our constituents and hearing from them and so making sure that they are in the the in the Conversations they are at the forefront.
They are participating because otherwise
The moneyed interests have the voice.
They're the ones that have the lobbyists.
They're the ones that kind of have the more of a Game plan if you will and I want people power.
I want people to say hey
I have a vote, I have a voice, I have a preference, I have a desire for you to listen to and then you again multiply that and you have a plethora, a chorus of people together standing up for what they want.
That is powerful and that in no way is going to be ignored.
Senator Sarah Kieske, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspective on these meetings with the constituents, as well as the proposed transmission lines.
Of course, here at Civic Media, we're going to continue to follow this story and all of the next steps in the process.
For more news from across Wisconsin, as well as those updates, visit civicmedia.us.
All right, I'm gonna end the stream in a second.
Senator Kieske, there is a small chance that you lose audio for whatever reason when I stop the recording, so thank you in advance.