• Provides $10 million for “clean energy” job training and reemployment programs.
• Requires the Public Service Commission to establish the social cost of carbon and requires the commission to consider the social cost of carbon when evaluating utility construction applications.
• Allows utilities to securitize the entire remaining unpaid balance of a retiring power plant. Currently, only the unpaid balance of pollution control equipment may be securitized.
• Establishes the Office of Environmental Justice to, in part, perform a climate risk assessment and create a resilience plan for state agencies.
• Requires municipal comprehensive plans, local hazard mitigation plans and community health assessments to address the impact of climate change.
• Provides $5 million GPR over the biennium to support a clean energy small business incubator.
• Establishes the Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy and creates a one-time $4 million GPR clean energy grant program.
• Provides $500,000 SEG over the biennium to create a biodigester planning grant program.
• Creates a sales and use tax exemption for property used primarily to store or facilitate the storage of energy produced by a solar, wind, or biogas renewable energy system for an anticipated reduction in tax revenue of $4.2 million over the biennium.
• Establishes a workgroup to develop a “stretch energy code” for Wisconsin.

It is likely many of these items will be removed or modified by the Legislature when it receives the Budget Bill.

Gov. Tony Evers has announced his appointment of Summer Strand to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC). The appointment fills a vacancy created by the resignation of Ellen Nowak, which was effective March 1. This appointment was effective March 2, 2023, for a six-year term expiring in 2029.

Legislative Issues

ACTION ALERT

Link to Comment on  Docket 9300-DR-105

By James Buchen, WUI Executive Director

The Wisconsin Legislature began it’s 2021- 22 session in January and is currently in the middle of deliberations on the State Budget. The Budget, as introduced by Governor Evers in February, contains a number of energy related provisions that may be adverse to utility shareholder interests. Fortunately, the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has voted to remove these provisions and they are unlikely to be included in the final version of the Budget which is expected to pass sometime in late June. 

BEFORE THE  PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN